From Vision Therapy Mom to Patient: Diane Krebs on Brain Balance and Recovery

In this episode, Denise speaks with writer and architect Diane Krebs, whom she met at a writing retreat in Pennsylvania, about two very different experiences with vision therapy—first as a parent, and later as a patient herself.

Diane shares how her young son benefited from active vision therapy to address reading difficulties, coordination challenges, and sensory overload—long before vision therapy was widely discussed. Years later, Diane found herself seeking care after long COVID symptoms and imaging revealed evidence of multiple traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). That journey led her into passive, lens-based vision therapy, along with craniosacral work.

Diane reflects on how these approaches supported not only visual and brain balance, but also emotional resilience, confidence, and clearer boundaries in daily life. This episode highlights how vision therapy can look very different depending on the person—and why healing is often a whole-body process.

Resources mentioned: Craniosacral therapy, Bal-A-Vis-X, passive vision therapy (therapuetic lenses, syntonics).

Diane's doctor is Dr. Amy Thomas at Arizona Vision Therapy Center: https://www.azvisiontherapy.com/

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Website: https://healingmysight.com

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Transcript

Denise: Welcome today to the Healing Our Sight podcast. I'm your host, Denise Allen, and I have here with me today my new friend, Diane Krebs. We met last week at a writing retreat and workshop in Pennsylvania. And it's so exciting to bring her on today and share what we talked about there and a little bit about her vision therapy experience. I know everyone thinks I meet people all the time that have had vision therapy. I guess it's true. And Diane's a testament to that. So, she is actually in the middle of her book writing experience. She's drawing parallels between the practice of architecture and creating a life that works because she's an architect. And we'll get into more of that as we go through her whole experience. So welcome today, Diane.

Diane: Thank you. Thank you. I'm, I'm excited to be here. This is going to be a lot of fun because we've already had so many great conversations in between our whole writing retreat and. Which was a great, great experience. And soon I'll have a book out, and soon so will you. So, it's, of course, a lot of very different topics. But then again, it's just so interesting how when you shared your book topic, I was like, oh, wait, vision therapy. And you were so surprised that I knew what vision therapy was. And the funniest thing is my son did vision therapy when he was six years old for a year. And that was 19 years ago. So just imagine, 19 years ago, Vision therapy, it was actually kind of challenging. My in-laws were like, what type of therapy is this? But yet they didn't really want to learn what it was. And for me, it was like an amazing experience for him to, you know, basically watch him change as he went through it all. And then later I, and we'll get into that story. But then I got to experience myself, but in a different way. So, the. vision therapy he did was, I think, what I'd call active vision therapy. There were a lot of activities and exercises. The vision therapy that I ended up doing was passive vision therapy, which was with glasses and lenses, colored lenses and, and all of that. So. And actually for a very different reason was my vision therapy than was his vision therapy. So, it's interesting.

Denise: I think a lot of the people who've listened to me talk about vision therapy previously have the idea that all of it is active. I haven't really talked to people who have done a more passive type of vision therapy. So, this is going to be interesting today. So, tell us how you actually even found vision therapy in 2004?

Diane: Yeah, actually that's about what it was.

Denise: I mean, I was googling it on the Internet and found it, but it seems like it would have been more difficult back in 2004 than it was a few years later.

