Visual disability

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.