` I don’t know how I happened to develop a fascination for glasses. I suspect that it was probably in me long before I sat beside Marie in grade 5 the year I turned ten. But I know for sure that the glasses that Marie wore intrigued me, and after she let me try them on one day, I found many other excuses to borrow her glasses. I told Marie I needed her glasses in order for me to see the teacher’s writing better. I could see when I put Marie’s glasses on. It wasn’t that I couldn’t see when I didn’t have Marie’s glasses on, it was just that when I put her glasses on, I was amazed that I could see extremely well, and I wondered exactly why Marie had to wear glasses. School was almost over for the year. Marie had told me that her family was moving as soon as the school year ended, as her father had been transferred to another city. I was very sad about this. No, Marie wasn’t one of my closest friends. I was sad because I would no longer have the chance to wear Marie’s glasses anymore. And then the most wonderful thing happened. The day before the end of the school year Marie came to school wearing new glasses. She let me try her new glasses on, and I wasn’t able to see out of them as well as I could with her old ones. I told her that I could see much better with her old glasses, and Marie took out a case containing her old glasses and handed them to me. “Here are my old glasses Lynn. I can’t use them anymore, and you seem to need them so you might as well keep them and wear them whenever you want to.” Marie said. I thanked Marie and told her I would never forget her. And, since I still have her glasses, I never have forgotten her. All that summer I wore Marie’s glasses whenever I had a chance. I wore them in my room reading, and I wore them when I was outside playing, well away from my mother’s eyes. I was lucky because I didn’t have any brother’s or sisters to tattle on me. After the summer ended, and I went back to school, I wore Marie’s glasses every day in the classroom. I still wondered why Marie had to wear these glasses. If I took them off, I still saw about the same as I did if I had them on. That year there was a new girl in my class. Her name was Shelly, and she also wore glasses. I made sure I introduced myself to Shelly, and I soon became her best friend. Shelly knew that she was nearsighted, and she told me that I was too, because my lenses, while weaker than hers now were, were just about the same as the lenses in her first pair of glasses. And to prove it, Shelly brought her first pair of glasses to school, along with her second pair. She was right. I could put on her first pair of glasses, and they were exactly like Marie’s were. But when I put on Shelly’s second pair of glasses, I could also see very well wearing them. It didn’t take long before I had convinced Shelly to let me wear her second pair of glasses. Shelly seemed to know a lot about glasses. She had her prescription slips from each of her 3 pairs, and I discovered that Shelly started out with –0.75D for each eye two years ago. Then about 9 months later Shelly had to get her second pair, the pair that I was now wearing as much as I possibly could. This pair had a prescription of –1.75D for each eye. And the pair that Shelly was presently wearing had a prescription of –2.50D for each eye. Shelly had been wearing them since just before the beginning of the school year, but Shelly told me that she knew that she had needed new glasses before school let out in the spring. One day when I was wearing Shelly’s second pair of glasses at school I got caught. My mom came to school to drop off a book I had forgotten, and before I could hide my glasses, she saw me. What a fuss she made. I told her that I could see better when I wore Shelly’s glasses, but she insisted on taking me to the eye doctor. When I left the eye doctors office, I had a prescription for a pair of glasses of my own. My new prescription was –0.75D for each eye. I was really disappointed that my glasses were going to be so weak. We went to the optical store, and I picked a new frame, and my glasses were going to be ready the next morning. I didn’t want to wear the same wimpy lenses that I had worn in the glasses that Marie gave me. I wanted to wear the same lenses that were in Shelly’s second pair of glasses. No, really what I wanted was to wear the same lenses as Shelly was wearing in the glasses she wore now. I knew that if my mom saw me in my new glasses with the wimpy lenses, I would never be able to get stronger lenses put in, so I went over to Shelly’s after we got back from the mall. I borrowed Shelly’s most recent prescription slip, and the next morning I skipped school with my mother’s permission, picked up my own glasses, and without her knowledge took them to another optical store at another mall, where I paid for new lenses to be put in the frames from my own money. This store promised to have the new lenses put in my glasses by the time school was out for the day. That afternoon I picked up my new glasses with the exact same prescription as Shelly’s glasses had – not surprising because the store thought my name was Shelly. I hadn’t had much trouble getting accustomed to wearing the –1.75D lenses, but I knew that I was going to have a little harder time getting used to these glasses. I managed to do just fine though, and when I saw my mom look at my glasses a couple of times, I knew that she was thinking that these lenses looked pretty strong for such a weak prescription. I wore those glasses all the rest of the school year, and by the time summer came along I was very comfortable wearing them. During the summer holidays I hoped that Shelly would have her eyes tested, and she would have to get stronger glasses, but she came back to school wearing the same old glasses and told me that her doctor said that her glasses were fine for another year. As anxious as I was to get stronger glasses, I knew I was not going to be able to do it that year. Although, I do remember Shelly and I talking about using a photocopier and white out to alter one of her prescription forms so I could get new glasses. For some reason I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was afraid I would be caught. I just knew that the next year Shelly would have stronger glasses. She had been having a lot of difficulty seeing the chalkboard near the end of the last school year, and I could hardly wait until I saw how strong her new glasses were going to be. I looked for Shelly the first day back at school, and she was not around. She didn’t appear the second or third day either, and I finally realized that Shelly was not going to be at my school this year. With that I did the only thing I could do. I told my mother I had broken my glasses, and since she had to work, she let me go to the eye doctors by myself after school. I was thrilled after my doctor’s appointment. My new glasses were going to have to be –2.50D, exactly the same prescription that I had been wearing for the past almost two years. But of course I wasn’t satisfied. I used a copier to make a copy of my prescription. Then I used white out on the copy to blank out everything the doctor had written. After I made a few clean copies I filled in my own prescription. Sure, I was still afraid of getting caught, but now it was an emergency. I was almost thirteen years old, and I desperately wanted stronger glasses. I didn’t know how strong a prescription my eyes could adapt to, so I decided I would write –4.50D for each eye. I didn’t get caught, and when I put my new glasses on it was a