Diane: Well, what I've learned in my life is, and you're an example, is I bump into people that give me information. It's just, it's fascinating. So, I was having a lot of issues with my son and his schooling. So, first grade he went to a public school, so local public school. Oh, it's a good school, you know. Anyway, he went there and it was, there was a lot of problems because prior to him going to school for first grade, he had been at a lot of different preschools. But I have to start actually from the beginning because I think it's connected. I'm not really sure how, but I, I know it is. So, my son, first of all, he was, I was, I developed like preeclampsia and I was on bed rest for a month. He came a month early. He was pretty little when he was born. He was six pounds. And then I didn't produce any milk. He didn't grow. It was challenging. I was like, oh my gosh, nobody told me about any of this when having a baby. But he thrived. He started walking at 10 months old. He was talking, he was saying words like dada and moon and flower. And then by the time he was a year old, he had just stopped talking. And at the one-year doctor visit, oh no, you know, he's fine. And I'm like, I don't know. So, then we go to the 15-month visit. Oh no, you know, he's fine. And then we're at the 18th month visit and I'm like, he still isn't talking. He's quiet, mute, like, just not saying anything, you know, because it sort of petered down. So, he went for an ear exam and then the pediatrician said, well, let's just schedule it with a speech therapist. So, they did a whole analysis. And even though he's 18 months old, he had the vocabulary of a 9-month-old, which is grunting or you know, he didn't really barely do that, which was very interesting because I still sort of knew what he needed or wanted. And so, he was put into a whole series of programs. And this, I lucked out from his preschool. They already sort of were working with kids and they had a lot of programs for kids prior to the age of three. So, he did speech therapy, and then they put him in occupational therapy. Then he did physical therapy. And it turned out the label they were able to give him was sensory integration disorder. So, he did a ton of sensory exercises, which was kind of fun actually. You know, buying a big giant piece of fabric that like a bathing suit and wrapping them up like a burrito and swinging them around and stuff like that. And, you know, I had an air mattress for him to jump on, but even if it was up against the wall, he would run into it and bounce off. And so, he didn't though, really start actually talking. He did all of these things through his preschool, other activities. But at the same time, the occupational therapist said he needs to see Dr. Peters for cranial sacral therapy. So, he started doing that also. And that apparently, according to Dr. Peters, because he was a C section baby, you know, there were issues with different things. And he would, like one time we were, I don't know, at an amusement park and he was on the stride, he was banging around. Then he started getting all of these like sort of ticks and, you know, banging his head and acting kind of odd. And then we went another ride and he got, he’d bang around, then he was okay, you know, but then other things would come up, and we'd see Dr. Peters and he'd straighten him back out again. So, it was really just an interesting process. But the vision, or the services that were all provided by the state ended at the age of three because he did not have two deficiencies. So, when he ended, he just had issues with fine motor control and also interacting with others. But they couldn't label him as autistic because he was very connected to me emotionally. Eye contact, all of that. He just was kind of doing his own thing all the time. So, you know, he continues on with preschool and different schools. And I put him in for first grade public school. And apparently every day the teacher would allow the kids to scream for five minutes, and he would go under his chair, under his table and hold his ears and, and hide like from the screaming noise. And because he couldn't handle it. It was sensory overload. The other interesting thing is like, he basically was able to do like algebra, but he couldn't read. The teacher didn't understand, like why he had so much trouble reading. And I didn't understand either. And then he got lost in the desert. They'd have a 15-minute break every morning. And apparently, he took off wandering in the desert. And in the afternoon, you know, I learned about it, but I didn't learn any details, like how long was he gone and when did you notice he was not in the room after the 15-minute break. And then he punched somebody in the stomach at the lunchroom because there was too much noise. So, he's a big kid and he was a big boy when he was young. And I thought, this is not good. And, you know, I don't want him just inadvertently hurting somebody because of his own issues of whatever it was. So, I pulled him out and he went to all these different schools and nothing was really working. And he was in a Waldorf school, and they had problems with him in the first grade, but then they would put him in the fifth grade class and they wouldn't have any problems with him. And I'm thinking, okay, well, this really isn't working either. And so, he basically, like, every few days I have to come pick him up because they're like, you know, we don't know what to do with him. Well, one day I went to pick him up and I ran into a mom who was dropping something off for her son. And she's like, you know, what's going on? Like, why are you picking your son up? And I told her, I'm like. And she said, maybe you need to try vision therapy. I was like, what is she talking about, vision therapy? And so, I thought, you know, at this point I was like, I need to figure something out, so let's see what it's about. So, she had explained that they had like a, you know, a consult. It wasn't free, you'd pay, but they would analyze and figure out, you know, some things that were going on. So, I did. I scheduled the appointment, brought him in, and he did all these activities that  I didn't understand, like, what they were looking for. So, it's very interesting for me because while he was doing all the other physical therapy and speech therapy, to me it was just like, fascinating to learn and watch and to learn, like, what to do with him and, you know, what not to do and that sort of stuff. And so, then I came back for the whole evaluation and basically they said, there's a bunch of things going on. Number one, his eyes were not tracking, so he would read. But then he'd get to the end of the line to the right, and he wouldn't know, you know, to go back to the left. So, he would want to drop down and so he'd get all confused with reading. So, he could get a certain distance and then wouldn't make it very far. And then he wasn't,  he couldn't. Like, what they called it was crossing the midline. So, he couldn't. He had trouble doing something with one hand and the other hand, and he couldn't ride a bike like we couldn't. He just couldn't ride a bike. He couldn't. He would try to shoot a basket, but he'd never make it. He'd get picked on at school, you know, because he couldn't shoot baskets. So, they recommended certain things. So, I think it was. I don't know if we had to go there once or twice a week, but we went and we had daily sessions where he would do things, but then every single day, we had homework. I had to have him read letters on a card and then have that, you know, same card up on the refrigerator. So, he would read up close and then read far away. Read up close, read far away. And what I learned is because he walked so early, 10 months old, he was up and not even wobbling. He was running and climbing. By the time he was a year, he didn't crawl. So, because he hardly crawled, he didn't learn those things that the brain needs when you crawl, which is so amazing, you know, you don't. You don't realize how important crawling is and just moving. We had to do Superman, and we had to activities as if you were crawling. And he had trouble, and he still has a little trouble now with what they called sequencing. So, he would have to sit and, like, tap his knee and stomp his foot and say the Alphabet. And he couldn't. He'd get to, like, D, E, F, and he'd get all confused. But he'd also be like,. why am I like, he would know it, but he wouldn't be able to do it. And this came up in, like, he couldn't do a locker. You know, when you went to school and you had a locker with a. you had to go in one direction to a number, the other direction, and he couldn't do that. And I've seen it. One year when he came home for Christmas with some friends, he was making Maryland crab cakes because he went to college in Baltimore, and he was having trouble following the recipe. He would get through a certain part, and then he'd be like, come on, guys, help me. I'm kind of losing focus here. Like, I got everything chopped up, but I don't know what to do next. And I'm just watching, like, ah, this is interesting. So, we did that for a year. And there were so many different things we had to do, like homework every night and activities. And then I put him in a very small school that were, you know, so we had flexibility with homework. We didn't have any homework. And, you know, taking them out, bringing them back for when he'd have to do the vision therapy. And after a year, they wanted to put him into, like, a group class. But by that time, there was a new vision therapist. And it turned out I went to high school with her, and it was like, you know, again, I bumped into somebody who. And she. Then she pulled me aside and she said, look, he doesn't have to go into this class. He's doing really well, but there's a few things you need to learn about. And she introduced to me to something called b, which is bow for ball, A for audio, V for vision. And X is basically. Oh, I think it was. Bout no, bow is balanced. X I think had to do with the way you use the ball. And again, it was this crossing the midline type of activity. And so, I went. I did this weekend. I learned all about it. And you worked with this ball first with beanbags and then with a ball, and it was, you know, tossing the beanbag in one hand. The next person catches it, and then they toss it the other way, and you cross it over and then you do the same with the ball. And. And it's a way to get everybody Well, the person you're working with balanced and recalibrated and calmed down and to get both sides of the brain working. Because what this guy learned is that a lot of students, if one side of the brain wasn't up to speed and it was the weaker side, they would be stressed and not be able to do a test properly. So, like, they might be a very intelligent child, but due to the panic of, like, taking an exam, forget it. They would just not be able to properly test. So, this was being taught to a whole bunch of teachers and therapists. And so, it was really cool. So, I did that a lot with my son. And I also did it when. Then he went to another school. And I was able to kind of step in, like when they had recess. And then I also. They didn't have art, so I came in there and also did art. And then, you know, if somebody was still on art project, I'd give them the balls and tell them to go outside and practice with their bouncing, that sort of stuff. So, it was interesting. And he's now in grad school. He's, you know, He's top of his class. He just won another award that he submitted at the beginning of the summer, he'll be going to Munich, Germany. And he basically, his major. He's getting. This is so fascinating. He's getting a master's of science in Sports Product Design. It was a course, a program developed by Nike, Adidas, Keen, and one other company because they needed people to learn, you know, about the whole sports product industry so then they could find people and hire them to keep up. You know, the sneakers and the backpacks and the tents, all the things he's been, like, fascinated with since he was little. He was always drawing sneakers. And so, yeah, so he's. And he doesn't even. He loves shoes and sneakers and all that. But then he did apparel, and he was like, oh, this is fun too. And. And then they got into equipment and he designed a backpack. He's like, I don't know what I want to focus on. I said, well, you know, this time, you know, next year you graduate, then you'll. You'll see what happens. You know, where you want to work and what you want to do. So that's just been a whole interesting thing with him. 

