I was already favorably disposed toward Logan Oostdyk, a 21 year-old who wrote a lovely online Customer Review of the iBook version of Applied Concepts in Vision Therapy.
But what Logan shared on a Facebook group this morning blew me away. More about that in a moment. The group that Logan initiated, and of which he’s the administrator, is Future Behavioral Optometrists and Vision Therapists. In stating its purpose, Logan writes:
For people who want to become Vision Therapists or VT practicing Optometrists.
Every age and experience level is invited: therapists of all kinds, undergraduate students (like me!) and graduate students, residents and interns, or anyone who wants to learn more about Vision Therapy and Behavioral / Developmental Optometry! My goal is to create a space to share and discuss Optometry and VT concepts, books, articles, schooling and education, practice and therapy activities and methods, etc. Lets learn and grow together!
I love the banner that he uses for the page, and it is a reminder of the great opportunity as well as responsibility that vision therapists have:
Now back to the courage and grace in Logan’s Thanksgiving message. It simply and powerfully speaks for itself:
This Thanksgiving Day I am thankful for many things… Vision Therapy especially. Reflecting back on last winter, or even this spring pre-vt, reminds me just how much my life has changed since then! Things have been moving relatively quickly in my life recently, and I don’t have time to analyze it in the moment. But when I think about it, I realize just how much vt has improved and clarified my whole being. Seriously. Vision is more than sight, it is perception (of ourselves and everything else), mental construction, and our physical, mental, and EMOTIONAL grounding.
I remember vividly the first conversation I had, over the phone, with Dr. Angela Sanders, the first week of April this year. As I was talking to her and asking questions, I remember thinking “why am I smiling ear to ear?” I remember pacing around wondering is this “it”, the thing that will change my life through fixing my eyes? I remember the unique feeling of hope, fate, empowerment that same day when I started reading about vt online and when I read Sue Barry’s book the next week. I remember trying to explain my excitement to my skeptical parents, who could not understand. I normally hesitate to speak in terms of destiny and fate, but I need to here… I just recalled a memory (which I repressed, and never shared to anyone): earlier that spring BEFORE I found VT, I remember thinking through thoughts of SUICIDE. They were logical and carefully judged, I remember DECIDING: “Well, I struggle with everything. I am limited in my academic, mental, and social efforts by my weak and confusing and disorienting vision. And I am limited in my physical efforts because of other very painful problems. I don’t SEE a future for myself, it’s not worth it. But, I’ll wait until summer before I decide… Right now I can’t do any of the things I want to do, but maybe something will change. If not I want to die.” I’ve never been a depressed or irrational person, this was simply the logical thought process leading to a conclusion after years of struggle and no family support…
I sometimes wonder “God why couldn’t I have found VT when I was 5 instead of 20?”, my childhood would have been a lot easier. But really, I found VT and Dr. Sanders at the PERFECT and most critical moment in my life: the misty crossroads of evaluating whether to kill myself or to continue into the future. Does it make sense now why I went all in to vt and literally practiced it as much as possible every single day for months? Not surprising, I became totally obsessed with VT, especially as I started to discover BEAUTIFUL RESULTS. Now 6 months later, I am a full time college student studying this stuff and I am able to work for her three days a week! Who would have thought!? (There is no way I could have handled that work load BEFORE VT)
I still struggle, some everyday things are still hard for me visually, but now I have meaning to make it worth it. The struggle is worth it. Besides improving my vision, vt gave me the confidence to ADOPT RESPONSIBILITY and also make plans and try new things that are challenging and MEANINGFUL. For that, I will be forever thankful.
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