struggle for my eyes to adapt to the extra power of these lenses. But I persevered, and soon I was wearing these glasses as if they had been prescribed for me. For the next couple of years these glasses very seldom left my face. Once in a while another girl at school would ask if she could try my glasses on, so I would let her. I always liked the reaction when the girl would tell me that my glasses were really strong. They were not nearly as strong as I wanted them to be, and I would often lie in bed at night wishing and hoping that my glasses could someday be as strong and thick as the glasses that our teacher Miss Sweeney had to wear. Thirteen turned into fourteen, and fourteen turned into fifteen. Right after I had my fifteenth birthday, I realized I was going to have to do something about getting another increase, or I would never get to have glasses as thick as I wanted. I then took another one of my old blank prescription forms that I had created, filled in the blanks to read –5.75D and went off to get a new pair of glasses. I spent the money I had saved from my Christmas money and my birthday money on these new glasses, and when the optician asked me if I wanted polycarbonate lenses so they would be thinner, I almost laughed at her. I wanted my lenses to be thick. The optician at the one-hour store showed me my lens blanks before they fitted them into my new frames, and the blanks looked really thick. I was excited, but my excitement turned to disappointment when I saw the lenses in the frame. They were not much thicker than my old –4.50D lenses were. I wore these –5.75D glasses the whole year I was 15. Then, when I turned 16 my mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday, so I told her that I wanted, and needed new glasses. This time I actually went for an eye examination. I had felt very comfortable putting on my old –4.50D glasses up until about 3 months previously, when suddenly they started to seem too weak whenever I tried to read signs and other things in the distance. So, I wore them for my exam. When I left my new doctor’s office, I had a new prescription for –5.00D glasses. I didn’t know what to do. If I went up to –7.00D for the next year this meant that the following year I would probably only go to –8.00D. Probably the best I could ever hope for would eventually be a prescription for –10D. And then I decided I would go for it. My real prescription was –5.00D. If I added –3.00D I could be –8.00D for the next year, and then when I was 17 I could maybe go even higher. That is what my new glasses were. Now they were considerably thicker, and when my mom and dad saw them, they wondered if I wanted to get contact lenses. I just wanted to wear glasses, so I told them I would think about getting contact lenses the next time I had my eyes tested, and this satisfied them. It took longer to become accustomed to the –8.00D glasses than I had expected. But I enjoyed every minute that I wore them. I was in the 11th grade that year, and I was very good in languages. I was becoming fluent in German, Spanish, Dutch and French, and I was considering a career as a translator. Studying all these languages, along with all the books I was reading was certainly placing a lot of stress on my eyes to accommodate, and they were. I very seldom held a book any further away from my glasses than about 6”, and after reading at this distance for a couple of hours when I looked up it would take a minute or two for my eyesight to clear. That summer I was asked by Miss Sweeny if I would be willing to help her reorganize the school library. There were 6 younger students that were also helping, and Miss Sweeney wanted an older student like myself to help supervise the younger children. Miss Sweeney was my favorite teacher, not because she was such a great teacher, but because she wore glasses that appeared to be really thick and strong, and I just could not refuse her request. That was the best thing that could have happened to me. Three of the girls wore glasses. Sarah, who was fourteen, wore fairly strong glasses. She told me that her glasses were –6.25 and –6.00 and that she thought she needed even stronger glasses. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to actually need stronger glasses. So far, I had spent my glasses wearing life trying to get used to stronger glasses than I needed. Marlin was one of the other girls, and she and Sasha wore glasses that looked to be almost identical. I found out that their prescriptions were both less than –2.00D, but it was still interesting to work with them. And, as I was working with the girls, I found out that Carrie, one of the girls who didn’t wear glasses wore contact lenses. She had just had an increase from –1.50D up to –2.25D, and she was complaining that she had all these –1.50D contact lenses left over. I told her that I had a friend who needed –1.50D contacts, and I would be happy to give them to my friend, so Carrie gave me a 45-day supply of daily disposable –1.50D contact lenses. I didn’t know what I was going to do with them yet, but now I had them just in case. Paula was the one girl who didn’t need or wear glasses, and I found nothing special about Paula. But Katrina, the last girl had just gotten glasses with a very weak prescription of only about -0.75D and was a really sweet and friendly, but rather shy young lady. In one way it was a little discerning, because Katrina seemed to latch on to me, but she was a willing worker, and would do anything I asked her to. Before too long I was counting on Katrina to assist me all of the time. By the end of the summer Katrina had become the younger sister I never had, and I helped her celebrate her twelfth birthday. Trina had no father at home, and her mom had payments on a house that was far too expensive for her means. I gathered in conversation that when Trina’s dad lived with them their life had been easier and they had been happier, but after he moved out her mom had to work two jobs to try to keep up the payments on the house. Now the housing market was in a decline, so they couldn’t sell the house and recoup their investment, so Trina’s mom had to try to hang on until the market improved. Because of this it left her with very little time to spend with Trina. I don’t know when I first thought to have Trina wear the old pair of -1.75D glasses that Shelly gave me. I remember I had her at my house one afternoon when my parents were away. I pulled out Shelly’s old glasses, and asked Trina to try them on for me. She did, and I told her she looked lovely wearing them. She really did look good wearing them, and she told me that she thought she could see a bit better wearing them. From then on when Trina and I were together Trina would sometimes ask me if she could wear Shelly’s old glasses even before I asked her to put them on for me. I knew from the time I had worn Shelly’s old weak glasses that wearing them would eventually help make Trina a little more nearsighted. I seemed to have an urge to make Trina very nearsighted, but I couldn’t come up with a workable idea. All my thoughts about this consumed me for hours in the evenings as I lay in my bed trying to drift off to sleep. Finally, a solution came to me. The first opportunity I had I took Trina with me to an optical store. Under the guise of just looking at frames we selected a frame that looked adorably cute on Trina. I made note of the frame, and after Trisha returned home that day I went back to the store with a prescription slip that read –3.00D for each eye. I bought the frame, and had