Denise: He kind of created his job based on his own interests, right?

Diane: He did. He did. Because the high school he went to, their focus was on math and science. So, everybody went to college, you know, for math and science. And I'm like, you already, like, did college level AP math and science stuff. You don't need to do that again, like, you know, what do you really want to do? It's like, oh, you know, I want to do photography. I'm like, you already know how to do photography. You know, he's like, well, I. I want to design sneakers. Well, then figure that out. So, it actually was something within the con, the topic of industrial design. So, he did that. But then the school he went to developed a program on product design, so. And he didn't know, like, the. The program he's in now is only four years old. So, it didn't exist when he was looking to go to college to know that there was that opportunity. So.

Denise: Right, yeah, yeah. It sounds like it was just created for him.

Diane: You know, it feels like that same thing Even in between, you know, graduating from college and going to grad school. He got into grad school in Oslo, Norway, but his father didn't want him going. And then he ended up getting a job at REI, you know, the recreational equipment company, and he became their shoe expert. It was perfect.

Denise: Cool. Yea. That is perfect. I wanted to talk a little bit more about the cranial sacral piece that you mentioned at the beginning, because I have heard people talking about it or read people discussing it in some of the vision support groups on Facebook and stuff. How did that play into what he needed in order to progress to, you know, where he got to at the end there? Is that something that the vision therapy people would recommend as well, or that's just what you found on your own? Because I've seen people putting those pieces together before, I guess, is where I'm going with that.

Diane: Well, what's interesting to me, as I look back, is that because he was doing the occupational therapy, the referral to doing craniosacral work was from the occupational therapist. Although we were doing Kindernusik class, and everybody would sit in a circle, and one day he just decided he wanted to run in circles around the circle and not participate, you know. And so, somebody pulled me aside and said, he needs craniosacral work. And I was like, okay, that's two people.

Denise: Let's do this.

Diane: But while he was doing vision therapy, there was no recommendation about craniosacral. It was kind of like the two things were happening side by side, because I continued with him from age 2, about 2 and a half, until about 10, 11 years old with the craniosacral. So, it was. It was very regular when he was young, and then it was just as needed as he got older.

Denise: Can you describe it a little bit for people who've never experienced anything to do with that, what that entails?

