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Reading more than 3-4 paragraphs in more than one stretch is usually too hard for me. When I was a kid (plus in university), I just thought I was lazy (also I d

Reading more than 3-4 paragraphs in more than one stretch is usually too hard for me. When I was a kid (plus in university), I just thought I was lazy (also I did not think my eyes had a problem, either). Anyways, I have to get my eyes checked out every year because I have type 1 diabetes, and my print-related disability was missed by ophthalmologists, year after year, until I was diagnosed with a medical problem that affects my peripheral nervous system, that is unrelated to the diabetes. This article may help you with making the reading less of a daunting task. I know it is not easy: https://untappedbrilliance.com/how-to-read-books-when-you-have-adhd/ https://untappedbrilliance.com/how-to-read-books-when-you-ha... You need to get into books. It affects your income (accurate, but not the best visual representation of the data): https://www.statista.com/statistics/896534/number-of-books-consumers-read-per-year-by-income/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/896534/number-of-books-c... [Sorry broken link...a screenshot is here: https://ibb.co/s5SJpHp https://ibb.co/s5SJpHp ] I posted on this thread how I manage to read several books per year, via screen readers. That takes time to get used to. I would recommend Voice Dream Reader, if you are interested. You may want to try audio books via your local library, for just starting out. You can join some libraries in the US for a very nominal fee, if your local one does not have good media databases. That way, you get some of the best media databases of any public library imaginable. Personally, I enjoy history books the most. On Tyranny and Black Earth are the books that got me in to reading. I also love seeing whatever book reviews FinancialTimes.com (subscription site) posted, and I usually will read at least 2 books per week.

dominotw 7y ago
i feel like something weird is going on with my eyes. After staring at a screen for an hour i have hard time focusing them and feels like thye are being pulll out of the eye sockets. Its really hard to describe but not sure what to do about it or how to even describe it. I would like to not use any screens for a couple of month and see if that fixes it but I am unable to make room for that kind of a program.
- disabled 7y ago
  Sorry for the late reply and sorry for this being long. I hope that you see this message. This sounds just like a visual perceptual disability (visual motor deficit), such as convergence insufficiency (which I have), which 13% of children have, or some other form of accommodative dysfunction (or perhaps something else): https://www.bouldervt.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/478/2015/12/227-Course-Handout-CCIRA-2016.pdf https://www.bouldervt.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/478/2015/... I just prefer to use a screen reader to deal with all of this, as it is easy and convenient for me to use, compared to most of those tips. If I am using standard, printed text, I usually use a notecard plus a mechanical pencil (as a stylus) to help me read. Also note that on the bottom of page 3 there is a "sample" of what a visual perceptual disability is like. I do not flip p, d, b, letters, at all, like in the sample, but reading is literally that much work for me. It really is just about that difficult. I usually "detect words" by looking for various patterns of consonants/vowels, instead of actually reading whole words. If you were to read my writing, in general (not necessarily on HN), you would see a lot of duplicate prepositions or missed prepositions in my writing, too. There is a more detailed presentation about this material here, but it may not be as helpful: https://www.bouldervt.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/478/2015/12/CCIRA-2016-course-227.pdf https://www.bouldervt.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/478/2015/... The cause of my convergence insufficiency is actually due to a very rare disease (there are only case reports and cohorts in the medical literature, at best, about it) that affects my autonomic nervous system. My diagnosis story (not an important read), is here: https://rareandextraordinarycom.wordpress.com/2016/05/14/first-blog-post/ https://rareandextraordinarycom.wordpress.com/2016/05/14/fir... Anyways, prior to being diagnosed with the rare disease, I was seeing random ophthalmologists (who are medical doctors) that were not associated with a hospital at a local academic medical center. After I was diagnosed with the rare disease, the ophthalmologist that was works at the hospital (that is tied to a medical school), examined my eyes very closely. Anyways, there are three ways that this rare disease affects my eyes. Most importantly, I have convergence insufficiency. I was referred to a neuro-ophthamologist for this, and there is not much that one can do for convergence insufficiency. They can test out the degree of accommodative dysfunction and quantify it, and give you tips and accommodations for work. Also, actually any ophthamologist/doctor can sign off for things like Bookshare.org/LearningAlly.org/BARD library (https://nlsbard.loc.gov/login//NLS https://nlsbard.loc.gov/login//NLS) which are tremendously helpful if you have something like this. Bookshare is actually the largest digital library in the world, and it is only for people with print-related disabilities. It is a valuable and precious resource. If you cannot get a proper diagnosis even with these tips, then you may want to look for an optometrist who does "vision therapy", at least for the diagnosis. "Vision therapy" is controversial for these reasons, and I do not recommend it, as it is unlikely that it will be covered by your insurance and it is tremendously expensive: https://www.teachingvisuallyimpaired.com/vision-therapy-controversy.html https://www.teachingvisuallyimpaired.com/vision-therapy-cont... If you want to discuss this more, you can email me at secretsquirrel89@protonmail.com

