last month i was diagnosed with something called "oculomotor dysfunction" and it affects many of aspects of my day in ways that have been a struggle ALL MY LIFE.

so in case you don't know what it is, like i didn't, here is a thread!

oculomotor dysfunction interferes with the brain’s ability to effectively coordinate the eyes to fixate, follow, and move from spot to spot with accuracy and efficient control.

as you can imagine this affects a lot of areas of life.

growing up i was always terrible at sports because i could never see the soccer ball, or the baseball, or the frisbee, even when they were coming right at me. i was clumsy and uncoordinated, and was hit in the face with many things because my eyes couldn't track them correctly.

i also never properly learned to sketch or draw from life, because when i look at something i can't see it correctly. more often than not, i can process things in my peripheral vision with more accuracy than i can looking at things straight on. as an artist, this is brutal.

one of the ways they tested me is by having me look at the tip of a pen/pencil for 10-15 seconds without moving or adjusting my eyes or body. for me, not only was this just short of impossible, it was incredibly uncomfortable and fatiguing.

i also struggle with text based EVERYTHING. reading, responding to emails, text messages, editing papers, you name it. if it's words on paper or a screen, i can't see it correctly. this is why i am terrible with text communication, it is simply EXHAUSTING for me.

the reason it is exhausting is because i'm having to work so much harder to see something correctly, and then process it, and then see again to formulate a response. the amount of work my body and mind have to put in just for the simplest things is incredibly taxing.

OMD commonly affects the eye's ability in these ways:

Fixation – ability to maintain steady directing of the eyes on a target/object
Smooth Pursuits – ability to follow a moving object smoothly and accurately
Saccades – eyes’ ability to jump from spot to spot accurately.

I cannot accurately do any of the above things, even though when I've gotten my eyes tested and was told I had perfect vision. Because it's not that my eyes can't ~see~ it's that they can't stay seeing, or adjust to movement, or process correctly.

when i look at something for too long it becomes physically painful, and starts to distort and disappear. i can't look at a sentence for too long without it compacting into itself and becoming a three dimensional block of chaos, and it makes basic tasks very difficult.

some things that are difficult because of my OMD: reading, paperwork, filling out forms, math, sketching, illustration, sports, board games, craft projects, eye contact, driving, spacial awareness, and i'm sure more that i'm learning every day.

another symptom of OMD that has been the most shocking to me is the dizziness and nausea. i have been dizzy and queasy almost every day of my life, and have tried to find an answer since i was a child, and all doctors ever said to me was "huh, that's weird"

OMD is incredibly disorienting, and when you spend the majority of your time incorrectly processing your visual stimuli, it leads to disorientation, motion sickness, and fatigue.

another aspect of OMD is poor ability to concentrate and focus. THIS IS A VERY BIG AND DIFFICULT ASPECT. on top of having ADHD and that brand of brain struggles, the fatigue that comes from concentration is often too much to handle.

because of this, i often take a very long time to complete tasks that involve use of my eyes, because I find myself taking breaks from simply looking at the things i'm working on. it is not just an issue with attention, it is a basic issue of being ABLE to look long enough.

this has been increasingly irritating to me as i've learned about it, because i'm realizing that more than any other issue i face in my daily experience, this one is the biggest uphill battle in modern day life.

as a painter, illustrator, photographer, and general lover of visual ~everything~, my eyes are against me every step of my day. it means i am struggling with every single task of my job, every text i receive, and every hobby i love.

i'm still working on the treatments for it, as it can't be treated with glasses that magically fix these issues. instead i have to do work every day to get my eyes used to looking and communicating with my brain. the exercises are exhausting and annoying.

one exercise to help this is getting a ball (mine is pictured below) and drawing the alphabet randomly on the surface, then holding the ball arms distance away, you turn the ball to spell things out. the key is that you aren't allowed to move your head at all.

i'm making this thread because it has affected my life in more ways than i can count and my hope is that in learning about it, if you are like me, you can start to try and lessen the ways this affects your life.

if you identified with this thread, i recommend researching it, and learning more.

if you didn't, maybe consider sharing it for others who may.
thanks! that was exhausting, so i'm done now.