Diane: So, for him, when he was young, because the doctor, he was a do, he would share exactly what was going on, what he was doing. He had models of skeletons and diagrams and all of that. So basically, for my son, he had a twist like his head and then torso, and everything was twisted from. So, a normal birthday, the body goes through a certain movement, then it adjusts itself as it comes out. So, a C-section there. Isn't that natural progression of the body moving a certain way. It's like the opposite, so it gets twisted the wrong way. So, he basically was continually untwisting his body, and it seemed to me like it would then get sort of knocked out of sorts at certain times. Like, I remember once, like, he banged his head, and he was. He was kind of walking funny and doing things. And the occupational therapist noticed and said, you know, make another appointment with Dr. Peters. Like ASAP to get him like realigned. What was interesting too with the occupational therapy is that he had trouble like aligning things, like putting things, you know, like the peg into a hole. Unless he was moving, like they would move him and then he could put the things. But if he was still, he would have trouble with it. So, I think that there was something like within the body, you know, and the brain and what it perceived. And from my point of view, and the other interesting thing is like he got into playing like T-ball and then little league and he had potential, like to be a pitcher, which in my family baseball is pretty big. And my father had an opportunity to potentially go and play minor league and things happened. He didn't go. But my brother, even, my nephew right now is looking at colleges and you know, it's there. He's looking at getting scholarships in connection with his baseball and pitching. So, my son had potential towards, you know, being a good pitcher. But he just like things were assumed to be always like off. Like he'd be on but then off. And I didn't continue with any craniosacral when he was in high school and junior high when he was playing baseball. But basketball, he then he got good at. So, he kind of focused more on basketball than baseball. So, I sometimes wonder if I didn't do more with the craniosacral, if he then would have been a better picture. I don't know. You know, it's not that. So just want to be clear on.

Denise: So I just want to be clear on what we're talking about with the adjustment. So, it's like a doctor of osteopathy would do that type of an adjustment and it's different than a chiropractor would do.

Diane: Oh, okay. Yes. You know what, let me then share more about that. So basically, he sometimes he would do an adjustment similar to a chiropractor, but it seemed more gentle. But he. But what I learned is he's really sort of just like loosening up different areas that might. Then he could go in to do the craniosacral adjustment. So. Craniosacral. So, a friend who's visiting from Canada, she just saw a local craniosacral person here and it sounded more like energy work. Like the person just put their hand at the base of her sacrum, lower spine area, and then like touched her neck in a certain way. Well, Dr. Peters, I've been working with him now also in connection with my vision therapy that I did. And it's very different. He is, he and there were times he just, he would be twisting, you know, my jaw in one way and another. He'd be moving an arm a certain way and he'd be pushing on my torso. Like to me it was. And I could feel it. Like he, he would turn, he'd put one hand in one direction, one hand the other, and like twist my torso. And I would then feel like down my right leg, something, or he would do something, and I'd feel it up in my left. Like, so, there's all these connections. Like, I had an injury on my left knee, which it was somehow coming up to my right hip. And you know, it's like crisscrosses and traverses the body and I just, I don't, I don't really know how it works. Like, to me it's kind of like magic. Like, how does he know where to go to do what it needs to do? But then he pulls out this book of all these diagrams to show the interconnectedness of the body. Which reminds me that, like, well, duh, of course, you know, if something happens in one spot, it will be connected somewhere else. And I think it's true of the brain, you know, like, what's going on with the brain is also connected because I noticed during my, Which we'll get into in a little bit. But, you know, there were different things going on with my body that got cleared. So, it's a, it's a really subtle, A subtle type of therapy that to me it has longer lasting effects. Like you might want to go for a massage, and you know, it feels good and. But, you know, but then you got, you need to kind of keep going. Whereas the cranial sacral, at some point you've readjusted a certain part that, you know, needed to be readjusted. But then something else comes in. Like, I feel like the two years now that I've been doing the craniosacral, I'm on an injury that happened when I was 14. So, I'm hoping like another six months I'll move through maybe injury points I didn't even know about and, you know, not have any more problems.

Denise: Yeah, so, it's just integrating all of the body in a way that heals those things that happened to. To put the body in disarray earlier on.

Diane: Yeah. And it, and it's like there's like different. So, there's different horizontal connections and vertical connections. And then of course, the spine is a major player, you know, and then the nerves and different things. Like, I Had a neck injury from 2012 from being rear ended. And it would, like, linger. It would go away, it'd come back, go away, come back. And it's just been so nice now. It's, like, been totally gone. But, you know, I think it was also connected with my brain and maybe other injuries with my brain. So. Right.

Denise: Let's just wrap that up a little bit, I think.

Diane: Okay.

Denise: How long were you in therapy, Vision therapy with your son?