the lenses put in them. Then I went to another store owned by the same chain. I found the identical frame, and I had another prescription slip for –3.75D for which I also purchased lenses. Now I had 2 identical frames, but one had a –3.00D prescription, and one had a –3.75D prescription. The -3.00 were not that much stronger than Shelly’s glasses so all I had to do was convince Trina to wear the first pair of glasses for me, and then I would wait for a while and I would substitute the stronger pair for the weaker pair. A couple of weeks later I showed Trina the weaker pair of glasses. She recognized the frame, and she gleefully put the glasses on. Naturally she realized that there were stronger lenses in these glasses than there were in Shelly’s old ones, but when I asked her if she could see, she told me that she could see just fine. I think Trina thought I would just ask her to wear these glasses when she was together with me, but after a couple of weeks I asked her if she would do me a great favor. “I would really love to see you wear these glasses all the time for me.” I said. “But they are a lot stronger than the other pair you let me wear. Won’t it hurt my eyes if I wear glasses that are stronger than I need them to be?” Trina asked. “No, I don’t think so. If your eyes are strong enough you could wear these glasses forever and not hurt your eyes.” I lied to her. “Do you want me to wear them at home? What will I tell my mother?” Trina asked. “We will tell your mom that we found these glasses at a secondhand store, and you were able to see very well when you put them on. So, we took these glasses to an eye doctor and he said that they were the exact strength that your eyes needed.” I replied. Trina was not completely convinced, but I went home with her that evening. Her mother was certainly surprised to see Trina wearing different glasses, but she accepted the story. I think she was thankful that she didn’t have to buy Trina new glasses from her own funds. Now Trina had to wear those new glasses around home, because her mom thought she needed them. I was worried that Trina would not wear them at school, but when I looked in on her classroom the first day back at school Trina was wearing her new glasses. All during the next year I was a tutor to Trina. Her grades had been very mediocre, but with my help she was now near the top of her class. Her mom was very happy about this, and when she tried to thank me, I simply said that it wasn’t due to me, but rather to the fact that Trina had new glasses now and could see properly again. Early in January Trina stayed over at my house. That night I took the advice of a friend I had been chatting on the internet with. He had suggested that I change the lenses in Trisha’s glasses, rather than try to switch the glasses, because by now the old frames had been worn in to fit Trina’s face perfectly. The switch of the lenses was simple, and the next day it seemed that Trina didn’t even realize that her glasses had increased in strength by –0.75D. That morning we had gotten up early, and had gone on a trip to the zoo, so Trina was really too busy to realize that anything was different. I was getting to the point where I wanted stronger lenses myself. I felt that the –3.00D overcorrection that I had been wearing was gradually getting easier to tolerate. I could no longer see very well when I tried my old –5.75D glasses. It was time for my next step. I had the –1.50D contact lenses I had gotten from Carrie, so after watching some you tube video’s I taught myself how to insert and remove a lens in each eye. It was surprisingly easy. I now had at least my –3.00D overcorrection back. I had read that the daily disposables were exactly the same lenses as the 30 day lenses were, so I was determined to wear my lenses for 30 days. I made it through the first 30 days, and I then switched to a new pair. After four months of doing this I could see perfectly when I wore my –8.00D glasses by themselves, and I knew it was now time to increase again. The Internet was wonderful. I found a site where I could order glasses in whatever power I wanted, without requiring a prescription. I had a minor problem trying to order without a credit card, but after a few e-mails I managed to send them off a money order, and a few weeks later my new –10.50D glasses were mailed. I had the new glasses sent to Trina’s home; because I didn’t want to have my parents see my new glasses without me checking them out first. If they were too thick, I wanted to be able to prepare my parents that my eyes had gotten much worse during the past year. When they arrived, they were thicker looking, but nothing I couldn’t explain away by saying I had a small increase in my prescription. My parents didn’t say much when they saw my new glasses, but my mom did remind me that I had told them I would get contacts this time. I think my mom was just disappointed that her only daughter was not perfect and had to wear strong and fairly thick looking glasses. That next year went by rapidly. I managed to bring Trina up to –4.50D by switching her lenses again, and by now I was again wearing the –1.50D contact lenses under my –10.50D glasses. I was graduating from high school, and I had not made any plans to go on to university. I had decided to take a gap year and find a job so that I could have a little more time to decide what I wanted to be. I was fortunate. I found a job at the public school I had attended as a teacher’s assistant. The pay was minimal, but I could live at home, and ride my bike to work. And I ordered myself a pair of –12.50D rimless glasses, which arrived in time for me to wear to my first day at work. I also ordered Trina a pair of –5.50D rimless glasses, exactly like mine, and once she saw them, she couldn’t resist wearing them. By now Trina realized that her eyesight without glasses was not good anymore, and I waited for her to accuse me of ruining her eyes, but she never said a word. She just said that she could no longer go around comfortably without glasses, and she adapted to the new –5.50D ones rapidly. Now when we went anywhere together people often mistook us for sisters. Our coloring was similar, and we had the same shape of face. Trina had adopted my hairstyle, and although I had filled out more, Trina at 13 was rapidly pushing out further in front than me. Trina loved it when we were mistaken as sisters, as to each other we were the sisters we had never had. The year I was working as a teacher assistant was going by rapidly. I was now 18, and I decided that I was going to have to work fast if I wanted my prescription to go up much further. With some of the money that I had earned I ordered a pair of –14.00D rimless glasses as my next pair, and as soon as they arrived in the mail I switched to wearing them. I also ordered two more identical pairs, one with –15.50D lenses, and one pair with –17.00D lenses. I had also heard about something called GOC, which stood for glasses over contacts. An Internet friend suggested that with my real myopia, and a pair of +9.00D contact lenses I could wear a pair of –22.50D glasses. I ordered both the contact lenses, and the glasses. I also bought a pair of +5D contact lenses, which allowed me to easily wear my –17.00D glasses when I felt like it. Trina could also wear my –17.00D glasses with the +9.00D contacts, and with me wearing my -22.50D blended myodiscs we both had fun wearing stronger glasses by doing GOC. Halfway through my work year there was a conference for all the first-year teacher assistants. I was