Muriel
I’m Muriel, 20 years old and come from beautiful Wesel on the Lower Rhine.
I now live in Gelsenkirchen for my studies.
I was 6 months old when I was diagnosed with retinoma blastoma in my right eye.
Four days later, my eye was already out and I’ve been living with my favorite accessory ever since.
And that’s not just something I said.
One of my favorite appointments of the year is with the ocularist.
Every time the new glass eye looks a little different – but every time it’s beautiful.
And every time I look forward to looking a little bit different again.
Until elementary school, I believed that I was just like all the other children.
Or rather, I thought that all other children had a glass eye.
My mother’s eye often fell off, which is why I simply went to all kinds of children’s birthday parties without an eye.
I can’t remember any bad or funny comments.
In first grade, I took my eye out and proudly showed it to every classmate.
It was like a superpower – something cool that no one else in my class could do.
What I found annoying was always having to tell everyone my story and always getting pity – because I had no reason to be sad.
My eye never restricted me or made me sad.
Of course there were moments when someone said “Glupschauge” to me.
But those around me always supported me.
More difficult moments only really came in puberty.
Will anyone ever fall in love with me and don’t I look totally weird?
However, I soon realized that my friends had similar problems – even without glass eyes.
I now forget that I have a glass eye all the time.
I think I’m wonderful just the way I am.
My glass eye is nothing negative for me or something I would wish away.
On the contrary.
I see it as a strength.
My glass eye showed me very early on that self-love is very important and that self-confidence gets you very far in life.
I also learned early on not to worry about the opinions of others.
Of course there are also annoying aspects, such as when your eyes start to tear in the most inappropriate situations or when you stand out from time to time.
But you can survive that too!
I’m looking forward to talking to other people with glass eyes in the future and talking and laughing about things that people without glass eyes don’t understand.
Muriel
Encourager