Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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An interesting article on terminology. (blind.net)
submitted by sarliaee
[deleted] 5 points 6y ago
I've often struggled with how to explain my eyesight to others who ask.
If I say I'm blind, then they immediately get the mental image of someone with no sight at all - which is incorrect.
If I say I'm visually impaired, or even severely visually impaired, I get the inevitable "Oh, me too without my glasses" and they assume that being visually impaired is a thing that can be fixed. "Low vision" suffers the same fate.
If I say I'm legally blind, then it feels like I'm saying something along the lines of "well, I'm not _reeeeally_ blind but I'm going to take advantage of the government's definition to get stuff that it entitles me to."
"Partially sighted" just confuses people and sounds weird.
Over the past couple of years I have (mostly) just taken to saying "I'm blind" and then correcting (or not) people's inevitably wrong assumptions, because people need to understand that blindness is a spectrum.
If I say I'm blind, then they immediately get the mental image of someone with no sight at all - which is incorrect.
If I say I'm visually impaired, or even severely visually impaired, I get the inevitable "Oh, me too without my glasses" and they assume that being visually impaired is a thing that can be fixed. "Low vision" suffers the same fate.
If I say I'm legally blind, then it feels like I'm saying something along the lines of "well, I'm not _reeeeally_ blind but I'm going to take advantage of the government's definition to get stuff that it entitles me to."
"Partially sighted" just confuses people and sounds weird.
Over the past couple of years I have (mostly) just taken to saying "I'm blind" and then correcting (or not) people's inevitably wrong assumptions, because people need to understand that blindness is a spectrum.
-shacklebolt- 3 points 6y ago
I've been asked "can't glasses fix that?" a lot of times.
It's such a weird question to me. Is it so hard to imagine that something else can be wrong with a person's eyes (or nerves or brain)? And if you do think glasses solve all cases of "visual impairment" then why wouldn't I have already gotten glasses?
It's such a weird question to me. Is it so hard to imagine that something else can be wrong with a person's eyes (or nerves or brain)? And if you do think glasses solve all cases of "visual impairment" then why wouldn't I have already gotten glasses?
snow671 2 points 6y ago
I know it's an old article, but much love to the NFB!
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