By Abby Slaughter
I’ve got this weird thing. When I get scared, I can’t see, and nobody can tell me why.
I started to sweat as Alexis was watching the stove top, waiting for her to tell me when to move the shallots around in the pan again. I had no idea how crispy they needed to be, so I just stood there, waiting for her to tell me what to do next. It was already two hours past my usual dinner time, and not only was I starving, but I didn’t want to show in any way that I didn’t have much cooking experience, if any.
“Abby, pay attention!” she yelled. I froze, and I suddenly couldn’t see a thing.
The splattering of the grease from the shallots was burning my right arm.
“Dude, you made me go blind!” I shouted.
“Well, if you just listened to me, that wouldn’t have happened!” she yelled back at me.
What happened to me in that moment requires a bit of explanation. Several times a day, I experience temporary blindness. From what I have come to understand, it is an intense reaction to unexpected sounds. Whether a dirty pan clatters in the sink, a bird squawks loudly in the distance or a pipe creaks in the wall, I get scared and lose my vision for a brief period of time—I call it an intense startle reflex.
And there I was that day, in my friend’s childhood home in the middle of a pandemic for the sole purpose of getting out of the apartment for the first time in two months, cooking a meal for my three college roommates, going blind again. Though I laughed it off, as I usually do, I’ve always been curious to learn why this happens. It’s weird to think that what’s become so commonplace for me is so bizarre to others. Unfortunately, I’ve just never had the time to dig. So I finally did.
* * *
Maybe they know more
It began as a game of phone tag with receptionists at audiology offices and an Internet quest that left me with even more questions than before. I poked around using the term “startle reflex”, and all I got was a bunch of information about babies, and I am way past diapers. The startle reflex is a defense mechanism in children; when young children get scared, they tense up and blink their eyes, as they are more hyperaware to sound at a young age. I came to a disappointing realization… I know so little about my reaction that I have even been calling it by the wrong name!
Next, my research pointed me towards PTSD, since loud noises can often trigger those who suffer from it. Then, I had a thought: what about other mental illnesses? Could there be a link? I have generalized anxiety disorder, which causes me to have intrusive thoughts, worry and be in a more alert and anxious state throughout the day. I wondered if there may be a connection between my reaction to sound and the heightened state I exist in. I’ve often thought that moving through life with anxiety is a bit like walking through a haunted maze on Halloween--even when you know a jump scare is coming, you don’t get any less frightened by someone jumping towards you from the darkness.
But as I continued with my researched, my idea about generalized anxiety disorder being connected to my startle reflex was neither affirmed nor disputed by any information. Some studies I found showed a correlation between the two and others finding none whatsoever. In other words, I didn’t come away with any more answers—what I’m experiencing could just be because of anxiety or it could be something entirely different.
Finally, one of the doctors returned my phone call. She was Dr. Kimberly Ringie, an audiologist with the Audiology and Hearing Aid Center of Gainesville, Virginia. She said that being scared, “should not have anything to do with vision changes,” which left me wondering why in the world I only react intensely to sound, not anything unexpected that I may see or feel. Once again, more questions to float around in my head; I didn’t yet have any of the answers I was seeking.
“Our eyes and ears are connected,” said Dr. Crystal Lilly, an associate audiologist that practices at multiple offices in Maryland. Our eyes and ears are connected with the help of the vestibular-ocular reflex, which helps our ears and vision work together in order to allow us to balance. However, the eyes do not play a role in many of our body’s defense mechanisms used when we hear loud sounds, like that which, according to Lilly, the body uses, “to protect the structures of our middle ear so that they don’t conduct the sound to the inner ear.”
She has no idea why my temporary blindness accompanies loud sounds. In fact, none of the audiologists I spoke to could answer most of my questions, including how genetics could affect my reaction, or whether some form of synesthesia—the experiencing of one sense through another—could be influencing my reaction too. Both Lilly and Ringie recommended that I talk to an ophthalmologist, as an eye expert might know more about how the eyes and ears are connected.
I also wondered if genetics played a role in my reflex. My mom is the only other person that I know who experience this same reaction to sound, and we often find ourselves yelling to each other after a loud noise echoes through the house, “Did you go blind too?” Turns out, there is some evidence to support that my family tree impacts my inability to see—only temporarily. According to Seth Norrholm, an associate professor of psychiatry at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit who also happens to study the startle response, a person can have a level of startle that they’re born with, just like they were born with a certain hair and eye color.
* * *
Pointless inquiry? Maybe not
After briefly going down the Web-MD self-diagnosis rabbit hole and talking to some experts, I ended up realizing that what I have may not be a serious, mystery illness, but rather just a weird quirk that’s a running joke between my family and friends. Maybe it’s genetics, or maybe it’s just a strange genetic defect, like those goats that freeze and faint every time they’re startled. I’m not sure if I’m content with not knowing what this reflex really is, but either way, my reaction is not a debilitating condition that prevents me from living my life to the fullest.
I won’t stop cooking or spending time with loud friends in order to lessen the number of times I go blind. I just hope my future children don’t have to go their whole lives thinking at moments throughout the day that they’re having an aneurysm when they just got scared by their coffee maker making a loud gurgling noise.