Diane: So, with my son, it was just over a year. And so, it was a year he was in this school. Then he went there for another year, and then he moved into another school. And I kept thinking that he still had some issues. And then when he was at this other school, because I warned the teacher this and that, and after a couple months, she's like, I don't know what you're talking about. He has no problems. He's fine. He's even more, more fine than some of the other kids. And, and there are a lot of things I learned. Like, if he has foods with red dye, he becomes, like, hyperactive and angry. So, I was like, look, don't, you know, he knows. We basically learned, like, what to have and what not to have. And so, then he was fine. So, when he. In fifth grade, he went to a school that was basically like a hot. Like, it was almost like they would accept anybody. But, you know, not everybody was able to stay in the school because in fifth grade, oh, my gosh, they did geometry, Latin, you know, science, English literature. It was crazy. Like, every 50 minutes, they would have five minutes to change classes, and they'd have to have what they called a communication journal. And I was so worried about him being in that school but he did great and he was fine and, you know, everything was good. And. And the other thing I was going to say is that he finally can ride a bike. So, he, he learned, you know, he's kind of practicing and he learned he bought a bike when he went when he moved to Portland for grad school. And he's been on the bike and fitting in with everybody. So he, you know, he's good. He's. He basically. And this was something too, in the. The speech therapist. You know, I was saying when he was little, like, like, why are we doing all this? And she said, we need people to be productive out in society. You know, we want them to be productive and a contributor to, you know, life, their life and the life of others. So, you know, that's kind of. That's all we can Hope for basically this when there's issues.

Denise: Yeah, that is awesome. So, when you ended up in vision therapy yourself, how. How did that transpire? What caused you to go back to that?

Diane: Well, I didn't. I didn't think when I even heard the suggestion, you know, why don't you look into vision therapy? That it even applied to me. But what happened was during the whole pandemic, my work as an architect, I have my own business, got kind of slow the beginning of 2020. And I thought, gosh, I don't know what's going on, but I need to figure something else out. And I thought, well, wouldn't it be interesting to work at a construction company, maybe commercial construction? And of course, things, you know, you just put that thought out there. And I don't know how my. I sent my resume out to a few big companies, and somebody called up, and it wasn't anyone I sent a resume to. And they. They were looking for supervisors. So, I interviewed and I'm like, I don't know if this is right for me as supervisor. And they said, well, we'll see. We're doing a lot of different interviews. And then a couple weeks later, they said, well, you know, we really need a project manager. I said, yeah, that's what I'm looking for, project manager. I don't want to be a supervisor. Anyway, I started like the week before everything shut down, and it was great. I mean, it will. You know, everybody's home, cleaning out their closets, and I'm literally, you know, doing my architecture work in the evening and every day going out to job sites telling men what to do, which was interesting. And it was super busy. It was so busy because there are these buildings that were, you know,  they were empty, so they were ready to be renovated and all sorts of things, you know, for the future. But of course, what happened? Half the company got Covid six months later, including myself. And it was really weird. It was. I didn't have any respiratory problems. It was. It was just. It felt like a blood poisoning. And a few months later, I still was not like, recovering. I didn't have my energy. I tired, you know, it became the long Covid issue, which, like two and a half years later, I'm finally feeling better. So, I. I contacted a. naturopath that I had known like 15 years ago, cause I was looking for some alternatives. Like, what. What are my options? So, we did a bunch of blood work and my father had recently passed away from Lewy Body Dementia. And she said, While you're working this construction job and you've got great health insurance, let's do all this blood work and have an MRI and get a baseline on your brain. Lewy Body is hereditary. I was like, okay, fine. So, we did that, and the blood work came back, and it turned out I had chronic walking pneumonia, bacterial pneumonia, which I didn't even know.

Denise: Oh

Diane: But that was what was, you know, that well. And I also had the antibodies for the COVID So. So basically, you know, I worked with a. like, an herbal protocol to rebuild my mitochondria. So, we had this, like, three-hour, like, session going over all my blood work. Everything else was fine. But she says to me, you know, we get to my brain scan, and she says to me, you didn't tell me that you had TBIs. And I'm like, what. What's a TBI? And she said, traumatic brain injuries, plural. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And so, we're looking, you know, we're doing a zoom meeting, and. And we're looking at my brain scan, and she's like, well, this area here, the right side of your brain is. Is only at 40% capacity. And then your amygdala is only at 4% capacity. And then over here and there, like, she's pointing all these areas that are damaged. And she said, what? I don't understand, like, how you. You didn't know about this. Like, what. What did you do? And I'm like, I don't. I don't know what I did. I said, well, I did play three years of varsity soccer. And she said, do you know they have Alzheimer's homes for soccer players, retired soccer players? I'm like, what does that mean? And she's like, playing soccer, that's like brain injury central. And I was like, yeah, I actually scored some goals with my head. And then I remember that I had. Somebody broke their nose. I played left wing, and somebody broke their nose up against the right side of my head, and that was the area most damaged. And then I remembered I fell off a horse and landed on a rock on the right side of my head. And I. One time, sixth grade, went sleigh riding to the bus stop and fell off the sled and hit the ice. And my head swelled to the point where the teacher noticed and walked me to the nurse's office, you know, because he was afraid something was going to happen. So, she said to me, why you should consider vision therapy and go see Dr. Thomas and get checked out. And I said, why would I do that? And so, this doctor, she knew me during my divorce and other things. And then also we had spoken about some of the odd things that were going on with people, which remind me, we're going to get to this, about the guy with, with the eye and. Versus the woman with the eye, because that's what was going on. And so, she said to me, maybe you, because of your brain and, and what's happened to it, you don't have the ability to recognize people that are not good for you, that you shouldn't maybe work with, or you. You don't know the, the cues or the signals, or you're not listening properly, or you're not. Like there's. There's something that your brain isn't processing properly. So, I thought, okay, I'll think about this. And. And a few months later, I finally called, I made an appointment, I went in, and the first thing I had to do is read a children's story and answer some questions. And I answered them wrong. And she's like, oh, okay, let's. Let's try a different story. She gives me another story, and I still didn't really answer them, the questions properly. So, she said, okay, let's move on to the next activity. So, we did all these different activities, which. Of which I didn't have any idea of what any of it meant because it was all on the computer. Whereas my son, when he did his testing, they were different things of movement, walking and drawing and putting things in things or picking stuff up or moving it to somewhere. And, you know, all of that. So, this is all like computer type stuff. But one of the most interesting things, the last thing I did was there was a tablet and I had a stylus in my right hand and my left hand, and there were all these little fruit shapes on one side. So, on the bottom would be an apple and on the top would be an apple. And then I would have to take each hand, the stylus, and bring them to the center of the tablet and do that with all of them. And so, she’s like. . .

