One thing I think contributes to the sentiment of the title is that, unless you're in a big city with transportation options, you lose a LOT of autonomy with your ability to get from point A to B. Further, even in towns with taxis or buses, many don't actually leave the town, so if a place you work, or like to visit, or so on is in the next town over, what was once a 10 minute drive in good traffic is something you might have to plan two or three days in advance with the help of friends, family, or someone else you need to arrange to drive you.

And that can ***suck***.

There's also a loss of the ability to provide that transportation for others. Maybe you enjoyed taking the kids to school, or were usually the captain of the road trip, or whatever. Those things can still happen, but change can really suck sometimes.

The biggest thing I think my vision cost me? Opportunity. I can't go out on short notice very easily, so if there's a party, job opportunity, or just a place I want to go for lunch on a whim, I can't do it. Further, to touch more on job opportunity, I'm pretty sure there isn't a person on this sub who would claim there isn't any favoritism for the sighted, let alone the non-disabled in the workforce.

This is why I want autonomous vehicles so dang bad. Yeah, I'm biased, because I stand to gain a lot in the way of freedom and autonomy, but I feel like if sighted people had to choose between what I have now, and what they have now, a lot would choose to stay on the side of the fence where you can actually see the grass and not accidentally drive on it.

Oftentimes, people fear vision loss more than hearing loss because vision loss disconnects people from the enviroment, while hearing loss disconnects you from other people. Also, for most people, that is the sense they use the most. It can also be quite debilitating emotionally until the person comes to accept it, and begins working on the rehab. Once they start their rehab, though, they can learn the skills they need to overcome their vision loss.

At least once a month, I'm doing an assessment with someone and they are very emotional and talking about all the things they can't do. I try to be rational and explain how they can learn to do them, but if they aren't willing to accept their condition, it is very difficult to accept the training.

I wouldn't really mind not seeing if it didn't make it so hard to code. It took me 2 days to write a test application that I would have written in less than an hour if I could see. To be fair it was a computer graphics application, but that serves to demonstrate that blindness limits my ability to take on certain coding problems too.

It is possible to adapt or retrain but it is a lot of hard work and some days it just gets boring and I could do with a day off:-)

[removed]