determined that I would go to this conference wearing my –22.50D myodiscs, and I would wear them for the whole week. I left my parent’s house with my +9.00D contact lenses in, but I was wearing my –17.00D glasses instead of my –14.00D regular ones. As soon as I was far enough away from the house, I switched to the myodiscs. The conference was in a city that was a 4-hour train ride from my city, and of course when I got onto the train, I looked around for someone to sit next to that also wore glasses. I found it very exciting any time I could manage to discuss my obviously poor eyesight with another person, especially another strong glasses wearer. As I walked through the passenger cars, I spotted an older lady sitting by herself. She wore glasses, and from the appearance of her glasses they looked quite strong. She was reading, her book held close to her eyes. I asked if the seat opposite to her was occupied, and she told me it wasn’t, so I sat down. I made a production of removing my glasses and cleaning the lenses. I couldn’t see her watching me, but I felt that she was, and when I finally decided that my lenses were clean enough, I put my glasses back on. She had been looking. “My dear, I thought I had bad eyesight, but your glasses appear to be stronger than mine.” She said. “It is quite possible. I have a lot of diopters in my lenses. I think mine are –22.50. Do you know what yours are?” I asked. “Oh, mine are weaker. I am only around –20.00D with a little bit of astigmatism. That is too bad. You are so young to have such bad eyes.” She said. “Oh, I don’t mind. Once you reach the point where you can’t see without glasses it matters little how strong the diopters are.” I responded. “That’s funny. That is exactly what my niece said the other day.” She replied. Now I was interested. Was it possible she had a niece with bad eyes? I talked with this lady all the way to our destination. It turned out that her niece didn’t have a strong prescription, but what intrigued me was that her niece had started off wearing somebody else’s glasses, and now needed glasses of her own. Before the train had arrived at our destination, I had the e-mail address for her niece, and I was determined to contact her. There were teacher assistants from all over the east coast at this conference. When I arrived, everyone was milling around a large room, and I was met by a man who told me that the rooms were two people to a room, and if I had come by myself I should either select a partner, or else I could put my name on a list to be paired up later. I quickly looked around the room, hoping I could spot someone wearing glasses. There was a young lady with dark hair, wearing black-framed glasses with the stylish thick black temples. I thought I could discern a bit of cur in, and I walked over to her to get a closer look. Yes, she did have a reasonable amount of cut in. “Hi, I’m Lynn. Are you by yourself, or do you have someone to room with?” I asked. “I’m Tara, and I just put my name on the list to be matched up with someone. I just did it a minute ago, so I am sure I could take it off though. Are you suggesting we share a room?” Tara said. “Well, it would be fine with me. I don’t know anyone here. Do you?” I asked. “Not a soul. I am sure you are as good a person to share a room with as anyone they would put me with. You don’t snore, or have any other bad habits that you can think of?” Tara laughed as she asked this. “I am an only child. Sometimes a friend shares my room, but no one has ever told me that they can’t sleep when they are in my room.” I replied. Together Tara and I went over to the lady with a clipboard. We told her that we knew each other, and we would like to share a room, so she assigned us a room on the 10th floor. Tara and I got our suitcases and went up to our room. The next couple of days went by quickly. Tara and I discussed our respective eyesight, and I learned that her glasses were –10.50D for her left eye, and –10.00D for her right eye. I almost blurted out that that was very close to my real prescription, as I had just had an eye exam a few days previously. I wanted to obtain my learner’s permit, and they required everyone with more than a –5D prescription to obtain a certificate from an eye doctor saying that your corrected vision was satisfactory. I wore my –10.50D glasses, and had my eyes checked with those special eye drops that paralyze your eye muscles. I was told that my prescription was only –10.25D. While my glasses were –10.50D, this wasn’t enough of a difference to cause a problem, so I got my learner’s permit. The third day Tara wore her contact lenses to the courses. I had been stuck with having to wear my contact lenses all day, and well into the evening. They were quite comfortable, but I needed a rest. I went back to our room, took out my contacts, tried Tara’s glasses on for a few minutes, put my –14.00D glasses on, and lay back on the bed. I fell asleep, awakening when Tara opened the door to the room and came in. I had momentarily forgotten that I was wearing my normal glasses, and I noticed Tara staring at me. “Those are nice glasses.” Tara said. “Why haven’t you been wearing them?” I told Tara my secret. I probably shouldn’t have, but there was only another 2 days of the conference, and I didn’t think I would ever see her again. She was incredulous. She could not believe it that I was wearing my strong myodiscs over plus contact lenses. She also found it hard to believe that my eyes were very close in prescription to hers. What convinced her was when I talked her into putting in my plus contacts and wearing my myodiscs over them. She was surprised she could see so well. But she finally believed me and promised to never tell on me. I managed to convince Tara to leave the myodiscs on for the rest of the evening, and we managed to slip out of the hotel and go to a movie with her wearing them. I put my myodiscs on again for the following day, and we attended our courses. And, since we enjoyed each other’s company we went to a bar to see if we could find any guys to dance with us that night. Tara had to travel further than I did, but in the same direction, so when we left Friday we traveled on the same train. We decided that it would be fun to see each other again, so we agreed to stay in contact by e-mail, and meet somewhere in a few weeks. My parents were meeting me at the train station, so I changed glasses, and said goodbye to Tara. Trina had come with my dad instead of my mom, and I was glad to see Trina there. We were really just as close as sisters. The e-mail address of the young girl whose aunt I had sat with on the train going to the conference was burning a hole in my pocket. I thought long and hard before I composed the following note to her. “You don’t know me, but I met your aunt on the train last week. She told me that you had worn someone else’s glasses, and this had made your eyesight bad enough for you to have to wear glasses. I have done this to myself, and if you feel like writing me, please do.” A few days later I received a short reply. “Auntie told me about meeting you. She didn’t tell me that you had also made your eyes bad, but she did tell me you wore stronger glasses than she did. I am very interested in hearing how you did this.” So, this began a correspondence that was quite interesting. Amy had, when she was 12, fallen in with a group of kids who considered themselves Goth’s. They wore funny black clothing, dyed their hair black, wore black-framed glasses, smoked, and in general were jerks. Amy did not need glasses, but