Susan Barry

A wedding without double vision

A wedding without double vision

This weekend I attended a friend's wedding. I enjoyed it immensely. It was a reminder of the fact that not everything in life has to be a struggle. Not everything needs to be difficult. It's nice to see so many happy faces celebrating a joyous occasion. During the last three years I have gone out of social circulation a bit. This is because I was suffering from all the symptoms you might associate with a severe concussion due to chronically untreated and mistreated strabismus. Social circumstances don't always bend to health and resting…Read more …
Book review: Fixing My Gaze by Susan Barry

Book review: Fixing My Gaze by Susan Barry

After I read 'Fixing My Gaze' for the third time in three years I decided to write a long overdue review about the book that got this whole VT party started. I first read it during the summer of 2010. At the time I was undergoing all kinds of personal, academic and medical crises and I realized I was on my own. So I turned to the oracle that is Google and went looking for better alternatives to help me get rid of my double vision. This time in English. I discovered Vision…Read more …

An unsatisfiable urge to become who I was supposed to be

I’ve always been excited about the idea of learning and reading. The prospect that hard work and intelligence pays off and gets you a better outcome. I had trouble learning how to read so my mother stepped in and gave me some extra tutoring before bedtime on a magnetic blackboard I had in my bedroom. Later I took over and often was one of the best in my class through hard work. But already from a young age it took a lot of time and effort to complete my assignments at night so…Read more …

Vision Therapy in the eighties

This is a PSA for Vision Therapy from the eighties. This means that it's been out there for a long time! 'I was working at the word processor and experienced a headache. More than 40 million Americans use some kind of computer screen every day and a great many of them have eye strain and headaches' hahah. Anyways, aside from the retro aspects not much has changed, including the fact that VT needs have remained under-served over the years causing sorrow to many. It's incredible how this lifesaving knowledge hasn't become mainstream over…Read more …

Seek support from people who are encouraging you, not those who are trying to decrease your enthusiasm

Today, neurologists understand that the brain is an unbelievably plastic thing, capable of learning a new language or healing from injury well past adolescence. But Barry's experience taught her a deeper, more essential lesson: every person possesses the ability to be a participant in her own rehabilitation. Patients are not merely subjects to be acted upon. Barry is confident that observation of your own habits and ailments can be a powerful tool in changing them -- but only if you surround yourself with people who are willing to listen. "Seek support from other…Read more …

There is no perception without action

"Try the following simple experiment: Close or cover one eye. Then look up and down. You might notice that the scene appears to move down when you move your eyes up and vice versa. Yet, your sense of the world is that it is fixed and stable. Now, take your index finger and push it gently against the eyeball of your open eye. You may notice that the whole world appears to move. Indeed, you might find this slightly nauseating. In both situations, images moved across your retina, yet your perceptual experience was…Read more …

Why do I have trouble reading?

"If you struggle with keeping both eyes at the same point on the page, you may be able to read fine if asked to read a single sentence or paragraph but not if asked to read for many minutes. We have no trouble recognizing that a child with a mild limp may be able to walk from one end of the classroom to the other with little difficulty, but we would not expect that same child to be able to run a mile on the school playground as well as a child with…Read more …