Featured Image Credit: Kaylee Muthart/What's Trending/YouTube
Topics: Mental Health, Drugs, Religion, Health, US News
Liv Bridge
Topics: Mental Health, Drugs, Religion, Health, US News
The young woman who gouged out her own eyes, resulting in her becoming permanently blind, says she’s ‘happier’ now more than six years since the incident.
Kaylee Muthart from Anderson, South Carolina, was a straight-A student before she permanently scarred herself in a drug-fueled psychotic frenzy.
Kaylee, who was just 20 at the time of the tragic accident, had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and turned to drugs such as marijuana and ecstasy. But it was one 'strange high' that hit differently when she was 19 years old as her friend gave her a joint laced with crystal meth.
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From there, the young woman became hooked, even transitioning from smoking the hard drug to injecting it.
She told Cosmopolitan: "I'd long been a religious Christian; the high made me feel particularly close to God."
The-then teen had been studying the Bible while high on drugs and believed meth was the ticket to 'bring me even closer to God'.
After Thanksgiving in 2017, Kaylee struggled with her addiction and had tried to stop the habit a handful of times before agreeing to check into rehab.
However, the night before check-in turned fateful as she reportedly injecting tainted methamphetamine in February 2018 - which ended up in her tearing her eyes out with her bare hands and squishing them.
Recounting the moment, she said: "I remember thinking that someone had to sacrifice something important to right the world, and that person was me.
"I thought everything would end abruptly and everyone would die if I didn't tear out my eyes immediately. I pushed my thumb, pointer, and middle finger into each eye. I gripped each eyeball, twisted, and pulled until each eye popped out of the socket.
"It felt like a massive struggle, the hardest thing I ever had to do. Because I could no longer see, I don't know if there was blood. But I know the drugs numbed the pain."
She was sat outside the South Main Chapel and Mercy Center when she inflicted the injury on herself and said the church pastor found her screaming 'I want to see the light' while holding her eyeballs in her hands.
Kaylee was promptly airlifted to Greenville Memorial Hospital's trauma unit where medics performed emergency surgery to remove what was left of her eyes and was left fully blind.
Now, more than six years on since the tragic incident, Kaylee said her life is better than it was before she was plunged into perpetual darkness.
The 26-year-old said: "Of course there are times when I get really upset about my situation, particularly on nights when I can’t fall asleep. But truthfully, I’m happier now that I was before all this happened. I’d rather be blind than dependent on drugs.”
The traumatic event was the final push to convince Kaylee to go to rehab and give up drugs once and for all.
She now wears prosthetic eyeballs, which she received in 2020, and says she keeps a positive perspective.
"Activities I used to enjoy, like playing guitar and learning piano, are…harder now that I’m blind, but I’m still optimistic. When I stub my toe or my knee, I think, ‘Well, it probably saved me from walking into a wall and hitting my face'.”
If you want friendly, confidential advice about drugs, you can call American Addiction Centers on (313) 209-9137 24/7, or contact them through their website.