[cabacon]

The esotropia was diagnosed when I was a kid. In fact, the "visual specialist" I visited as an adult was actually a pediatric doctor, because they're the ones who have the most experience with esotropias. I don't have any memory of being diagnosed with it; it happened when I was 3 or 4, I believe. My left eye is also mildly dominant; if I'm looking straight ahead it will tend to win control. When it was diagnosed, they did an eye surgery to correct the tracking of the off-eye, and they tried to get me to wear glasses to further battle against eye-dominance, though I was a reluctant participant in that experience.

I learned the alternating esotropia name from my parents, probably during high school or so. I don't think I was able to name it before that, and I don't remember the context in which they shared it. Probably I was complaining about the stereograms that were popular at the time; I have never been able to see anything in those.

Aside from what I've mentioned so far, I also get a free bonus of driving my wife a little crazy; she always tries to figure out which of my eyes I'm looking out of when we're talking face-to-face. It's nice to have a bit of novelty that is, all-in-all, not really that big of a deal. It's fun to talk about, though, as evidenced by the popularity of this thread.