"The INFJ personality type is very rare, making up less than one percent of the population"
My heart sank. I was angry. Broken, and lost.
And I didn't want it.
I’ve struggled with life.
I've struggled to fit a complex internal me, into the external, overwhelming world, beneath my feet.
"Great, I'm pretty much doomed" I sighed to Jason, my brother, as I sat on the kitchen bench, reading the INFJ description on my screen and resenting the fact I couldn't help but feel it was me.
It was 2014 and my life as I knew it was changing dramatically. It had been a hard year. The hardest.
A failed relationship. A ‘me’ that I no longer recognised and who I wasn't proud to have become. And issues with my sight that were making the world the most difficult place to live in.
I was angry, broken, lost and victimised.
"Why me?" I would ask.
A selfish attitude to have really.
Life was beating me, and I was letting it.
For those who don't know already. I live with two extremely rare conditions of the eye. Degenerative Vitreous syndrome, is the deterioration of the vitreous.
Now when the vitreous breaks down, it does so in small cobweb, string like pieces, and these become visible in your field of vision. Like little shadows that move with your eyes.
"Oh I have those too!" you're saying to yourself.
Yes I am aware that you may have, one or two of these annoying little things in your sight. And you'll see them, when you look at a white wall, the sky, a computer etc
Annoying, right?
It is completely normal, your mind adapts.
Harmless little things really.
Until your vitreous has deteriorated to the extent that your eyes are home to hundreds of these things, of all different shapes, sizes and density, floating around, in different directions, in both eyes.
There are so many of them, and they are so prominent that it is impossible for your mind to adapt. You see them in all conditions, even at night, and outside is not somewhere you'd happily be without your sunglasses.
They're 'harmless' until you have no part of your vision that does not contain some form of vitreous debris.
I struggle to express what its like to live with such vision. But the One Clear vision website states the following
"Affected people were willing to take an 11% risk of death and a 7% risk of blindness for relief of symptoms related to floaters"
I also live with another extremely rare condition. One that accompanies my mass of floaters, with a static like vision, you know the kind you see on your tv screens.
And to top all of that off, now I'm a confirmed odd ball.
Hurray!
Jokes aside, December 2014, I hit rock bottom, I was struggling to accept that this was life, and for 2 consecutive days I saw no reason to get out of bed.
I laid there, in my bed for 2 days and saw absolutely no reason why I should get myself up, dressed, and put a god damn smile on my face to do the life that I'd been dealt.
2014 was hard.
There was no light at the end of the tunnel. I saw no getting better. I saw only bleakness, struggle, pain and isolation.
I went from eye specialist to eye specialist looking for answers to the condition that was defining my life in a profoundly negative way.
Sometimes issues with your sight are not caused by issues with the eye, sometimes there are underlying health issues elsewhere in the body or brain that can cause the disturbances in vision.
I sat in chair after chair, had eye drop after eye drop, examination after examination, chest X-rays, blood tests, MRI scans. Dye injected into my bloodstream, only to be told that there was no clear explanation as to why this was happening to my vision, and that the current surgery on offer was way to risky to alleviate symptoms that were merely 'annoying'.
Annoying. Such a light, airy word.
It was hard to not have answers, I was was banging my head against a brick wall, and a part of me wanted it to be something.
A 'something' I could attach all of this to.
So that I could understand it better. I wanted to understand it, and couldn't.
I was told by one eye specialist my symptoms were down to an inflammatory disease of the eye, named Pars Planitis. And then by another that there was no evidence that this was the cause at all.
I was laughed at, and asked to see a psychiatrist, in order to be considered for surgery. To ensure I was 'mentally stable' when I cried during an examination.
I.was.laughed.at.
By the people who were supposed to help me.
The only people I then thought could fix my life.
And so I went. I went and sat in a room, and I talked about my struggles, to a person that had absolutely no idea what I was facing. A person that will close down her office at the end of her day, and go home to her clear visioned life. Whilst I faced it still.
