I'm honestly not sure what I'm hoping to do with this post. Maybe just see if others have had similar experiences. I've needed glasses my whole life, ever since I was a little kid, and my terrible eyesight has always been a running gag. I thought it was normal for my eyes to hurt all the time and my sight to get blurry and in general to just have a hard time seeing even with my glasses. Turns out... that's not normal. Yesterday I had a vision test again and my eyes went from a -9 to a -9.5 in 5 months. They're referring me to an optometrist to see why my eyes are getting worse in such a short time. They also used that 20/200 vision test card on me which was a new one. My friends have been encouraging me to use visual aids and such but I get nervous because it doesn't feel like it's bad enough to count. I don't know if I count as visually disabled. Logically I know my eyesight has always affected me; I'm just so used to it at this point. I'm not sure how to feel about any of this.
You'll likely want to see an ophthalmologist - that's a medical doctor who specializes in eyes and vision. An optometrist is specialized in things like corrective lenses.
Either way, you don't need a diagnosis to use tools that make your life easier.