Astigmatism and the park

I went to the park today, they have animals there–goats, pigs, emus, different raptors. I went with a friend I see only once a year, and haven’t talked to much lately in the past few months. I regaled him with story upon story of things I’ve been up to, and it felt really nice to talk and look at the animals. And it helped me. I never get to talk to anyone, face-to-face conversation like that, not nice like that. I often get teased or ignored. People think I am very shy because I never talk. It’s true, I am shy, but if I can get started properly, I can talk your ear off! He kept asking me if this was helping, if it was relaxing me. At first I said no, but then my neck popped on both sides, and I told him that he did a really good job, and this was a great outing that really made me happy. I felt really good.
I don’t know if not sharing is better than being teased. It’s odd how it seems more difficult now, when I have become less sensitive.
I guess the conclusion is to have friends that you don’t see very often but still feel comfortable enough with to invite out, that way you can have the gladness of sharing everything. It’s cathartic, even though these are stories that other people have heard, just because I got them all out at once.

Astigmatism! I practiced with a Tibetan wheel today. Like I said, my astigmatism is mild (I think, anyway), at least I feel comfortable in glasses without astigmatism correction. The wheel was fun, I took breaks to palm and did some stretches, and spent some time sitting and focusing on my breathing also. All of these things helped make the wheel blacker and clearer temporarily.
I had a strange pain behind my right eye. A result of using the eye in a new way?
I did the wheel at different distances, 8 feet, 3 feet, and 1 foot. I don’t know if what I’m doing will help with my astigmatism per se, but the act of sitting and relaxing and practicing central fixation, dodging, and closing the eyes to rest them are all positive things.
I’m not sure how the wheel is supposed to work, because the way it is, I can’t even tell from it at what axes I have trouble and how much.
I do stretch my eyes in a clock rotation (look at 9 o clock, 10 o clock, 11 o clock, and so on). I find looking to 2 o clock the most difficult. And I roll my eyes all the way around, it is hard to keep turning when I hit 7 o clock.

I haven’t been running in a few days, I need to remedy that.

Giant E and confusion

TL;DR: thanks to my practice, my vision is the best amongst my sisters; thinking about practicing a dial chart for astigmatism, what do folks think on that?

I haven’t posted in over a month. It’s just not fun to post anymore. I do go on the internet, I have winter break now so I have been keeping up with my Snellen card practice–but posting is sort of a nuisance.
My father was really surprised when I told him about Zenni optical, he ordered some glasses for my sisters off of there. He was happy that they were so cheap.
Both of them needed to pay $9 extra because of the extra strength. One of my sisters has something like -8.25/-8.75, so that’s extra. My other sister has milder myopia than me (-4.00/-5.00?) but has -2.25 astigmatism in one eye (I can’t remember their prescriptions exactly).
I could be like them, but I’m the only one whose prescription is regular strength. My father is confused, “how can anybody get to -9? At -3 or -4 people say you’re blind!”, yet he says needing glasses isn’t a disease. By definition it is…you’re not at ease (relaxed, or even really happy).
I wish I could convince them, but I feel that even if I returned to perfect sight, they still wouldn’t listen to me.

I’m not in perfect health, of course, I suffer a lot from strain and stress that I have been easing into removing by practicing my Snellen chart, palming and running. I can get so dizzy sometimes and my neck is just a killer, plus I have been having trouble with tinnitus.
The only way I really know to remove this is to do my eye stuff, by relaxing I can remove the pain. Running, as exercise, is a stress reliever as well. I wish I had some more potent tools at my side. Well, not that the tools I have aren’t potent, I just don’t know how to use them well enough to make them potent. That’s what I have been learning to do.

I work on the Snellen chart indoors a lot nowadays. It’s not too cold, but sitting outside for a long time is a lot easier when it’s warm.
So I sit in my bedroom, I’m about 7-8 feet away. I can get about 7/30 if it’s daytime, it’s more like 7/50 at night using incandescent light bulbs. What I focus on doing, however, is to keep moving back up to the 200 line (giant E). I tell myself that the important thing is to make sure that I can see the E. Since the chart isn’t a monotonically increasing ability, I can’t always see 7/50, 7/30 or even 7/200. I have to move back up, remind myself of what I’m doing, close my eyes, to clear that E again. The reasons for this is I don’t want to strain myself by forcing onto lower lines (it’s a tool, remember?), and also if I can do this consistently I may be able to see the giant E clearly at the doctor’s office. That’s the 20/400 line, there. Last time I went I ended up on the finger test because I couldn’t clearly see the E. So that would be a giant step up for me.

Also I looked at a dial chart the other day. The lines seemed about equal except for the 90° line (straight vertical). My astigmatism is minor -0.50×170 for right eye -0.75×175 for left eye at last checkup. Of course the treatment is the same as for myopia–relax, do your chart, swing. There are also stereoscopic vision cards, which I’m afraid of. I’m thinking about eliminating the astigmatism because that would help my overall vision and is a little less scary than thinking of overcoming my whole myopia (gotta break it down into smaller goals).
I’m thinking about practicing a dial chart, or a dot chart. It’d be a break from the regular Snellen and interest my brain in a new way. If anyone knows more about this, please let me know!