Denise:  draw a line that connects them. Is that what you mean?

Diane: Right, yeah. So, you'd bring one from above, one from below, and bring them to the center, but then you'd move through. So, like in the middle, the two would be lined up. You'd bring them in then. So, we. She's like, oh, let's see. How did you do something like that? Yeah, so, you know, she's like, let's see how you did. And she removes some cover or something. And basically I created a perfect circle where they all met in a circle. None of them met in the center. And I later learned that was basically like both sides of my brain are working independently. They're not, there's no, nothing's meeting in the middle.

Denise: They're not connecting.

Diane: Yeah, right. So, so that was interesting. So, then I was, I was, I was really like, oh my gosh, there's something going on here. So, when I met with Dr. Thomas, basically it was interesting because like, I was expecting to get into all sorts of nitty gritties about stuff, but there was actually just a big theme that was apparent. And what was going on was the right side of my brain had been so damaged that it overcompensated. So, it overcompensated. And because it did, the left side of the brain took a backseat. So, when the right side of the brain basically is over-active, of course the rights to the brain is, you know, creativity and imagination and concepts and all of that stuff. But for me, and actually what it also meant is I was a doormat. I was just like, okay, you know, people pleaser, I'll do whatever you want. Like the left side of the brain of logic and concepts and reality and like, you know, the stand up for yourself had taken a back seat to the right side. And that's how I was living my life and why I feel I was dealing with so many challenging people, including, you know, former husband. And just, you know, I just didn't. It was, you know, they say  the left side is the masculine side and the right side's the feminine side. And for, and it just felt like I didn't have any balls, you know, I just, it was like the left side just didn't exist. So, what had happened and I didn't. And it's only now it's only been two months that I finished like a two-year process of this passive vision therapy. And it was just fascinating, like all of the things that I went through, like emotionally, physically, mentally, like all, all of it. And now it's kind of like I didn't, you know, I didn't get to a certain point that they thought I would get because the body just wasn't ready to release the trauma, you know, of whatever, all of it. But I got to a point where my right side of my brain is more balanced with the left side of my brain. And, and how that has shown up for me is two months ago I fired a client. You know, he was trying to get me to do work for nothing. And I would do some things, and I'd be like, give him an invoice. And he would ignore it and say, oh, well, I have other work for you. I'm going to refer you. Nothing would happen. And then one day, you know, I had the invoice in my back pocket. Like, if he was going to pay the invoice, I would keep working with him. But if he wasn't, I was like, okay, that's it. I'm done. And that's literally what I said to him. You know, him, the contractor. I said, you guys are all set. You're on your own. I'm done. I walked away. And I haven't, you know, had. Had anything with it. And the same thing. I had a client, you know, he didn't tell me that he had a flat tire. I go, I wait. Waste of time. Oh, can we meet again tomorrow? Nope. I'm sorry. . I'm not interested. It's like, I can't work with you, you know, so, I've gotten. And of course, now I'm finally writing my book. So that's like another, like, you know, positive that has come out of it.

And Dr. Thomas, basically what she said is, she's like, you know, you were. You're in this sort of passive, meek, you know, like. Like standing back, and now you're forward, and, you know, you're more. It's not like I'm more aggressive. I'm just more, you know, I'm not. I'm not taking it from anybody anymore.

Denise: You’re a balanced person now. Right?

Diane: Yeah. So, it's really been good, but it was just fascinating. I have a package of lenses, all colors and things, and. Yeah, so.

Denise: So, was it syntonics then with the colored lenses?