dominotw 7y ago

i feel like something weird is going on with my eyes. After staring at a screen for an hour i have hard time focusing them and feels like thye are being pulll out of the eye sockets. Its really hard to describe but not sure what to do about it or how to even describe it. I would like to not use any screens for a couple of month and see if that fixes it but I am unable to make room for that kind of a program.

disabled 7y ago
Sorry for the late reply and sorry for this being long. I hope that you see this message. This sounds just like a visual perceptual disability (visual motor deficit), such as convergence insufficiency (which I have), which 13% of children have, or some other form of accommodative dysfunction (or perhaps something else): https://www.bouldervt.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/478/2015/12/227-Course-Handout-CCIRA-2016.pdf https://www.bouldervt.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/478/2015/... I just prefer to use a screen reader to deal with all of this, as it is easy and convenient for me to use, compared to most of those tips. If I am using standard, printed text, I usually use a notecard plus a mechanical pencil (as a stylus) to help me read. Also note that on the bottom of page 3 there is a "sample" of what a visual perceptual disability is like. I do not flip p, d, b, letters, at all, like in the sample, but reading is literally that much work for me. It really is just about that difficult. I usually "detect words" by looking for various patterns of consonants/vowels, instead of actually reading whole words. If you were to read my writing, in general (not necessarily on HN), you would see a lot of duplicate prepositions or missed prepositions in my writing, too. There is a more detailed presentation about this material here, but it may not be as helpful: https://www.bouldervt.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/478/2015/12/CCIRA-2016-course-227.pdf https://www.bouldervt.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/478/2015/... The cause of my convergence insufficiency is actually due to a very rare disease (there are only case reports and cohorts in the medical literature, at best, about it) that affects my autonomic nervous system. My diagnosis story (not an important read), is here: https://rareandextraordinarycom.wordpress.com/2016/05/14/first-blog-post/ https://rareandextraordinarycom.wordpress.com/2016/05/14/fir... Anyways, prior to being diagnosed with the rare disease, I was seeing random ophthalmologists (who are medical doctors) that were not associated with a hospital at a local academic medical center. After I was diagnosed with the rare disease, the ophthalmologist that was works at the hospital (that is tied to a medical school), examined my eyes very closely. Anyways, there are three ways that this rare disease affects my eyes. Most importantly, I have convergence insufficiency. I was referred to a neuro-ophthamologist for this, and there is not much that one can do for convergence insufficiency. They can test out the degree of accommodative dysfunction and quantify it, and give you tips and accommodations for work. Also, actually any ophthamologist/doctor can sign off for things like Bookshare.org/LearningAlly.org/BARD library (https://nlsbard.loc.gov/login//NLS https://nlsbard.loc.gov/login//NLS) which are tremendously helpful if you have something like this. Bookshare is actually the largest digital library in the world, and it is only for people with print-related disabilities. It is a valuable and precious resource. If you cannot get a proper diagnosis even with these tips, then you may want to look for an optometrist who does "vision therapy", at least for the diagnosis. "Vision therapy" is controversial for these reasons, and I do not recommend it, as it is unlikely that it will be covered by your insurance and it is tremendously expensive: https://www.teachingvisuallyimpaired.com/vision-therapy-controversy.html https://www.teachingvisuallyimpaired.com/vision-therapy-cont... If you want to discuss this more, you can email me at secretsquirrel89@protonmail.com