I had heard from others from the BIID community on the Internet that Dr. Andrew Oldham was a very sympathetic psychiatrist to the patients with BIID that came to him, and that is why I chose him to see if he might be the one to give me the referral I required. I knew I needed a story that was believable to him, and fortunately Joanne, a lady who had her very nearsighted daughter at the day care where I worked, and I had become quite friendly, to the point where I often walked Sasha home from the daycare so that Joanne did not have to come to pick her up at the end of the day. I lived in the same apartment building as they did, so it was no trouble at all for me to do this, and Sasha really was a sweetheart of a kid. The day I had my first appointment with Dr. Oldham Sasha came with me to my appointment before we went to the daycare and the rest is history.
Once Andrew and I were married, and I came to work in his office with him I was able to give him a lot of insight of my struggles with the BIID affliction. I hesitate to call it a disease, but it really is a form of mental illness to have such a strong desire to alter your body in such a way that you become permanently handicapped. When I came into his life Andrew still had the belief that a person with BIID could be cured by a psychiatrist. But after we married and we continued our discussions about my case he gradually came to realize that in those of us who suffer from BIID the desire to cripple ourselves was something that was deeply embedded inside our minds and the only cure was to do what we felt we had to do so that we could go on to live the best possible life we could. With my assistance Andrew gradually reached a point where, instead of trying to talk a person with BIID out of doing what their inner desires told them that had to do to feel complete, he would attempt to reduce their expectations to a point where they could get the feeling they needed, but were still going to be able to live a life that allowed them some independence. Instead of becoming paralyzed from the waist down Andrew would try to gradually attempt to bring the patient around to only having one limb amputated. Instead of being totally blind, he would convince the patient to accept becoming very nearsighted like I had become. As a result, Andrew soon become the go to psychiatrist for the BIID community and in many cases he really was able to mitigate the damages they wanted to do to their body by offering them alternatives. Instead of a double amputation it was surprising how many were willing to accept a single limb amputation as long as they could also have their eyes operated on to allow them to become very nearsighted like I was. And he was, with my help, able to talk a number of people who had been blindsimming for years into accepting very high myopia instead of total blindness.
When I was growing up I always felt that I wanted to wear glasses. Various friends and classmates got glasses, but I never seemed to need them. When I was 15 one of my girlfriends got her first glasses and she let me try them on. They were -1.25D for both eyes, and I could easily make my eyes focus through those lenses. I wanted to wear them badly, and when I found out where she had bought them, a couple of months later I went into the one hour optical where she had gotten her glasses and I told them I was her. I had lost my glasses and I needed a new pair. It was so easy to do this I wished I had thought of this sooner. When I got home I told my mom I had been for an eye exam and I now needed to wear glasses. Mom accepted this and from then on I wore glasses.
The following year, soon after my 16th birthday, I went to get my learner’s permit. The lady who gave me the eye exam asked me to take my glasses off to read the numbers, and when I read them all perfectly she told me she could issue me my beginner’s permit without a glasses restriction. I told her I felt I needed them to see properly, especially at night, so I didn’t mind the restriction and she put it on my permit. But it was true. I really did not need those glasses. I probably should have given up and thrown the glasses away, but my mind and my body needed those glasses for me to feel complete and I wanted even stronger ones. What I didn’t realize was that if I had gotten myself stronger glasses back then I might have managed to develop some real myopia, because apparently you needed to wear glasses that were at least -3D stronger than you actually required before your eyes would really start to become myopic.
While searching on the Internet I discovered GOC. Once I discovered that and found out how to order contacts and glasses from online suppliers my glasses got a lot thicker. First I wore -7.50D glasses over a pair of +6D contacts. Then I went to -10D glasses over +8D contacts. By now I was at college and was studying early childhood education so I could work with young kids in daycare centers. When I graduated I was wearing -20D glasses over +15D contact lenses. I did not know how to calculate the correct prescription of the contacts and glasses, so I had just ordered what people on the internet had suggested I order, and that is what I did. I suppose I might have developed a little bit of myopia, because my vision was a little blurred when I took out my contacts, but I really didn’t know if it would clear up because I never went a waking moment without my glasses and contact lenses.