one of the older boys had just gotten new glasses with a stronger prescription. She was ordered to wear his old –3.50D glasses, which she did. One day when she was hanging around with the crowd, her aunt saw her wearing glasses, and tried to convince her to stop hanging around with these losers, quit wearing someone else’s glasses, and go back to being a good student. Amy was afraid her aunt would tell on her, but she didn’t want to alienate Amy, so she had kept her mouth shut. But her parents did find out that Amy was getting a failing grade in school, so they investigated, and found out that their daughter was hanging around with a nasty crowd. They then enrolled her in a private girl’s school. Amy was required to wear a school uniform, so she had to give up all of her Gothic clothing. As a silent protest she continued to wear the black-framed glasses. She attended the school for 2 years, wearing the –3.50D glasses every day. Her marks improved, and after 2 years Amy’s parents wanted her to come back home, so she left the private girl’s school, and came home. Now she couldn’t wear the –3.50D glasses anymore. And now she couldn’t see very well. She told her parents, but they were too busy to take her for a vision exam. They even went on a 2-week vacation, during which Amy could not see a thing. But, during this vacation her parents realized that Amy really was having trouble seeing and after they returned home Amy got glasses, with a -2.50D prescription, which she was wearing constantly. Amy expressed interest in wearing stronger glasses, but she didn’t know how to go about it. I suggested that she order new glasses with a -5.00D prescription on the Internet. But she was afraid to. Then I suggested that she should buy and wear -5.00D contact lenses. But Amy wanted to wear glasses. Finally, I suggested that Amy could tell her parents that she wanted contact lenses. Then when she got her contact lenses, she could wear her own glasses over them, and she would then be about –2.50D over corrected. Amy liked this idea and convinced her parents to buy her contacts. All this correspondence took a few weeks. Tara and I had decided that she would come to my house for a visit, and I had prepared Trina. Tara arrived, and when Trina met Tara she liked her very much. I had expected that Trina would return to her own home that night, but Trina wanted to stay, so Tara, Trina and I shared my room. Trina was returning home Sunday afternoon. I had shown her my –12.50D glasses on Saturday, and she had tried them on. She quite liked her appearance wearing them, and was content to wear them all the rest of the day. She was still wearing them, as she got ready to go to the train station on Sunday. I told her that if she wanted to, she could borrow those glasses, as long as she promised to wear them. That night I received a nice e-mail from Tara thanking me for such a good weekend. She told me she was still wearing my –12.50D glasses. I thought to myself that it would be wonderful if she were to wear them as her own glasses. Surely wearing my stronger glasses would increase her myopia. Before I could blink an eye, it seemed that it was the end of the school year. My job as a teacher’s assistant was over, and the following year I had decided I would be studying at university to eventually become a translator. That way I could get a job that possibly involved a bit of traveling, as I really had a desire to see the world. I had been accepted at both of the two universities in my city and I chose the one that was going to be the easiest to get to by bus from my parent’s home. During the summer I finished my driving lessons and got my partial driver license. I would have to get my permanent one within 2 years, but since I was already over 18 I didn’t have passenger restrictions, or daylight hour restrictions like the 16 year olds did. I did use my parent’s car a few times for Trina and me to go to places we had not been before around the city. My correspondence with Amy had been fairly regular, and I had even gotten Trina and Amy to write each other. Amy had asked if she could come to visit us over the summer, and we had set a date for the holiday over the long weekend that was always around the first of August. Tara had also e mailed me telling me that she had gotten new glasses that looked very similar to my old ones that she had worn ever since she returned home. I wrote her back, and suggested that she come again for another visit, as Amy was also coming. During the week before Amy and Tara were coming, I was thrilled that I was finally going to meet Amy in person, and I was extremely pleased that Tara was coming back. But Trina was a little pensive, and I asked her what was wrong. I was shocked when Trina asked me if she could get stronger glasses soon. I couldn’t believe my ears. Before, I had always been the one to force stronger glasses on Trina. Before she could change her mind, I wrote out another prescription blank, and went to the mall where we got Trina’s new –7.00D lenses put in her old frames. After all, we didn’t want her mom to notice the stronger lenses if possible. Trisha was again her happy self, and she seemed to adapt to the extra –1.50D we had just given her, but of course, at 15 years of age a person’s eyes are flexible enough to do this. However, I suspected that her real prescription was probably closer to –3.75D or –4.00D now. Tara’s train was arriving first, so Trina and I went to the station to greet Tara, and the 3 of us would then grab a bite to eat before we met Amy. Amy was going to stay at Trina’s home, and Tara would stay with me. When Tara got off the train, I took a close look at her glasses and gasped, “They look lovely.” And they did. But what surprised me was that they looked even thicker than my old –14.00D glasses. I had changed to my –15.50D glasses just a few days earlier, right after Trisha had gotten her new lenses, and Tara’s new glasses looked every bit as strong as my –15.50D glasses. “You said –3.00 was about the strongest over correction that someone our age could stand, didn’t you?” Tara asked. “You didn’t?” I queried. “Let’s get something to eat, and I will tell you the story.” Tara replied. So, we went off to the restaurant, and sat down. I was anxious for Tara to tell me about her new glasses, but she wanted to order first. Finally, we had all ordered, and Tara began to talk. “When I left here on the train 3 months ago, I was wearing your old –12.50D glasses. I liked them. They felt so comfortable, and even though the prescription was stronger than my own glasses I felt I could see much better with your glasses. When I got home, I told my parents I had broken my glasses, and you had loaned me an old pair of yours that seemed to be exactly the prescription that my eyes needed. My mom was all worried that wearing someone else’s glasses would damage my eyes, but my dad seemed to think it would be all right if I wore them for a while before I got my eyes examined. I then wore your old glasses for almost 2 months before I went for an eye examination from my regular doctor. He noticed that the prescription in the glasses I wore into his office was much stronger than the prescription he had last prescribed me, so I told him the story of how I had broken my old glasses, borrowed yours, and found I could see perfectly with them. Of course, he chastised me for not coming to see him immediately, but when he examined my eyes he found that your old glasses matched my right eye perfectly, and were –0.25D weaker than my left eye required. I