#which doesn't work for digital art or 2d paper art lol

[werevampiwolf]

I was born with exotropia of the right eye, though not as much to the degree in the picture. I was basically taught as I grew up to move my eyes independently in order to "look normal". It was mentally tiring, but I had done it my whole life and didn't really think about it much.

Then, I took a medication for my neurological issues with a very rare possible side effect of permanent vision loss via damage to the brain or optic nerve. It was rare enough that I wasn't warned of it, but unfortunately I'm someone who tends to get the rare side effects due to having a CYP mutation which effects how my body processes drugs. I ended up blind in my right eye. I was still fairly young, maybe 18, and my brain was still plastic enough that I got some of my vision back, at least enough to see movement and light, after I'd stopped taking that medication.

But it took more than four years to get to that point, and in the meantime, since I couldn't see out of my eye anyway, I stopped bothering with trying to keep my eyes aligned, and now I have exotropia again. And I have very much noticed an uptick of people treating me like a toddler, or otherwise making assumptions that I have a limited capacity to understand even simple concepts (like how money works), and I can only guess it's because they think I'm intellectually disabled, which I am not. I am developmentally disabled though, and I have been my whole life, but people haven't always acted this way. It's just been since my exotropia came back.

So I can very much vouch for the fact that people treat people who are "wall-eyed" differently. I've even noticed that when I wear my sunglasses, which are mirrored wrap-arounds, I get treated more like I used to. Granted, I have other facial features people tend to associate with "stupid" cartoon characters, which are also common for people with Down Syndrome (I have a face that's: disproportionately small for my head with a large forehead, wide-spaced almond-shaped eyes, a flat face, and a small chin and mouth) I had figured that that was why people were treating me differently, but my face has always looked like this, except for my eyes.

(I have enough of the physical features associated with Down Syndrome that I've sometimes wondered if I do actually have Down Syndrome, and my parents never told me. That would be in-character for them. They very much did not want me to be tested for autism, which I do have, because they didn't want to have to accept that "something is wrong with me".)

what if we stopped giving characters strabismus as a funny joke. what if we stopped? what if we stopped. what if we stopped

why the fuck do i even need to say this. "it's googly eyes" no, real people look like that. and you know they do. i know you know they do

ID: a graphic titled "strabismus (misaligned eyes) by Cleveland Clinic. there are 4 types of strabismus, each represented by a drawing of a person with it.

Hypotropia: eye points downward.

Exotropia: eye points outward.

Hypertropia: eye points upward.

Esotropia: eye points inward.

end ID