Through the internet I also found out about the phenomena called BIID. Once I read about this I was convinced that I suffered from this affliction. I wanted very badly to be extremely nearsighted and I actually needed to wear the strong glasses that I was wearing over the plus contacts. When I was out in public wearing my thick lensed -20D glasses I felt like I was a complete person. I didn’t see my mom or my younger brother very often, but when I did go home to see mom I always wore my glasses and she often commented on how bad my eyes had gotten. I loved it. I thrived on comments about my bad eyesight and I loved discussing laser surgery, and how my corneas were too thin to allow me to have it done. I would then tell people that my prescription was a bit too strong for them to laser surgery on me anyway. While I felt good about myself when I was wearing GOC, there was still something missing. I really felt the need to dispense with the contacts, and wear even thicker glasses.
I had not yet seen Joanne and Sasha around my apartment complex, and I suppose that is not unusual for a 15 story building. I met Sasha for the first time when she was 2 and her mom brought her into the day care center where I was working. I remember taking a look at this gorgeous little 2 year old with the very thick glasses and thinking that this should have been the real me. This little angel had the glasses I had wanted all my life. Joanne and I talked about Sasha’s glasses and her poor eyesight and Joanne warned me that it was very dangerous for Sasha to have a bump on the head. I knew that very high myopia sometimes lead to retinal detachments and possible blindness, but until I met Sasha I had never realized how careful a high myope really had to be. Joanne was a little surprised that with my thick glasses I did not know about retinal detachments but she explained the symptoms of a retinal detachment to me and I agreed to watch out for Sasha as much as I possibly could. At the time Sasha had a prescription that was just a bit higher than the prescription in my glasses was and Joanne had explained that Sasha was under corrected by a fair amount as her doctor didn’t want to give her the full prescription until she was closer to her 3rd birthday. By her third birthday Sasha had her new glasses with her full -28.50D prescription and she looked darling wearing her new brown plastic frames with her thick myodisc lenses. And I had what could only be called glasses envy, because I wanted nothing more in the whole world than to be able to wear Sasha’s glasses myself.
Once I discovered that Sasha and Joanne lived in the same building I did Joanne and I became quite friendly and we eventually became best friends. I did like Joanne, and I had never had a good friend as Joanne became, but I needed to be near Sasha. In my heart Sasha was me. I always brought Sasha to and from daycare, so it was very easy for me to take Sasha with me to Andrew’s office that day and then go on to the daycare center a little later than normal.
I needed a story for Andrew, but I needed a story with a hook. I had searched on the internet a number of times about how eyes could be made myopic, and I found a few stories that lead me to believe that by forcing a very young child to wear a pair of high minus glasses that the eyes of the child would then become quite myopic; easily adapting to the power of the lenses that were placed in front of their eyes. So I came up with the story that I had done this myself to Sasha, making her so very nearsighted that she was completely dependent on her glasses – which of course she was. I told Andrew I was pregnant again, and the only way I could stop myself from doing the same thing I had done to Sasha with my yet unborn baby was for him to give me a referral to an ophthalmologist who was reluctantly willing to operate on my eyes.
I could tell that Andrew was very upset when I told him my tale. He looked angry when I told him I had forced Sasha to wear glasses, and I was afraid I had upset him too much to do what I was asking him to do. But he calmed down, and told me that he needed my real name, and 3 more sessions with me before he would agree to a referral. I agreed, and we had a session a week for the next 3 weeks. Fortunately I was able to get everything lined up so that I could have my eyes operated on during my 3 weeks of summer holidays. And when I went back to work my eye doctor had fitted me with a pair of extended wear disposable contacts in a -10D prescription that I could wear under my glasses until my new myodiscs came in. I knew my new glasses would look a bit stronger than my old -20D ones, so I told everyone, including Joanne that I had been operated on for retinal detachments during my holidays and that I was getting new glasses that would be a lot stronger than my old ones. But that was going to be it. I would no longer need to tell people any more lies and I would then wear glasses for the rest of my life.