had a difference of –0.50D between eyes in my own old glasses. When I left there I had a prescription for –12.50D for my right eye and –12.75D for my left eye.” Tara told us. “Is that the prescription you are now wearing?” Trina asked. I stayed silent, waiting for Tara to continue. “No, it isn’t. I thought of getting new glasses with that prescription. It was actually a little scary knowing that my prescription had really gone up –2.00D in only a couple of months. But I kept remembering what you had told me. When your eyes are as bad as mine are a few more diopters really doesn’t matter. I then went to an online site that I had discovered, and I ordered these glasses. My prescription in them is –15.50D for my right eye and –15.75D for my left eye.” Tara replied. “So, you really are wearing –3.00D over your own prescription then. Your glasses are almost the same as mine are now.” I replied. “Yes, they are. And I since am finding it so easy to wear them I just know my eyes are getting worse, and I will really need this prescription soon. And, I have more news. I am going to be living here next year. I am going to university here and am studying to be a teacher.” Tara said. I asked Tara which university, and she was going to be going to the same one as I had registered at. Now I was jealous. I was still having a bit of a hard time wearing my –15.50D glasses, and Tara was telling me that it was easy for her. But I bit my tongue. It was almost time to meet Amy. While we were walking back to the train platform, I had a sudden thought. Soon there were going to be four of us who were wearing prescriptions that were stronger than we really needed. We almost had enough members to start a club. When Amy got off the train, I took one look at her, and I knew instantly that the glasses Amy wore were not –2.50D. They looked to be much closer to –4.00D. Amy hadn’t said a word to me about getting stronger glasses. Had she told Trina? Was this why Trina all of a sudden wanted stronger glasses? Was she still wearing the –2.50D contact lenses under her glasses? Well, the answer to all my questions was yes. Amy had told Trina, and they had kept this secret from me. She had gotten a new prescription of –4.00D a couple of weeks ago, and was wearing her -2.50D contacts under her new glasses. I think Trina had been jealous, and had decided that since she and Amy were the same age, she should have stronger glasses. We had a fabulous weekend together. Amy got along with everyone. I even gave her my old –8.00D glasses to wear for the weekend so that she didn’t have to fuss with her contact lenses. I wasn’t surprised when I found that Amy and Trina were trading glasses back and forth. I knew that Trina didn’t want Amy to get too used to a -8.00D prescription before Trina herself did. I would have suggested that Amy could take those old -8.00D glasses back home with her, but I didn’t because I knew that Trina would be upset. The next long weekend that was coming up was the first weekend in September. Amy had invited Trina and I to come and stay with her for that weekend, but since Tara was coming into town that weekend to move into her dorm I decided that it would be best if Trina went by herself. Immediately after Tara and Amy had left after the August visit I went online and ordered 2 identical pairs of glasses with –8.00D lenses. Amy and Trina both had the same pupillary distance of 63 mm, so it was easy to do this. After they had arrived, I showed Trina the 2 pairs of glasses, and I told her that one pair was for her, and the other pair was for Amy. I told Trina that she could choose when, if ever she wanted to start wearing her new glasses. I wasn’t surprised when she put them on immediately and wore them. And I suspected that once Amy saw Trina wearing these –8.00D glasses she would manage to find a way to wear –8.00D of correction herself. Since Tara was going to become a teacher, I decided that I would change my courses so that I could also qualify for a teacher, as well as a language consultant. That way there would be a lot more options open to me, even though I would have a bit heavier course load. During the following four years, while Tara and I were in university and doing our practice teaching we managed to increase the power of our glasses. My increases were much slower than Tara’s were. I think that this was because Tara was naturally nearsighted in the first place, and my myopia had all been induced. But I have to give Tara credit. She never once increased her glasses faster, or beyond my increases, and by this time we were both wearing –22.50D glasses. We had both decided that this was it. We wore identical myodisc lensed glasses, and neither of us felt that we needed to increase our myopia any further. Now Amy and Trina were a different story. With them it seemed like they were having a race to see whose eyes could wear the strongest glasses. Four years ago they had both been wearing –8.00D glasses, and since then they had both increased the power they were wearing up to –18.50D. Since they still had another 4 years of university ahead of them both Tara and I wondered how far they would take this race. I had done a week of practice teaching with one of my old teachers. Miss Sweeny was no longer Miss Sweeny. She had married John Long, a man a few years older than she was about four years ago. She was surprised to see me in her classroom, and she was even more surprised to see me wearing my myodiscs. I think she stared at me a lot during that week, but I figured that this was just payback for all the times I had stared at her many years ago. The week was almost over, and we were in the classroom preparing the following day’s lesson after the children had left. “Your glasses look very nice on you Lynn. You must have become quite nearsighted over the years though, as those myodiscs are the same type of lenses my husband wears.” Mrs. Long said. “Yes, I have. My glasses are about –22.50D.” I replied. “I knew you would end up with a strong prescription, but I didn’t realize you would have lenses stronger than my –20.00D ones. I knew when I first saw you wearing your friend’s glasses the year, I was teacher assistant in your class that you were one of us.” Mrs. Long said. “I don’t remember you being a T.A.” I said as my mind mulled over her statement that I was one of us. “That is probably because I was wearing contact lenses that year. I had heard that wearing contact lenses would make your prescription become stronger quicker and that is what I wanted, so I wore contacts for a couple of years. But I don’t think it worked, because my prescription didn’t go up as much as I had hoped.” Mrs. Long replied. “So that would mean that you were a T.A. when I was 10, and in grade 5 when I was borrowing Marie’s glasses. But you were my teacher in grade 7 and 8. How did you get your degree and complete your teacher training so fast?” I asked. “Oh, I already had 3 years of university in by then. I was just seeing if I really wanted to be a teacher, and I decided I did so I went back for my last year and became a teacher. I even did a week of practice teaching when you were in grade 6. I was there when your mom caught you wearing another girl’s glasses. And I saw the glasses you came to school with two days later. They were stronger than the ones your mom caught you wearing.” Mrs. Long said. “So, you have been watching me?” I questioned. “Oh yes, every chance I could get. I watched you take your friend Trina under your wing, and I watched as Trina started to wear stronger glasses. I