A young woman has opened up about the shocking reason behind the moment she tore out her own eyes.
Kaylee Muthart, a bright student from Anderson, South Carolina, was a member of the National Honor Society and maintained straight A’s. However, at 17, midway through her eleventh-grade year, she decided to leave school.
Balancing long work hours to save for a car while managing a heart arrhythmia—an irregular heartbeat—eventually caused her grades to decline.
Rather than risk harming her academic record, Muthart chose to take a break from school.
Her ultimate goal was to earn a college scholarship and pursue her lifelong dream of studying marine biology.
By 18, Muthart was balancing her part-time job with a social life that included drinking alcohol and regularly smoking weed.
In an interview with Cosmopolitan, Muthart shared that addiction runs in her family, saying, “I actively avoided what I considered more serious drugs.”
In an interview with Cosmopolitan, Muthart shared that addiction runs in her family, saying, “I actively avoided what I considered more serious drugs.”
At 19, Muthart smoked marijuana with an acquaintance and experienced a “strange high” unlike anything she had felt before.
Although she had always been religious, this high made her feel an intense connection to God. She later suspected the weed had been laced with either cocaine or meth.
Feeling “betrayed” by her friend after the experience, Muthart quit her job to distance herself from him. Ultimately, she never returned to school.
During this period, Muthart’s life began to spiral downward. With no job and mounting struggles, she coped by drinking and smoking even more.
Soon, Muthart started taking Xanax, a medication known for its calming effects, which helped her manage anxiety and promote relaxation.
However, after a breakup with her boyfriend, she experienced an emotional breakdown.
Although she eventually found a new job, Muthart continued to feel “lonely” and “unhappy.”
Muthart recalled to Cosmopolitan: “I remembered the way I felt on the laced weed and sought that kind of peace again.”
At the end of August, she decided to try meth for the first time with another acquaintance.
The experience led to intense hallucinations, and she spent an hour picking at her skin until it bled.
Embarrassed by the welts on her skin, Muthart began missing work and eventually lost her job.
Though she decided to avoid meth, she turned to a roommate who sold ecstasy.
She recalled, “While on ecstasy, I studied the Bible. I misinterpreted a lot of it. I convinced myself that meth would bring me even closer to God.”
Muthart shared, “So, after Thanksgiving, when I was feeling particularly lonely, I smoked meth with a friend. Within two months, I progressed to snorting it, then shooting it as often as I could, either alone or with friends.”
She attempted to break free from her addiction “two or three times,” but each effort failed. Her mother felt “helpless” as she tried to get Muthart into rehab or a psychiatric facility, but without proof that her daughter was a danger to herself, she couldn’t have her committed.
Muthart reassured her mother that she had “everything under control” and avoided speaking to her for a time, but eventually, they reconnected.
Muthart agreed to enter a rehab facility the following week. Later, she discovered that her mother had recorded their conversation, which included Muthart saying the world was “too evil.” Her mother hoped this would serve as evidence to obtain a court order and have her committed.
However, the very next day, Muthart purchased meth and took “a larger dose than I’d ever used before.”
The next morning, Muthart was still high and hallucinating. As best as she can remember, she wandered along a railroad track.
Muthart recalled, “It was then 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.”
As she reached this conclusion, a man she had been staying with, who happened to have a Biblical name, drove by and called out to her.
Taking this as a sign, Muthart gouged her eyes out by pressing her thumb, pointer, and middle fingers into each eye socket, the drugs numbing any pain.
Her screams of “I want to see the light!” were heard by a pastor who arrived just in time to restrain her from further harming herself.
The pastor later described finding her still holding her eyeballs, which, despite being squished, were somehow still attached to her head.
When paramedics arrived, Muthart was sedated and airlifted by helicopter to Greenville Memorial Hospital in South Carolina.
Meanwhile, her mother was en route to the courthouse, trying to have her committed, but she arrived too late.
To preserve Muthart’s optic nerves and prevent infection, doctors performed emergency surgery to remove the remaining parts of her eyes.
During her week in the hospital, Muthart was offered pain medication, but she accepted it only once or twice, as she was determined to stay off drugs.
After her recovery, she was transferred to a psychiatric inpatient treatment facility, where she was officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Although life is more challenging now that she is blind, Muthart remains “optimistic” about her future and still dreams of becoming a marine biologist.
She concluded, “It took losing my sight to get me back on the right path, but from the bottom of my heart, I’m so glad I’m here.”