When I went back to see Andrew for the session he had requested for 3 months after my operation I was now wearing my new myodiscs with my own strong prescription. I was completely dependent on these 2 pieces of glass with their -31.50D prescription that I now wore in front of my eyes. I think Andrew could tell how completely happy I was now. And when I told Andrew that I was not pregnant, nor had I ever been pregnant and that Sasha was a young lady who was naturally a high myope who went to the daycare I worked at I could see that Andrew was pleased that I had not ruined her eyes like I had told him I had done. I didn’t do it to seduce him, but I did ask Andrew out for dinner so I could thank him for what he had done for me. It came as a total surprise when he asked me for another date, but of course I accepted. I really hadn’t dated much before this because I didn’t want any guys finding out about my wearing GOC. But Andrew knew everything and no lies were needed. He really surprised me when he asked me to marry him only 3 months later. I thought it was a little too quick, but I found myself saying yes.
The next couple of years just flew by. I had just found out I was pregnant, and the first person I wanted to call was Joanne. We were still best of friends, and I called her or saw her at least once a week. But this week, when I called her to tell her my news she told me something so awful that I couldn’t even bring myself to tell her about my pregnancy. She had been having some stomach problems over the past month and had finally gone to the doctor. Her diagnosis was cervical cancer, and it was rather advanced. Her doctor had suggested that she should get her affairs in order.
I talked this over with Andrew. He knew, and liked Sasha, and he and I both agreed that we would look after Joanne and would offer to become Sasha’s legal guardian if both Joanne and the now 7 year old Sasha wanted this. Of course this would not take effect until Joanne passed on, but we both thought it was a good idea to have a plan of action in place, as Joanne did not have any idea where Sasha’s real father was. Andrew and I had purchased a very roomy 4 bedroom house soon after we were married and one of the bedrooms was more like what is often called a granny suite. It was off by itself and had a really nice roomy bathroom with a walk in tub. We invited Joanne and Sasha to the house, and Andrew and I explained our plan to them. At first Joanne didn’t want us to go to any trouble for them, but she soon realized that we were very serious about wanting to do this, and before long Joanne and Sasha were living with us. Joanne was undergoing treatment, but most of the treatment was simply pain management.
Sasha realized that her mom was very sick, and she was told by her mom that if anything happened to her she would have a place to live with Andrew and I so she did not have to worry about what would happen to her. I was growing bigger every day and my doctor had told me that the ultrasound showed that I was going to be having twins. I didn’t know what I was going to do, what with taking care of Joanne and having 2 babies on the way. Sasha, bless her heart was a wonderful helper. As her mom grew weaker and weaker Sasha would spend hours bathing her brow, and getting anything she wanted for her. Both Andrew and I found that we loved this very nearsighted little girl with all of our hearts.
The twins were born while Joanne was still alive and she was thrilled for both Andrew and I. But it wasn’t long after that when Joanne had to be moved to hospice, and she only lasted there for a week or so. After the funeral we told Sasha the she was now legally our responsibility, and that if she wanted us to we would apply to the courts to adopt her. She agreed that this would be nice if we did that, so we started the ball rolling. Since we already had the legal guardianship and since no father was listed on Sasha’s birth certificate the formal adoption was a simple matter. Before she passed away we had told Joanne that we were going to name one of our twins after her, and she cried when we told her that. Our daughter was baptized as Alisa Joanne Oldham and our son was David Andrew Oldham.
