Years after a 20-year-old straight-A student from South Carolina was permanently blinded as a result of a horrible methamphetamine-related incident, the young woman describes the experience as ‘fortunate.’
Kaylee Muthart of Anderson, South Carolina, is now 26 years old and must wear artificial eyes for the rest of her life after clawing out her own eyes during a psychotic episode provoked by the drug.
In a chilling tale, she told Mail Online, “I feared everything would end quickly, and everyone would die if I didn’t tear out my eyes right now. I’m not sure how I reached to that conclusion, but I knew that was the correct, sensible thing to do straight away.”
Muthart’s memory of the night is vague, but she recalls assuming she needed to meet someone at church. On her went to church, a friend she had been staying with drove past and screamed out the window, “I locked the house. Have you have the other key?”
At the time, she saw it as a divine sign, believing that being kept out meant that “my sacrifice is the key to saving the world,” according to the Express US.
In the throes of this hallucination, she committed a heinous act of self-harm. Kaylee explained, “I inserted my thumb, pointer, and middle finger into each eye. I held each eyeball, twisted and pushed until each eye exploded out of its socket – it seemed like a big battle, the most difficult thing I’d ever had to do.”
The chemicals in her system rendered her painless, and if not for a pastor who heard her pleas of “I want to see the light!” she worries she would have caused even more harm to herself. The priest was confronted with a grisly scene.
Kaylee explained, “He subsequently stated that when he found me, I was holding my eyeballs in my hands. I had smashed them, but they were still attached to my head. She was rushed to the hospital and restrained by at least seven people while surgeons performed emergency surgery to remove what remained of her eyes.
Despite the horrific occurrence, Muthart claims she feels better today than she did while she was using drugs, but she admits there are moments of intense suffering, particularly during sleepless nights.
“But, frankly, I’m happier now than I was before anything happened. “I’d rather be blind than dependent on drugs.”
Kaylee, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, told Cosmopolitan: “Because I couldn’t see, I’m not sure if there was blood. But I know the medications dulled the pain.”
Despite losing her sight as a result of the incident, Kaylee’s life changed dramatically, driving her to rehab to fight her drug addiction while adjusting to blindness.
The 26-year-old attended a blind school and acquired her first prosthetic eyes in 2020. Kaylee has resumed her studies, moved to Florida, been ‘in touch with God,’ and has a long-term relationship named Alex.
She was also working as a dishwasher when she made headlines three months ago, after being dismissed for “feeding a cat,” according to the Express.
Kaylee shared this on Facebook: “I just got fired for feeding a mother cat with eight kittens outside of my work after the people at the restaurant have been feeding her every single night, they abruptly stopped feeding her out of nowhere because of the property manager was telling them not to.” Kaylee then asked for others to help her feed the cat because she was visually impaired.
She continued, “I am grateful to this restaurant for hiring me in the first place, but wrong is wrong, and the mother cat relies on them to feed her.” Nursing while pregnant and looking for a food source is difficult enough.
Kaylee seemed to be doing well despite a setback at her Florida restaurant employment. She plans to continue her education in neurobiology, researching the nervous system and brain function, after earning her certificate.
Kaylee often wonders how her life would have turned out differently if the 2018 incident had not occurred. “I suppose when I open or crack the window for my cat in the morning, I wonder what it looks like outside. Perhaps God will help me see everything I’ve missed one day. I’d like to see my loved ones grow older and see what colour my cat is; I got him after going blind,” she told the Daily Star.
“Someone may describe to you the appearance of a character from a television show. They could enumerate all of their features, but you won’t fully know until you see them for yourself. Because I’ve seen it before, my mind refuses to comprehend not seeing. They’re called visual hallucinations, and I think of them as God not allowing me to be in the darkness.”
Despite the daily challenges, she stated that she considers being blind to be a blessing, saying, “Because even nowadays, if I ever get a drug craving, which is very rare, but in addiction, when you have used the needle, you can imagine the blood going into the syringe, and that is an eyesight temptation.”
“You can’t really do it blind, you could do it I’m sure, but I don’t know if it would be smart.”