marveled at how you convinced her she should always wear her glasses, and I watched, as her lenses got stronger and stronger. I always wanted to approach you someday and tell you that I understood. I am sure that there were many times when you must have thought you were crazy. And, by the way, since we are both teachers’, you should call me by my first name. My name is Julie.” Julie Long said to me. “I stared at your glasses every chance I got when I was in your class Julie. I envied you having to wear nice thick glasses. It was my goal to someday wear glasses as strong as you wore.” I told her. “I knew you were staring at my glasses. But you should know I envied you as well. You were growing up in a time where it was going to be easier for you to accomplish your goal. And I was right. You have ended up with stronger glasses than I did. I could never order contact lenses online. I could never order stronger glasses without a prescription over the Internet. I always had to make my own prescriptions, and hope that I wouldn’t get caught. But, the Internet was good for one thing. I managed to meet my husband online. And that reminds me. I don’t know if you are like me in wanting to go out only with boys who wear strong glasses, but if you are, my husband’s sister has 2 twin boys who are about your age and both of them wear myodiscs. Would you like to meet them someday?” Julie asked. “That would be like a dream coming true for me. And I also have a girlfriend who would like to meet a very nearsighted boy.” I replied. “If you and your girlfriend were available to come to our house for dinner this Saturday, I will invite the twins over, and maybe the four of you can go somewhere after.” Julie said. I told Tara of our invitation. I wasn’t sure if Tara wanted to meet a very nearsighted man or not, but when I told her that the twins were extremely nearsighted, she was excited about meeting them. The twins were very good looking, and they both wore myodiscs. It is hard to tell the prescription of a myodisc lens, but the twins appeared to have prescriptions very close to ours. John, Julie’s husband was a pleasant, attractive person, and he was very good about watching their son Ryan, who was nearly two years of age, while Julie prepared supper. Tara and I went to the kitchen to help Julie as well, but mostly we wanted to talk about the twins, Jason and Mike. Both boys looked absolutely dreamy, and we didn’t know if I should choose Mike, or if Tara should. Finally, we decided that we would let the boys choose which one of us they wanted to be with. After we finished eating the twins asked if we wanted to go to a dance at a hall nearby. Dancing was something I liked to do, and so did Tara, so we quickly accepted their offer. Jason seemed to be interested in me, and Mike chose Tara to be his partner. “Ok bro, who’s driving?” Jason asked. “You can. You see a little better at night with your glasses than I do with mine.” Mike replied. “I can take my car. I don’t have any problem with night vision.” I said. “Well, I guess we could do that. Jason and I have new glasses coming next week, but he has always had a little better night vision than I do. Don’t you have any problems driving at night?” Mike asked. “Not that I have noticed. But I think Tara and I may have a slightly lower prescription than you guys do. We are both –22.50D and have no astigmatism.” I replied. “Yes, your prescriptions are a bit lower. Mike and I are both around –25.00D with about –1.00D more of astigmatism. Mom and Uncle John inherited our high myopia from their parents, and it was passed down to us. I bet Ryan will end up being very nearsighted also, as I noticed that he seems to be bringing everything up very close to his face.” Jason said. I drove to the dance, and we had a great time. Tara really liked Mike, and I was very attracted to Jason. I could hardly wait to get home and tell Trina what a great guy I had found. Trina and I had often talked about meeting someone, and I had told her I wouldn’t even consider going out with a guy unless he wore very strong glasses. Jason was perfect. Tara and I finished off our last year in school. We were now qualified teachers. Tara’s parents wanted her to return to their city, but Tara wanted to hang around and see if she and Mike would eventually reach a point where they would get married. We had only known Mike and Jason for a few months now, and it was hardly enough time to really get to know each other. Julie told us there were two teachers’ that were leaving her school at the end of the term. One teacher, who had been there when I was a kid was retiring, the other one was moving. But Julie told us there was a small problem. Apparently, the assistant principal was the one doing the hiring interviews, and Julie felt that this man had an intense dislike for people who wore strong glasses. “Well, that is what it seems like to me. He is always making disparaging remarks to me, such as; “Oh, could you actually see that with your poor eyesight?” That is what he said to me when I had a couple of girls hit another girl at the far end of the room. I had to put him in his place and tell him that I had 20/20 vision with my glasses.” Julie said. “I don’t remember him. Where was he when we did our practice teaching?” I asked. “I think that was when his wife’s mother died, and he was away for a couple of weeks. That was fortunate, because now you and Tara can get contact lenses to wear to your interviews, and he will never know that you both wear strong glasses. It would be fun to put one over on him.’ Julie chuckled. “I could probably get contacts. What about you Lynn?” Tara asked. “I don’t know. I still feel that I am about the same level of over correction as I was when I started wearing these glasses full time. I have always known that I would have to wear stronger glasses than I wanted to wear for a few years, and my eyes would stop just a little less than that prescription. So, I suspect I would only check out around –20.00D right now. How about you Tara?” I asked. “I feel pretty comfortable wearing these glasses. I might need a little lower prescription, but not much.” Tara replied. “My glasses are –20.00D Lynn. Do you want to try my spare pair on to see what you can see with them?” Julie asked. “That is probably a good idea Julie. If my eyes have not gotten any worse than –20.00D I guess I will have to accept wearing a lower prescription someday.” I replied. “Here they are. I also brought a pair of –21.00D ones for you or Tara to try. I tried wearing them, but my eyes just don’t seem to want to go past –20.00D.” Julie said. I tried the –20.00D ones on, but things were not perfectly clear. So I tried the –21.00D ones, and everything looked perfect. Tara tried the –21.00D ones on also, and told us that things looked much better with her own –22.50D glasses. So, Tara and I decided to have eye exams, and get contact lenses before our job interview. When we had our eye exams Tara needed –18.00D contacts, and I required –17.00D. I bought a pair of –17.00D contacts, and Tara purchased 3 pairs of –18.00D ones. I wasn’t planning to wear my own contacts, but I needed to buy them, and have the doctor check the fit to make sure the size was exactly the same as Tara’s. And they were. We both needed 8.7 base curves, and a diameter of 14mm. That way, with 3 pairs of contacts between the two of us, we each had a spare lens. This would take us past the interview, and we could then go back to wearing our glasses once we had the job. And it worked like a charm. We were both hired. We