As the twins grew Sasha was a wonderful big sister. By the time they were 3 years old Sasha was 11, and both David and Alisa idolized her. And I must admit that Sasha was extremely good and patient with them. They had learned when they were very young that they must not touch either mommies or Sasha’s glasses, and most of the time they were pretty good about following that directive. A couple of times I had the misfortune of having my glasses go flying from my face due to a bit of roughhousing, and Sasha had been placed in the same position a lot more times that I had. Sasha still needed the same -28.50D prescription that she had been prescribed when she was 3 and Andrew and I had purchased her a new pair of glasses every year since she came to live with us when she was 7, so she had 4 pairs of glasses to choose from should one pair break. Sasha didn’t really put up much of a fuss if her glasses got knocked off by the kids. She seemed to be able to find her way around the house and her room well enough without any correction that if one of the twins couldn’t find her glasses for her when they knocked them off she was able to make her way to her room to get herself another pair so she could then locate her own glasses.
I wasn’t quite as fortunate as Sasha. I don’t think it was due to my pregnancy or any hormonal changes, but for some reason, about a year after the twins were born, I discovered that my corrected vision was not what I had become used to. After a thorough examination of my visual health it was discovered that everything was just fine, but my myopia had jumped slightly. Now I needed -34.00D glasses, but I was unable to purchase the same old really thick lens blanks that I loved so much. They no longer made the regular CR39 plastic for prescriptions that were over -5D and I had to choose a lens blank that was made from 1.67 hi index plastic. The finished product was also made as a double myodisc, and the glasses still looked pretty darned thick and strong, but I was disappointed. I wanted my almost 1” thick chunks of plastic back.
My optician friend searched everywhere for me. I think we had mentioned that he was an older gentleman and had been sympathetic to the BIID community for many years. I knew he was doing everything he could do and he was as disappointed as I was that he wasn’t able to find any old stock anywhere.
A year or so later I went back to my ophthalmologist because I was again complaining about my night vision and I also wanted to see if he could sharpen up my distance vision. He then ended up increasing my prescription by another -1D. When I went to see my optician friend he gave me some fantastic news. He had found 2 sets of the old CR39 chunks of old stock CR39 plastic in a lens grinding lab in Russia. He knew I didn’t care what the cost was, so he had them air freighted to himself and he was going to send one pair off to the lens lab he had always used for my lenses to have them ground into my old -34D prescription. But I had caught him just in time to have the order changed to my latest -35D prescription. My new lenses were going to need a little smaller outer bowl, and a little smaller inner bowl. Instead of having a 30mm circle for the outer bowl, it was going to be 27mm, and the inner bowl was then going to be 23mm. The outer bowl would be ground to a prescription of -12D and the inner bowl was going to be -23D. And, although my ophthalmologist didn’t think I would need any further increases in my prescription it meant that I still had a spare set of the thick CR39 plastic lens blanks if I ever needed them.
I loved my new glasses once again. I was getting a bit older and I was no longer the really hot babe with the exceptionally thick glasses that Andrew had married, but at age 34 I thought I still looked pretty darned good. I no longer got any reaction from friends or acquaintances when I did any of my usual tricks to draw attention to my thick glasses, so I had finally stopped trying to call attention to myself. I still was aware of the looks that Sasha and I got when we walked through a mall with the twins in tow, and I knew that most people thought that Sasha and I were mother and daughter. I wondered if they were thinking that it was possible that the twins would need strong glasses somewhere down the road, but unless they developed a case of BIID with a desire to wear strong glasses from being around Sasha and me I rather doubted that they would ever wear glasses as strong as we needed.
My desire to wear very strong minus glasses had been satisfied. Since the first day I woke up after my operation and saw that I was unable to see anything but blur I began to feel complete. I was very fortunate that once my eyes were operated on to give me a substantial amount of myopia I no longer felt the need to mutilate myself any further. I was warned by other people in the BIID community that I could likely find that I wanted to become even more myopic than I had chosen to be. If not, I would likely find some other part of my body that I was not satisfied with and I would want to have my appearance altered, or I would decide I wanted to have a limb amputated. For me, these issues did not materialize into any sort of a desire. And, unlike my most recent friend Caroline, I was very satisfied with my -35D prescription and the glasses I had to wear to see past the end of my nose.
Specs4ever Nov 2015
https://vision-and-spex.com/the-pull-of-biid-part-3-monica-continues-the-story-t712.html