If I couldn't make sense of it all, then she couldn't, nobody I knew could.
You see its a lonely life living with DVS. Its lonely, because its rare. Its lonely because only you can see it. Only you can relate, only you know its there, only you face the battle, every minute of every day. A struggle that can't be reduced or controlled with meds, or closing of the eyes, only by sleep. Sleep is the only relief.
The struggle you face, before you face any of life other struggles, career choices, heartbreak, feeling misunderstood.
Only you understand the effort and energy that goes into looking past what you see, before being able to absorb and process the life that surrounds you.
What a waste of an hour of my life
It was February 2015.
As walked out of that room and home, something occurred to me.
I’d been doing it wrong.
I had been trying to fix this the wrong way, this whole time.
I had been looking to other people to try and fix my problems, and they were failing me. I was relying on others when the only person that could really help me, the only person I could rely on to be capable of ‘fixing it’, was me.
I sit in front of my computer now, 2 and half years later, my vision worse, but my mind better.
You see I'm lucky really, I find the world to be a beautiful place. It's full of the most beautiful things and moments. Mother nature, the moon, books, strong, deep and enriching connections with people, you love, when you find them. And no matter how my sight changed and how I much I struggled, deep down underneath it all, I could not ever believe the world was not a magical place to be.
So, every morning when I woke in my sunlit room, and the dread flew over me, I cried. I cried the tears that needed to be cried, until I no longer needed to cry them, and when they stopped I looked myself in the mirror and I told myself that I would not let it beat me. I was not going to let this ruin my life.
And I did so until I started to believe it.
Until I began to find beauty in the very thing that had caused me so much struggle.
I stopped asking why me. I didn't want to be victimised, shit happens, life owes me nothing.
Could I change the thing? No. Could I change my mind?
Yes.
I believed I could.
You may be reading this and asking yourself why I think that anyone even cares. What is it that I want from this? What am I looking for?
I don't want pity, pity won't do anything for me, I dont even pity me now.
It's about self expression. Its about self expression in a world where struggle and pain are shunned in favour of happiness, its about accepting and allowing pain, and struggle to be an equally important and valuable part of life.
It's about feeling all of the emotions, living them, and voicing them, the only way I know how. Art and words. And in doing so, trying to make sense of it all.
There was an article recently that discussed how your photographs or Instagram feed and the colours contained in them explained a lot about your mental health.
Blues, greys, blacks signal depression.
Its a funny thing really. My photographs are mainly based around those colours, but I don't consider myself to be depressed. Far from it. I'm able to segment my life in order understand and appreciate how rich and fulfilled it is now. Vision aside.
In fact, during the the hardest part of life, my Instagram feed was filled with bright colours and inspirational posts. What does that say? Oh hey, maybe if I post all the positive things, l'll surely feel them, or convince myself I do.
It says that you can't believe anything you see on social media, because people are so afraid of real expression, of judgement from others.
This life, it’s beautiful but it’s bloody hard work. And photography is my way of saying "I'm okay with that now". It's okay to struggle, it’s okay to break down. Just don't unpack and live there.
Lately I've found myself asking why again.
But not in a victimised sense.
Why me?
Why was this life given to me? What has all of the pain and suffering taught me about life? What are the lessons that I need to learn?
It's taught me more than I could possibly ever begin to tell you in words. And even though I wouldn't wish my sight on anyone. It's given it meaning. It's given me fight. It has defined my life, in some beautifully profound ways.
Some of which I hope to share with you going forward, amongst other things. Books I’m reading, the things I've learnt from little human's, personal projects, my little space to express, to those who wish to listen.
My imperfect world. Its broken, and flawed, but I believe all the best things are.
Im going to stop talking now, but before I do I want to leave you with a favourite passage from a recent book I read, one book amongst many that have helped change my life:
"The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him?
No, thank you,' he will think. 'Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, although these are things which cannot inspire envy"
'Mans search for meaning' Vicktor E. Frankl
Everyone is facing a battle you know nothing about. Be gentle, the world is tough as it is
Stace