I hear you. I'm 20/20 with glasses, and my prescription is very mild. Virtually no peripheral vision or night vision, though, and felt like I really shouldn't be complaining, because I wasn't REALLY blind. Eventually, though, I had to give up driving. I broke down and started using a cane and learning Braille. I realized that, yes, I am blind. And when I accepted it, I got a lot less frustrated because I was more focused on how to accommodate my life to it. And hey, now I'm part of the blind culture. Which is kind of cool. We have our own secret code and accessories, so we got that going for us.

I used to feel that way when I was 20/100 or so. Would not see people in the cafeteria and wouldn't know where to sit, would walk past people. Sometimes, games and stuff would be annoying on the computer, and reading was tiring.

Then it got worse. I couldn't read books. Couldn't really see what was happening at the movies. Could only make out a few words at a time on the computer. Later, I couldn't see faces, even if I was right in front of them. Can't see when the light changes on the street, can only see people when they're right in front of me.

Funny enough, the more blind I got, the better I got at dealing. I levelled up my speaking skills and have the right thing to say to make situations less awkward, both for me and for others. I learned programming and developed ways of doing my work even better than I did it before. I learned to enjoy listening to audio speech, not the nice stuff but the initially bad-sounding espeak voices. Now I read 10-15 million words a year or so. I started running and lifting. Basically, I did all the stuff that people imagine they're going to do. Guess I felt like I needed to in order to survive.

I'm 20/800 now on a good day, but I could outthink, outtalk, and very probably beat up my 20/100 self. Not sure if that's just maturity and time and it would have happened anyway, but it seems that something in the adversity might have triggered a determination that might otherwise not have been there. I am literally a better person at 20/800 than I was at 20/100, not in some metaphorical way but in a real sense.

Basically, your eyes are only a part of the equation. I, and probably many people here, would love to have vision like yours. It comes down to everything else that you bring to the table, everything that lets you live your life well. If you focus on what you do poorly and how unfair it all is, you'll eventually realize that that is a dead end. You got dealt a deck of cards that's better than almost everyone else at the table, assuming your in a developed country and you don't have other mental and physical ailments. Play your cards well, don't complain that the game is rigged.

The takeaway isn't to buck up and get on with it, though that's not the worst sentiment either. Just realize how literally lucky you are, and start focusing on all the ways, the hundreds of ways, you can make your life better. Make people around you happy. Go out for a walk and say hi to people. Volunteer. Learn to play the cornet or program yourself a for loop. Just get out there.

I just want to say that even at 20/40, I feel your frustrations. What caused the vision loss for me was also caught at a late point in my life (age 13, for a condition normally diagnosed in very young children).

One thing I just want to say is don't beat yourself up for feeling frustrated about your vision even though it's not as bad as it could be. For me, it took awhile to "own" that I would never see as well as the other kids. Telling yourself that you shouldn't feel bad because you're not 20/200, 20/400 or whatever is like telling yourself that you can't be sad because other people have better reasons to be sad than you do, or not to be happy because other people are more fortunate and have better circumstances than you. My therapist taught me that it's pointless to attempt to not have an emotion. It's better if you take a moment to acknowledge it, realize what it is, and then move on.

I'm not a therapist, and this is just what helped me to deal with my frustration. I wish you the best.

You’re not alone! This was my story, too!

I knew I couldn’t see well, but for the longest time I didn’t realize that other people really could see more... I’ve never been able to see better than 20:60 my entire life (with glasses), and it’s gotten worse over the years.

I spent about 3 years thinking like you did. My vision was holding steady at 20:100 and I knew I needed help but didn’t want to have to. I didn’t feel like a sighted person, but I certainly didn’t feel blind. And yet I was angry at the sighted world for not being more accommodating.

I was declared legally blind, then spent ten years pretending it didn’t matter and that I was fine. I stayed as far away from visually impaired and blind people as I could, so much so that random people on the street knew more blind people than me and i was blind myself.

Eventually, my eyes got even worse and I started to need my cane every day and magnifiers and tech on the computer to be able to see it. I’ve never switched to voice navigation for the computer, but I use it on my phone sometime and do most of my pleasure reading with books on tape. It took time to get used to listening instead of reading. There are days when I hate that it’s so much less efficient, but if I try to read with my eyes for any length of time, I give myself a migraine.

Your feelings are very common and it’s totally ok to have them. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk more.

Right there with you! I've been floundering around for a couple years now trying to find where I fit in as my vision declines due to RP. I feel like a complete imposter when accessing services for the visually impaired because my vision is much better than others in those programs. Then in the sighted world I had to give up my drivers license at 25 and struggle with things it seems no one else does.

Invisible disabilities suck! I've been so angry and frustrated for so long now and I don't know how to let it go. That said, I don't have any answers for you but want you to know you're not alone.

Thank you for your post and to everyone who's responded. It's a relief to hear it gets easier every once in a while when it only feels like it will get worse.

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