Diane: And see, this is where, like, I. When I look back, I think, you know, I would have appreciated more specifics on the technicalities of everything. It was different prism lenses, different colors. One time I had a little, like. It looked like a piece of tape up in the upper corner of a lens. And it was so interesting because when I got that lens, it was just on the left eye. And I'm driving home, I kept noticing my eye kept looking up, looking up, hitting that, and then looking back, hitting it, looking back. So. And it was fascinating the way she. She did the process. It was basically like a form of kinesiology where, like, she would put a lens combination on me, and then she would hold out her finger and she'd Say, okay, close your eyes. And then touch my finger. Well, it was so weird because sometimes I would miss her finger. I didn't know what. And that meant that lens combination wasn't working. And she'd work through the lenses until I actually touched her finger three times in different locations. So that said to her, my body was accepting these lenses. Then she would pull out a bell, and she'd ring the bell, and I would have to touch the bell, and. And she had a high bell and a low bell. And then she'd shift some things again. And then another time, she's like, did you also damage the back of your brain? And I'm like, yeah, I had a couple of weird falls. One, you know, sitting on a concrete wall and falling into a stairwell when I was, like, 10 years old. And so there was. But she didn't. It was almost. I think, in the end it was good. Like, she didn't get into a lot of the specifics, but I would have appreciated some of the specifics, you know, about what's going on. And one time there was someone else she brought in, had seen me, who was then training someone, and they were trying to get me to get into the dark, the real dark lenses. And my body just was rejecting it.. And she told the woman in training, like, nope, the body's not ready. We don't force it. You know, someday it might be, but someday it won't be. And it just never. I just never got there. And I, for whatever reason, just don't need to go there.

Denise: Okay. And now you feel like you're healed from those traumatic brain injuries, then?

Diane: Yeah.

Denise: As much as you can be right now, anyway.

Diane: As much as I can. And, you know, my life is, you know, shifted for the better. And I was sharing this with a friend that I visited after the writing retreat, and. And she said to me, I wonder, like, how your life would have been if you didn't have these brain injuries or they had been treated sooner when you were younger.

Denise: Yeah.

Diane: And I thought, gosh, I don't know. Because she's like, you're an architect. How do you do that? I said, I don't know. You know, so it's like, was this just part of the plan, what I. Whatever I needed to do or, you know, it's. interesting. And I'm. It's really. It's kind of challenging, too, to find information like my amygdala, you know, 4% capacity. Well, I know exactly how it got damaged, and that is, I was helping my father shovel dirt. I was like 4 years old, and he hit me by accident right here with the shovel. So, I have like a little scar and right behind there.

Denise: Explain to the listeners where you're pointing right now when you say, oh, so the shovel hit you right there.

Diane: Right, right at. On my nose, in line with my eyes is the bridge of my nose, and right behind that in the brain is the amygdala. So, my theory is like, that was when that got either damaged or partially damaged and later with playing soccer, you know, but I didn't. I mostly played like baseball and then I got into soccer. So, I only did like three to four years of soccer, but it was constant because even when I played volleyball and basketball, I was playing soccer. So. And then I would referee soccer games. So, I was just. It was, it was an intense, you know, three to four years of soccer. 

Denise: Right. That's a lot of traumatic brain injury.

Diane: Yeah, yeah.

Denise: So, are you doing any kind of vision therapy practices at home on an ongoing basis as any kind of follow up to what you did or you're done?

Diane: I’m not. I do have, you know, an open invitation to come back anytime if I feel something is off or needed, but no. No, I'm not.

Denise: Okay, tell us a little bit about what you alluded to earlier with the different people that, that were triggering you and what you noticed about those people in, in their person that might have created emotions in them.

