Crystal Asige acknowledge having suffered depression due to her eyesight

Crystal Asige is an artist who was born in the coastal region. She was born with a rare condition called glaucoma. Glaucoma is a group of eye conditions that damage the optic nerve. It is the major cause of blindness.

Asige started having problems when she was 14 years old which made her right eye completely blind and her left eye partially blind. The left eye could see  things in a foggy.

This led her to depression since she could not accept her condition. Her life was in a rut as she was waiting for eyesight to come back. The following is a conversation she had with SDE's Sunday magazine,

I was desperate to get my sight back. I remember having some conversations with God. I asked God why. ‘Tomorrow, God. You say that you are God? Then give me my sight back tomorrow,’ I would tell him. And the next day when I woke up, I would still be blind.”

“My life was at a standstill because I was waiting for my eyesight to come back. I was chasing after something that was already gone,” 

“I compared my situation with death. We all know we are going to die one day. And how else can one prepare for it other than to stay in the moment? So I decided to live it up — have fun with my friends. I went a little overboard. Too much drinking, too much partying. It was a distraction and a way to cope with what I knew would eventually happen.”

“I can’t see detail but I have light perception in my left eye. My right eye doesn’t see at all. I can tell that right now it is daytime. If I am walking at night and a car flashes its headlights, I can see that. If I look up I can tell if there are light bulbs. It is very foggy, very blurry. It is sort of like when you are in a bathroom and you shower and you clean the mirror,” said the Asige

I“I have loads of extra tools in my superpower box. My spatial awareness is way better. My hearing too. There was a time I was in a supermarket with a friend and I could hear her vibrating phone buried deep in her bag. She was oblivious.

“I am also way better at recognising who someone is by their footsteps. Physical, psychological and spiritual senses are much more heightened,” she said.

“Today, I don’t wake up in the morning and wish I had my sight back. It would be nice to have it back, but it is not with the desperate need that I had years ago.”

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