One Year of Bates

Today is precisely one year since I set out on my Bates journey, and it's hard to keep myself from summing up.

If you ask me about my progress, you will most likely get different answers at different times. There are clear days when I feel two steps away from the complete cure and there are still days of relapse when I feel like if I were back to the start. After asking me a few questions, Rishi concluded, to my disappointment, that I'm only at the beginning. Surely, I haven't reached stable comfortable vision, but I see improvements in many aspects (that would take too long for one blog post). A good evidence of my progress for you could be that I'm positive to continue my practice.

Every time I make another step forward, I realize what a fool I've been and why I used to fail before. The right thing always appears to be very simple. I am always left wondering - if I were intelligent enough, could I have come straight to what I have found out, or is the progress only possible after I take my time coming through all the blunders?

Also, my criteria for progress have changed. Bates method has appeared to be something that is very accordant with my entire nature. I find my personality, my beliefs and my lifestyle gradually changing to something very exciting, something I have always unconsciously dreamed to be like.

You may have expected me to show numbers, such as Snellen reading, but I don't have them, sorry. It is probably the most difficult thing to stop caring about checking my vision all time to see if there's an improvement. It's only now that I come to realize that I have been doing it all the time and I now strive to cancel this habit. So you shouldn't be expecting any numbers from me in the nearest time. After all those clear flashes and relapses, all I know is that my Snellen reading is approximately between 20/200 and 20/30 :).

My case history: My eyesight grew myopic in age of 8-9 and gradually deteriorated over 10 years down to 20/200. My last glasses prescription was -4D, both eyes. Then I switched to wearing contact lenses (-3.5D) and worn them for another 10 years, without further worsening. On September 15, 2006 I forever discarded contacts and began practicing Bates method.