floracia
09-11-16, 17:21
Hi!
So I'm 16 years old, I've always had perfect vision, never needed glasses, never damaged my eyes or had any visual problems (aside from the auras I get before migraines). I have severe GAD and recently have been experiencing particularly high stress levels due to school etc. Last night I felt intensely uneasy and just plain 'weird' which is the best way I can describe it, as if I was on the brink of losing my mind. I knew it was my anxiety (had felt like that before) so I'd tried to distract myself and did succeed in calming down for about an hour or so. I'd been getting this recurring fear that I was about to have a seizure (despite not being epileptic) and as I sat on my bed after pacing manically around my house with my headphones in to burn off the anxious energy, I noticed a slight flashing in my vision (and I knew from hypochondria-fuelled research that flashing lights were a symptom of a seizure). Instantly the panic rose and suddenly I became hypersensitive to all the little flashing, jolting patterns in my eyes, which seemed to be intensified. I freaked out thinking I was going blind. For the rest of the evening I had 'visual snow'. It was HORRIBLE. And when I awoke in the morning it hadn't gone! Although it wasn't severe during the day, now it's the evening and the light levels are low the visual snow is worse. It's not the only odd visual thing I've been experiencing, here are some others:
- jolting vision (especially in my peripheral vision after I blink)
- random flashes
- trembling vision
Could these be created by my anxiety? After googling about visual snow it appears that it's quite rare and none of the known causes really apply to me. I'm basically after some reassurance that it's psychosomatic? Or maybe just an exaggeration of my normal vision that I'm noticing more because I'm hypersensitive to it. Has anyone got any similar experiences? Thank you !
:) (By the way my eyesight itself hasn't been impaired, I can still see things clearly, it's just this awful veil of flashing dots like a TV static over everything!)
So I'm 16 years old, I've always had perfect vision, never needed glasses, never damaged my eyes or had any visual problems (aside from the auras I get before migraines). I have severe GAD and recently have been experiencing particularly high stress levels due to school etc. Last night I felt intensely uneasy and just plain 'weird' which is the best way I can describe it, as if I was on the brink of losing my mind. I knew it was my anxiety (had felt like that before) so I'd tried to distract myself and did succeed in calming down for about an hour or so. I'd been getting this recurring fear that I was about to have a seizure (despite not being epileptic) and as I sat on my bed after pacing manically around my house with my headphones in to burn off the anxious energy, I noticed a slight flashing in my vision (and I knew from hypochondria-fuelled research that flashing lights were a symptom of a seizure). Instantly the panic rose and suddenly I became hypersensitive to all the little flashing, jolting patterns in my eyes, which seemed to be intensified. I freaked out thinking I was going blind. For the rest of the evening I had 'visual snow'. It was HORRIBLE. And when I awoke in the morning it hadn't gone! Although it wasn't severe during the day, now it's the evening and the light levels are low the visual snow is worse. It's not the only odd visual thing I've been experiencing, here are some others:
- jolting vision (especially in my peripheral vision after I blink)
- random flashes
- trembling vision
Could these be created by my anxiety? After googling about visual snow it appears that it's quite rare and none of the known causes really apply to me. I'm basically after some reassurance that it's psychosomatic? Or maybe just an exaggeration of my normal vision that I'm noticing more because I'm hypersensitive to it. Has anyone got any similar experiences? Thank you !
:) (By the way my eyesight itself hasn't been impaired, I can still see things clearly, it's just this awful veil of flashing dots like a TV static over everything!)