Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

Content Note: disability, bullying, child neglect, resilience, superheroes, body neutrality

This is my school photo from late September 1975. I was four years old, in kindergarten. If you squint, you can just see my protruding eyes and the beginning of my lazy eye. I had glasses (and the patch) soon after. But here I look like most of the other kids. I look normal. Also, I dearly loved that dress.

My eyes are healthy. No signs of glaucoma or cataracts. My vision prescription hasn’t changed much since my 20s. I have a pair of prescription sunglasses I bought in 1989 – they still work fine except for not being bifocals.

My eyes are also abnormal. I inherited what’s called protruding eyes (proptosis) – my father had them, his mother had them, and so did her mother. There’s no underlying health reason. Typically, this is associated with thyroid disease. But I’ve been tested quite often and my thyroid works fine. I’ve learned to just bring it up with new doctors and suggest that they test my thyroid with any other bloodwork to put their minds at ease.

I also had a lazy eye (amblyopia) that not managed well by my parents or elementary school. I was supposed to wear an patch. I was too young to understand the implication of removing it. That’s what adults are for and yet another manifestation of childhood trauma. I grew up blaming myself for not wanting to wear a patch over my eye. I was four years old, but I internalized all the shame and stigma and child neglect.

The other photo is junior year of high school. I tried contacts. Like most teenagers, I wanted to be accepted, and that meant conformity.  Sometimes I would press my hands against my eyes, willing them to be normal. I’d ask my optometrist over and over if we could try the patch, figuring I could rationalize it for a few months to free myself of a deformity.

But it was too late. My eyes muscles were permanently mangled.

Now at age 55, both of my eyes wander. I have to consciously coordinate them. My recent optometrist told me that my eyes do not work together either left/right or up/down since I now need bifocals.

Thankfully, good eyeglasses correct the vision problems. It can be a bit of effort to get all those eye directions working together with small print, but I pull it off.

The Bullying

But not the appearance of my eyes. I look weird, sort of like a goldfish.

I don’t even notice it from inside my head. I see straight ahead. But I notice when other people watch my eye wander. I literally know the look in their eyes usually accompanied by them losing track of the conversation and making up some excuse.

I see it in photographs. I used to loathe photos of myself. The #Feminist365Selfie project helped.

I have heard every mean vicious nasty and cruel joke or comment. Since elementary school. If someone wanted to wound me, that’s the low hanging fruit. Junior high was the very worst. Life was hard already because my Dad had been out of work, but kept gambling and drinking even though I didn’t know it at the time. Poverty was just part of life – sometimes no food, sometimes worn out clothing, but I did have glasses.

Even now, I still can’t bring myself to write here on this page the things those kids said to me. I can tell you they chased me home from school with taunts and even rocks. That’s terrible and I ended up walking home through the cemetery by myself until they got bored. But I shut out the taunts that followed me from classroom to hallway into the gym and the lunchroom. They hurt so much and I had no one to help me cope with it.

I figured out if I could make myself useful to kids who would in turn protect me, a survival skill – I tutored and occasionally allowed someone to copy my work, I was in countless study groups and I wrote a few papers for other people. By ninth grade, things eased up a bit. I still had ugly eyes, but I wasn’t as much a target.

Adult Life

As I grew up, I just came to accept this deformity. Then I started a blog, splashed into social media and the circle began again.

I’ve always considered myself ugly. Decades of mockery about my eyes reinforced it. Don’t get me wrong. If I had to choose between healthy eyes and attractive eyes, I’d go with healthy. But who has to make a choice like that?

Children often stare at me, occasionally asking pretty blunt questions. I don’t mind because they alone can appreciate one perk of these ugly eyes – enhanced peripheral vision. I tell them it’s my secret superpower. They understand in a way that only children can. Sometimes, they experiment with me, standing to my side to determine if I can see them. Very serious assessment of my story – I always pass because I do have enhanced peripheral vision.

