Woman Who Ripped Out Her Eyes While High on Meth Recalls ‘Holding My Eyeballs in My Hands’

• A young woman gouged out her eyes while high on methamphetamine
• Kaylee Muthart started smoking marijuana in high school but became addicted to meth after she was handed a joint laced with the dangerous stimulant
• She’s sharing her story to warn about the dangers of drug addiction, saying “I’d rather be blind than dependent on drugs”

Warning: Graphic description of self-harm

The young woman who tore her own eyes out while high on meth is sharing more details about that day to warn others about the dangers of the addictive drug.

Kaylee Muthart was 20 when she says she had a psychotic episode while on methamphetamine. The drug, she says, made her think, “everything would end abruptly, and everyone would die, if I didn’t tear out my eyes immediately,” she tells South West News Service via The Daily Mail.

Muthart, from Anderson, S.C., says during high school school, she often smoked marijuana on the weekends — managing to maintain straight A grades and even earning a spot on the National Honor Society. At first, Muthart says she avoided harder drugs because addiction ran in her family. But when she was 19, she says, a friend gave her a joint laced with meth. 

The high she experienced made her feel closer to God, she says, and in just a year, Muthart went from smoking meth to injecting it. Her mother had finally convinced her to go to rehab when Muthart took a larger-than-normal dose of meth — a final high before quitting the drug.

While she says her memory of that day in 2018 is foggy, she recalls walking along train tracks to go to church. A friend she had been staying with drove by and said she had locked their house. Muthart says being locked out of her home somehow translated to “my sacrifice is the key to saving the world.”

“I remember thinking that someone had to sacrifice something important to right the world, and that person was me,” she tells the outlet. “I got on my hands and knees, pounding the ground and praying, ‘Why me? Why do I have to do this?’ “ 

Muthart explains that at that moment, the drugs numbed her to the pain, but “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.” She said that the church pastor found her screaming, “I want to see the light.”

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“He later said, when he found me, that I was holding my eyeballs in my hands. I had squished them, although they were somehow still attached to my head,” Muthart explains. 

She was rushed to the hospital, where it took seven people to hold her down. Fearing infection, doctors performed emergency surgery to remove what was left in her eye sockets, 

“Activities I used to enjoy, like playing guitar and learning piano, are … harder now that I’m blind, but I’m still optimistic,” she said, sharing that she tries to remain positive in the wake of her injuries. “When I stub my toe or my knee, I think, ‘Well, it probably saved me from walking into a wall and hitting my face.’ ”

She now wears prosthetic eyeballs, saying “I just wanted to appear more normal to the outside world.”

“Of course there are times when I get really upset about my situation, particularly on nights when I can’t fall asleep,” siad Muthart. “But truthfully, I’m happier now than I was before all this happened. I’d rather be blind than dependent on drugs.”

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.