Diane: Well, and this is the other thing is that within the vision therapy, like, you don't think that the brain and what's going on affects emotions and how you handle things and, and all of that.  So, while when I had had the blood work done, when I was having a lot of the health issues, I had a client who, who just kind of went a little crazy. You know, I got him a building permit for a garage and. And then he decided he wanted a bathroom, air conditioning, 200amps of power, which is like what you put on a typical single-family home and a loft. And I was like, you know, I just said, look, I'm not doing this. You know, I can't do this. And there were a lot of different reasons why I couldn't do it. One was what he was asking for was then defining the garage and turning it into a guest house or a pool house or something. And that's not allowed where the garage was. And as it was, we went through a special requirement in his neighborhood to allow the garage to be built in his front yard. So, like I was not going to do it. And the house already had 400amps of service. Like, where were we going to get another 200amps? Like, that's getting into like commercial grade power, you know. So, I just told him, I said, I'm sorry, I'm not doing this. Well, he filed a complaint against me and claiming all these, all these lies, like, and then I learned he was trying to basically, you know, get the state to revoke my license, like, claiming all these things. And so, I went through a few months of like, hell dealing with like, basically it was like a psychological warfare type thing. Like, we'd have to have these calls, you know, where he, he wouldn't be on the call with me, but they would. This committee would like, call me and ask me questions and ask him questions and ask me questions and. And like, you know, one thing I have to say is I have a good memory. So, there were a lot of things that I remembered that apparently, he didn't remember. And then they realized, wait a minute, what is going on with this guy? You know, like, he claimed he had never met me prior to it. And it's like, yes, I had met him in his previous house and known him for two years and talked and like, I don't know how that all changed, but it was very challenging to go through it and just emotionally draining. And so anyway, a year later I had a similar situation, but this time it was with a homeowner’s association. And the head guy, he had been interviewing me to be the architect for the homeowner’s association. And the first interview was okay, and then I had to meet with a whole bunch of the other guys and that was fine. Then I had to meet a third time. He was like interrogating me. And what I noticed is that I was like, stronger, like I could handle his interrogations. And so, this was, this was a year being a year into the vision therapy. And you know, it gave me this like 10-page contract just to like review drawings for this homeowner association because he's a retired lawyer. And I basically, you know, I looked at it and I said, well, I need to leave now. I had my little phone alarm going off. I need to leave now. I have a meeting. I'll take a look at this, and I'll get back to you. And so, I left. And then I called up the head person who was in charge. I said, I'm sorry, I'm not interested in this position. Find somebody else. But then what happened was a few months later, a project had an issue with a setback, but it really wasn't the setback. People were complaining about the height, but they found that there was a discrepancy with the setback with a little like three feet on the setback. And we had this meeting to review it all. And this guy was just pounding me with questions and. And like. And interrogating me and, like, just being so rude. And what. What upset me the most was that five other men on his little committee just sat back, didn't do anything. Finally, the contractor stood up. And in the meantime, the wife of the husband and wife. The husband was with me. The wife was like in the back of the room crying because she was so upset, like, with what was going on. And then this other. The contractor on the job stood up and he said, look, she shared how she got the setback. You know, the property line is a curve, and so the building fits within the curve. And now you are seeing that the setback is a square line. And now we have a little corner that sticks out, you know, so she stated her piece. She stated what. She's, you know, what happened and what's going on. And. And he's. And he's like, so you need to calm down. Well, this guy had a lazy eye. He had one eye. It was his left eye that was in one. Going in one direction. So, it made it also confusing looking at him. But he's just. Just a nasty, angry man. Well, you know, I had a vision therapy visit, and I shared. with Dr. Thomas, and. And she said, well, wait, which I. Which eye? You know, and I told her that it was the left. And she said, well, if it's the left eye, then people will be more angry and aggressive and, you know, because that's how it's affecting their brain and their emotional system. They're just, you know, aggressive. Like this guy. It was. It was kind of scary the way he was. And then she said, if it's the. other eye, then they're more emotional, more dramatic and more sensitive. And it reminded me of a friend.  A bunch of us went to the movies, and it was one of those, you know, girly romance things. And at the end, I don't even remember the movie, but they're dancing and. And I hear this noise, and I'm like, what's going on? Well, she was crying and she was like, oh, you know, making all this noise. And. And so it was like, I got to see an example of two different people with two different eye conditions and, you know, a different level of their emotional stability or instability. So. But the best part of that was that, like, I was able to handle and stand up for myself with this guy and stay professional and stay, you know, I didn't have any issues or break down or whatever. So that was like, pretty amazing for me, actually. And even now it's like, you know, I'm just a little more stronger like within, you know, my emotional constitution, you know, as far as dealing with people and not withering back and wanting to please.

Denise: Yeah. And did you start writing your book as a result of where you got to be in a better place as well? Was that part of it too?

Diane: Yeah, yeah. Last year, last fall was, you know, the end of the year, it was like, it was like, oh, I gotta do this. I. I know I can do this. And, and I've. Yeah, I've been doing it and, and I feel great, like, ready to get even more books put together and get out there and you know, so, yeah, it's been good. It's been, it's been really interesting. And, and I, and I would have realized, you know, as an architect, it's like, and I have this in my book is, you know, an architect knows a lot, a little bit about a lot of things, whereas an engineer knows a lot about one thing. So, it's just another, like, fun part of my life to learn about, you know, and experience it personally after also experiencing it with, with my son.

Denise: Right. Awesome. Well, that's been very enlightening today. Thank you for sharing your journey with us.

Diane: You're welcome. You're welcome.

Denise: Have to get back together after your book comes out and explore what you learned in that process and how it can apply to those things that are going to come up with. You know, I think there isn't going to be a lot of things come up between now and then with me writing mine and with you writing yours. And what we've, what we learn about life because of the journeys that we go through, you know, and integrating our body fully. And I think vision is just a piece of that puzzle.

Diane: Oh, it's a small piece, but, but a big piece.

Denise: It's a big piece. And, and we're not always integrating everything.

Diane: Appropriately.

Denise: Right. And we're, we're discounting that piece and we're not taking into. Consider how the whole body is affected and affecting the eyes. I think it goes both ways. So, I think that's going to be interesting to delve into in a, in a future episode and in greater detail. Maybe.

Diane: Definitely. Definitely. I look forward to that.

Denise: Yeah. Thank you so much today.

Diane: Thank you.

Denise: Bye.

Diane: Bye.

Denise: Thank you for listening to the Healing Our Sight podcast. I'd love to hear from you. If you like this episode, please share it. And please join our Facebook community at Healing our site to leave suggestions or comments. Have a great day.