Their curiosity sated, they move on. If they laugh, I distract them with a madeup story about a superhero friend with some sort of vision powers like Superman, Cyclops, Storm or Monica Rambeau. Little kids want to believe me, older kids appreciate a tall tale as well as my familiarity with superheroes. If things get murky and their parents are about to intervene to reduce their own embarrassment, I quickly say “Captain Marvel is strong than Dark Phoenix” or “Superman better than Batman” which inevitably prompts an immediate debate and elevates us to friends. Kids are great.

They lack the cruelty of adults who actively choose to cut me down to size with zero curiosity, just because they can.

My parents weren’t prepared to help me with the eye patch. They were equally unprepared to help me cope with the abuse from my peers. And if I tell anyone how I really feel about it, they cut me off with denials to insist I’m pretty or beautiful or have lovely eyes of whatever. They don’t listen to me and they don’t hear me, maybe because so many of us carry those types of scars deep in our memories.

It happens more often now in this increasingly cruel world. I have zero expectation that will ever change. It should.

Finding Comfort Now

As my partnership and marriage crumbles, I deeply grieve the loss of the only person with whom I could share these wounds and find comfort. The person who looked in my eyes, radiating love from theirs and who never let me get away with disparaging my eyes. We had both endured so much cruel bullying, I trusted she genuinely understood and allowed myself to believe her.

That level of intimacy and trust won’t come along again. Frankly, I now doubt it was ever sincere, but I choose to cling to a loving memory here and there. I remember getting ready to attend the inaugural celebration for Mayor Bill Peduto who would eventually officiate at our wedding – I was standing in front of the full length mirror in a blue dress with my boots on and avoiding eye contact with myself. My then-partner noticed. She knew exactly what I was saying to myself in my head because she had heard me say it countless times before. She put her arms around my waist and hugged me with this little jostling move she would make to say the unspoken things between us. She knew I would look at her in the mirror even if I wouldn’t look at myself.

At least that’s how I remember it. Funny how Bill Peduto continues to be a primary character in this blog no matter the topic.

Body Neutrality

Finding some peace with this lifelong challenge, is one reason I choose to support body neutrality. Another is the childhood sexual violence and grooming I experienced. I am most comfortable slightly dissociating from my body, so I do not like when people try to draw attention back.

Don’t comment on my appearance. It doesn’t work, it causes harm. Let me control my body including how it’s described.

I’m fine if you focus on your body, but I’m not going to participate. I’ll say “That’s a cute sweater” but not ever describe you as pretty. I reserve words like pretty for objects and sunsets and cats. Not people. I don’t want to discuss weight loss at all and certainly not be vicious about someone’s weight gain or loss.

But body neutrality also means we get to be where we are with our bodies – for good and for bad. We just shouldn’t impose that on others, including commenting on their appearance. I can respect that you have your own feelings about all of this, but still draw a boundary that I don’t want to be a person you discuss it with.

I use some pretty hard language in this post and when I talk about my eyes and appearance. I would never say those things to someone else, but I’m not letting anyone take away my ability to name my pain. There will be no name calling or rock throwing now, not because I changed (or my eyes changed) but because my friends and supporters walk with me.

Conclusions

I decided to write this post after someone posted the same old tired mean girl comments on my Instagram and Facebook. I realized I had never delved into the topic of my eyes here, but it is certainly something I should include in my own archive. At least a little bit.

I’ve been posting occasional reels on Instagram and Facebook which show my eyes moving around in different directions. I’m tempted to just record my voice with a nice background, but I really don’t want to give in.

There are lessons

1. Don’t be a jerk about other people’s bodies. You have no right to know about disabilities or deformities. Don’t ask, don’t stare. Don’t condescend. Teach your kids how to balance their curiosity with their kindness.
2. I don’t need to be fixed. Don’t swoop in to make me feel better with half-truths or words that make me uncomfortable.
3. I’m okay if you punch a bully. Any bully.

Truth is, I still ask about possible cures just in case there’s a new procedure. Would I have an operation at this point in life just to correct a deformity? Probably not, given that my eyes are healthy in general.

And I guess I wouldn’t look like me.