Glasses

“Oh.”

I looked up from my bag at my friend sitting across the restaurant table, hand still midway to grabbing my glasses so I could read the menu. “What?”

They shuffled in their seat a bit, “I’m just surprised, I didn’t know you wore glasses.”

“Oh, yeah. I mentioned some things offhandedly to my doctor when I saw her last, and she said those were common symptoms of bad eyes, and recommended a specialist to me. A couple months of waiting later, and,” I tapped the frame of my glasses, “Tada!”

They shuffled a little again, “I guess, I just never thought you needed them. I never noticed anything was off about you.”

I laughed, “Well, I didn’t either. It’s not as if I use different eyes for different days. I assumed having a hard time reading things ‘too close to my face’ was normal, until I found out what too close should actually look like. I’m still getting used to these, but honestly I really like them.”

“Have you noticed any major differences?”

I shrugged, “Sort of? There’s a lot of stuff I didn’t notice I struggled with until I started getting some help, both with actually wearing glasses and researching my condition over all. It’s kind of hard to hear some of the rougher experiences people have had, but also really heart warming to hear that other people experience the world in a similar way I do.”

We sat in silence for a bit after that, drinking our waters and listening to the copyright-free music. “You seem a little uncomfortable,” I said at last.

My friend made a face somewhere between thinking and grimacing. “Well,” They started slowly, “I’m just kind of surprised you’d decide to get glasses, what with all of the risks involved.”

I raised an eyebrow, worried where this was going. “Risks?”

“Well, yeah,” They took a long sip of their water, gathering their thoughts, “I mean, what if the side effects aren’t worth it? Wearing glasses when you shouldn’t can really mess you up.”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I suppose that could happen. But, I’m not just wearing a pair of glasses I found in my mom’s bathroom cabinet. I went to see a doctor trained in vision health, and she listened to my symptoms and gave me some tests. After that, she used all that info to make sure I was getting glasses that would make things better, instead of worse.

“As for the side effects,” I took a quick bite of the salad that had been set down while we were talking, “They’re still something I’m getting used to. Sometimes I move in a way that I feel nauseous because of the lens, and I’m dealing with the pinching feel of them on my head. But…I can read things in front of me now. Not just menus, but other things like schoolwork and bills and mail from my family and stuff. For me, it’s worth getting used to the side effects.”

“But what if you never do get used to them?”

Another shrug and bite of salad before I spoke, “My family doctor made sure to let me know I could contact them if I continued having issues that needed to be fixed, and then we could adjust the prescription as needed. And, if glasses just don’t work for me, there are other options as well like contacts or LASIK. Just because I’m having some issues doesn’t mean it’s not worth it for me to get help.”

“But,” I paused, waiting for them to finally ask the question they’ve wanted to ask since we started talking.

“But what if you get addicted to them? I mean, these could permanently change your eyes over time, especially if you’re wearing them when you don’t need them. And how are you sure you do need them? Maybe you’re just saying you do because you like how it feels to wear them,” They spat out, before sitting silently and not making eye contact.

I sighed, and set down my fork. I took another deep breath, gathering my thoughts, before saying, “I understand your concern, but that all hinges on a lot of What If style of thinking. So, let’s tackle this one at a time.

“One, let’s go back to what I said before. I did not steal these glasses from anyone. A doctor suggested to me that I might be struggling with something that I could get help for, and they recommended I talked to a specialist. After talking with a specialist, and undergoing some tests – that yes I could have lied in but I will address that in a minute – she recommended I try wearing these glasses. I wasn’t required to, they weren’t welded to the sides of my head. It was an option I chose to take because I wanted to live a better, healthier life.

“Two, even if I had lied to my doctor for some reason so I could have glasses, I had an appointment last month where I had to check in and talk over how things were going. When I told my doctor my experience was more like a gradual improvement than a sudden cure-all, she said that was good. Often, people who need glasses will notice more of a balancing of their life for the better, and the people who report overly positive results are the ones faking symptoms for glasses.

“Third, glasses are not my only option. I chose to try wearing glasses because they were one possible way to correct something that was causing a lot of issues for my life, and making it almost unlivable without me even realizing. But, if I decide the symptoms for wearing glasses is too much, then I can try other methods like I said before. And maybe, if I’m not happy with trying all of these options, I’ll decide instead that I won’t wear glasses, and I’ll build my life in such a way that I can compensate for what I’m missing. For other people, that may even be the recommended way to do it. My condition, though, is intense enough that both my doctor and I thought it was good to start with glasses, as well as building systems to help me. My glasses don’t fix everything, after all.”

We sat in silence for another few minutes. No one was eating. Finally, my friend took another deep breath.

“I’m sorry I asked the way I did. I was surprised, probably because I never thought of it all that way.”

“I understand why you’re concerned,” I said, “I lost an uncle who was wearing glasses when he shouldn’t have, and it left part of my family broken. I don’t want to argue you into understanding me, and you don’t have to agree with my decision. But glasses exist because some people need them, sometimes because they are the only thing for them between life and death. If you want, we can talk about some boundaries we can put in place so that you know if I’m starting to misuse my glasses.”

They slowly nodded, smiling with a bit of embarrassment on their face, “Thanks, that sounds like a good idea. Still, I’ll try to trust you more with this too. It sounds like you’ve already got some good systems in place.”

The Summary

Was there a point when reading this that you realized this was all an analogy for medication?

Glasses are my favorite analogy for medication, especially ongoing prescriptions. Glasses are something quite a few of the population get because they’re struggling in one way or another and need help from a doctor to correct that. Whether it’s a tiny adjustment or a major one, we wear them when we need help. Yet, no one ever warns about “the threat of glasses addiction.”

I want to make it very clear that I am not belittling the issue of addiction. While glasses may have been used above to replace concepts like medication, it’s true that I lost a family member to a drug overdose, and I take it very seriously. But we are told so many times in our lives about the danger of prescription medication, that I think it can be very hard to remember that they are simply a tool. A tool with consequences, for sure. But so is a table saw, or a hammer, a cheese grater if you’re stubborn enough.

I’m fortunate enough to have been diagnosed with anxiety before I was diagnosed with ADHD. The typical treatment for ADHD would be a stimulant medication like Ritalin, but because I was already taking meds that were anti-stimulants for my anxiety, both the ADHD specialist I spoke with and my family doctor suggested I take a non-stimulant medication for my ADHD instead.

Because I’m not taking one of the more traditionally dangerous meds, mine aren’t nearly as hard to get as others, nor am I at nearly as great a risk of abusing them or selling them or anything like that. I didn’t know to ask for this specific kind, but because my doctor listened to me and cared about me, I was guided to the best option for me that has improved my life. I know I was lucky, and not all doctors listen to their patients and not all patients are in a safe or stable place to switch doctors. If that’s a concern, I would recommend doing research into the medication often used to treat your condition, and see if there are other safe and medically-recommended alternatives.

In short, I don’t ever and will never tell people they need to take medication or not. But my school of thought is this: if your doctor recommends it, and it will not cause immediate and/or lasting harm to try it, then try it for a while. If you don’t like it, then see what your other options are. But don’t be afraid of the tool just because of how some people use it.