found we liked wearing contacts once in a while though, so we alternated between glasses and contacts. And Mike and Jason also wore contacts frequently, so sometimes we had dates where everyone wore contact lenses. Tara went home for a few weeks before our jobs started, and while she was away, I went to visit Amy. Trina was working, so unfortunately, she couldn’t come with me. I still had the habit of walking through the train, looking for someone who wore strong glasses to carry on a conversation with, and I saw a young lady about my age with her book pressed tightly to her glasses. I asked her if the seat opposite her was taken, and without lowering her book she told me that it wasn’t. Once the train started to move she lowered her book, and I could see the tiny circles in her glasses that indicated myodiscs that were perhaps stronger than mine. Taking off my glasses to clean them wouldn’t impress this girl at all. She stared at me, peering through those tiny myodiscs. Finally, she said with a question in her voice, “Lynn?” She knew me. How could she know me? Then it came to me. This was Shelly, the girl who I waited to come back to my grade 8 classroom, but who never came. “Shelly, is that you!” I exclaimed. “Yes, it is. How have you been? I see you are wearing myodiscs also.” Shelly said. “Oh Shelly, what happened to you? I wanted to see you again so badly, but you didn’t come back to school, and I didn’t know how to contact you. Why didn’t you call me?” I asked. “My parents split up, they sold the house and we moved to the other side of town. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone that my parents were divorcing, so I didn’t call anyone. And then I got settled into my new school, and I just never bothered to call you.” Shelly replied. “Oh Shelly, you should have called. You were my very best friend.” I told her. “I suppose I should have. Maybe if I had my eyes wouldn’t have gotten so bad.” Shelly replied. I raised my eyebrows. “What does that have to do with it?” I asked. “Do you remember Miss Sweeny, the teacher with the thick glasses that you admired so much?” Shelly asked. “I remember her well. I will be teaching with her next year.” I replied. “Well, you raved about how special she was with her strong thick glasses. And when my parents split, and I was feeling sorry for myself I got thinking that I wouldn’t mind having unusual glasses as well. I used that trick with the white out that you taught me on one of my prescriptions, and I got a pair of glasses that were a lot stronger than I really needed.” Shelly said. “How much is a lot?” I asked. “A lot is a whole lot. Do you remember how poorly I was seeing when we went home for the summer holidays after 7th grade?” Shelly asked. “Yes, I knew you were going to have to get stronger glasses, and I was waiting to see you wearing them.” I replied. “Well, I did have to get much stronger glasses. By the time I went for an eye exam my prescription ended up as –5.00D. This was double my old prescription, so I made myself a new prescription, and made it double again.” Shelly replied. “You wore –10.00D glasses for grade 8?” I asked incredulously. “Yes, I did, and by the time the school year ended they were not strong enough. So I went to a different doctor, and I ended up with a prescription for –11.50D.” Shelly said. “So how much did you add then?” I asked, hardly able to believe Shelly’s story. “Not quite as much. I only added –4.00D, so my glasses were –15.50D. My glasses were now biconcave, and were really thick, because I chose a big frame. I couldn’t even fold the earpieces when I took them off. I had to lay them down on their top with the earpieces sitting straight out when I took them off at night. But they did the trick and got me through grade 9. I had the biggest tits, the tightest little ass, and the thickest glasses in the whole school. I had lots of guys chasing after me. I don’t know if they wanted to take my glasses off, or get my panties off. Of course I wouldn’t let them do either. But it sure was fun.” Shelly told me. “I take it you didn’t stop increasing your prescription then?” I asked. “Not only did I not stop, my own natural prescription kept getting higher. After grade 9 I went for another eye examination and my prescription was now –17.00D. So, this time I only added –3.00D, and all through grade 10 I wore –20.00D myodiscs. When I went into grade 11 I was getting scared that my eyes were so bad. I went for another test, and my prescription was right at –20.00D, so I wore my myodiscs through grade 11. Then at the end of grade 11, I had to have a –2.00D increase. I haven’t increased my own prescription since, but I have gone up at least –1.00D every year since then.” Shelly said. I did the math. We were both about 17 when we were in grade 11. If she was –22.00D when she was 18, and we were both 25 now, that meant that she had gone up –7.00D. “So you are now about –29.00D?” I asked. “Actually I am at –30.00D now. I said at least –1.00D a year, but there were a couple of years that I went up –1.25D, and one year I jumped –1.50D.” Shelly replied. I thought about what Shelly had told me. Is this where I had gone wrong? Had I not increased my prescription enough? The answer had to be that, like Tara, Shelley had been naturally myopic. I suspected that natural myopes would have an easier time to increase their prescription. “Give me your phone number. You should be a member of the club.” I told her. “What club?” Shelly asked. “The Induced Myopia Club.” I replied. “With you in it we will have 6 members, all very nearsighted, and all of us have increased their prescription significantly because we wanted to. Oh, and Julie Long, who used to be Miss Sweeny is one of the six of us.” “Well, I know a couple more that would be eligible to join. I have met a number of ladies who have done this, but these two are at least as myopic as you are.” Shelly replied. “Bring them along. The more the merrier.” I said. So now the Induced Myopia Club meets every month at a different member’s house. Over the past 5 years we have increased to 12 members, and so we meet at a different home every month. Our husbands have never been told why their very nearsighted wives and 11 other ladies with strong thick glasses get together once a month. But it is just as well. I know Jason and Mike wouldn’t understand if Tara and I told them that we had increased our own myopia. I also know that Julie couldn’t tell John what she had done to increase her prescription. Trisha and Amy also married guys who were very nearsighted, and I know they wouldn’t dare tell their husbands that they both ended up with –25.00D of myopia because they had a contest going between the two of them to see who could wear the strongest glasses. Poor kids, neither of them won, as they both ended up with the exact same prescription. Shelly has the strongest prescription of all of the members. She is still increasing about –1.00D a year, but she doesn’t seem to be to upset about it, and her husband, who has a much lower prescription is very considerate of her poor eyesight and is extremely good to her. Our other six members all have similar prescriptions, and their stories are much like ours. Three of them started out as natural myopes, and they confirmed what I though. Natural myopes had a much easier time increasing their myopia. And every one of us has married men who are extremely nearsighted, mostly because we all wanted to have children who were naturally myopic. Specs4ever June 2007
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