A South Carolina woman has opened up about how she will never see again after she gouged her eyes out while high on methamphetamine, also known as meth.
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Warning: Graphic details about self-harm while under the influence of drugs.
Kaylee Muthart, 20, from Anderson, South Carolina, recalled once being a straight-A student while working and smoking marijuana with friends. She eventually started running with the wrong crowd, causing a noticeable downward spiral and destructive lifestyle.
After dropping out of school at 17 and starting harder drugs, Muthart’s family encouraged her to go to rehab. However, days before she entered the facility in 2018, Muthart took a large dose of meth, causing her to be high and hallucinating for hours.
“I thought everything would end abruptly, and everyone would die if I didn’t tear out my eyes immediately,” she explained, per Daily Mail. “I don’t know how I came to that conclusion, but I felt it was, without doubt, the right, rational thing to do immediately.”
Although her memory is “fuzzy,” Muthart recalled believing at the time that she was supposed to meet someone at a nearby church.
On her way to the church, she heard one of her friends whom she was staying with called out from a passing vehicle, “I locked up the house. Do you have the other key?”
Methart thought being locked out of her home was a sign. Her sacrifice was the “key to saving the world.”
The woman, while under the influence of meth, decided to rip out her eyes.
“So I pushed my thumb, pointer, and middle finger into each eye,” Muthart stated. “I gripped each eyeball, twisted, and pulled until each eye popped out of the socket.”
She stated it felt like a massive struggle, the hardest thing she ever had to do.
The Pastor Came to Her Before She Could ‘Claw Her Brain’
As the woman continued to claw herself, a pastor, who was nearby at the time, came to her aid. He had heard her scream, “I want to see the light!”
Muthart said had he not helped her, she would have likely clawed her brain.
“He later said, when he found me, that I was holding my eyeballs in my hands,” she also recalled. “I had squished them, although they were somehow still attached to my head. I remember thinking that someone had to sacrifice something important to right the world, and that person was me…”
Muthart immediately regretted her actions, asking for God to help her.
“I got on my hands and knees, pounding the ground and praying, ‘Why me? Why do I have to do this?’” she further shared.
Muthart was rushed to a nearby hospital, where she was restrained for days. Doctors then performed emergency surgery to fully remove what was left of her eyes. This was an attempt to preserve her optic nerve and prevent infection.
Despite the loss of her sight, Muthart remained hopeful.
“Activities I used to enjoy, like playing guitar and learning piano, are going to be harder now that I’m blind, but I’m still optimistic,” she noted. “When I stub my toe or my knee, I think, ‘Well, it probably saved me from walking into a wall and hitting my face.’”
However, she admitted that there are times when she’s upset about her situation.
“But truthfully, I’m happier now than I was before all this happened,” Muthart went on to add. “I’d rather be blind than dependent on drugs.”