By far the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me because of my vision was the time I was randomly stopped on the sidewalk and prayed over. For the record, no I’m not religious, but no, I’m not trying to make fun of anyone’s religion.

So I’m a university student and was walking back to my apartment from class. I’m still on campus when someone walks up along side me and says hi. I greet them back, and their next question really caught me off guard.

“So what happened to your eyes?”

I was taken aback a bit, but I’m not sensitive about it, and while thinking in my head that that was quite the way to start a conversation, I was outwardly present and started answering his questions about my blindness. He was pretty nice, and things were going fine, until this whole interaction happened.

“Well, my name is X and I teach biology here. Another thing I do though, is I like to pray for people. Would you mind if I prayed for you?”

Silly me, thought he meant in his own time, before bed or something. So I agreed. That was when he stopped me, and the first alarm bells started going off. He took my hand in his, and began speaking again. I was uncomfortable, but didn’t want to be rude, so I let him continue.

Him: “Great, what’s your name?”
me: “uhhh… Vicorin.”
H: “Well Vicorin, do you know Jesus?”
M: “No, I’m not really religious, sorry.”
H: “That’s ok, do you mind if I pray for you in his name?”

I was really uncomfortable now, but was frozen and didn’t know what else to do. I agreed, and, much to my horror, he put his hand over my eyes, still holding my hand in his other, and began to pray. He said, and I quote…

“Dear father, please cast the spirit of blindness out of this young man.”

And went on a whole prayer, asking for god to heal me. I was like a deer in headlights at this point, completely frozen. I stood there, immensely uncomfortable with having this guy’s hand on my face, and stiffly waited for it to be over. This whole time we were just standing in the middle of the sidewalk, blocking people. Finally he ended, and there was a expectant moment, where I guess he was seeing if I could see again. Spoiler alert, I couldn’t. Then he told me to have a good day and he left.

That was by far the weirdest interaction I’ve had because of my blindness.

I once asked my mum to read our the specials board for me as I could t see it. Her answer was “ do you want to borrow my glasses?”.
My own mother.

I'm pretty used to the usual pointing and asking if I can see a random object, but I did have something very strange happen recently.
I'm not here to talk politics, but I was expressing some frustrations to a friend regarding Donald Trump attempting to order the illegal removal of braille in his tower during my study hall one day. This prompted another student to turn and ask why I cared about braille in public places, and, while I could have also claimed basic human decency, I explained to him that I was legally blind. His comment in response was the odd part: "You aren't blind, you wouldn't be walking around like that if you were blind."
It was confusing, to say the least. Like, okay? I said my eyes didn't work properly, not that I was on bedrest.

When people do ridiculous things like this to me, I like to respond with "Oh, hold on, let me get a closer look" then pop out my prosthetic eye and hold it really close to whatever it is I'm trying to see.

One time someone genuinely asked if that worked.... I can't even...

The ignorance of some people continues to amaze me.

I'm sorry this happened to you. You're nicer than I would have been. I'm sighted by my 7 year old is legally blind. If a waitress would have told him this, we would have walked out of the restaurant right there and then, first making sure to tell the manager about the inappropriate behavior. Oh yeah, and I'm a Google Local Guide reviewer so they would have received a scathing review from me, too.

Even if you were having trouble reading it that wouldn't have made sense...sometimes it's better to make a fuss in these situations. Probably would have scratched my head too, though.

This attitude is present even and optometrist and those who work with blind people.

As a kid (I’m gen z)’the first few people assigned to me by the school board were focused on getting me to just” try harder” to see using my residual vision. For most of primary school the only equipment I had was an easel so I wouldn’t hurt my neck and a magnifying glass. They also enlarged my worksheets but a lot of times they weren’t large enough or had poor contrast. I also wasn’t allowed to have a desk close enough to the board. I had one teacher who really hated me and would write in small cursive and far away from me. My vision itinerant would also come once every few weeks and make men do mazes and crosswords which are a nightmare for me because of my nystagmus. During that time I got lots of bad headaches due to eye strain and was exhausted after school from seeing (more so than usual). Eventually I ended up getting someone who was actually great and I got my first assistive tech outside of a magnifying glass. This whole deal.of getting blind people to just try harder is harmful psychologically and physically .

A few months ago, I went to an optometrist who specializes nystagmus(in hindsight I was probably referred because she was doing a study on congenital nystagmus) and her first question to me was “Are you excited to get your drivers license?”. When she was testing my vision she told me to try harder and I couldn’t because it was causing me a bad headache but she still didn’t listen. My mom had it and asked her what she was trying to accomplish by getting me to strain my eyes as it doesn’t actually help me see better and the optometrist asked her if she wanted my vision to improve. I couldn’t believe it and the rest of the appointment was just as disastrous

Only thing I can think is maybe they were in a bad mood and didn't realize you were blind.

If they did know well... gtfo, complain to the manager, and if all else fails, spread the news online. Twitter is quite effective if they have one. I've had more than a few experiences with insensitive people, though none of them in a restaurant, that I would never take shit like that. Nobody should have to take shit like that from anyone.

One of my classmates was a huge dickhead constantly told people I was faking being legally blind. Worst 3 years of my life :/ School even refused to accommodate me because of it, SMDH.

Press your fingertips into your temples and squint your eyes at it. It makes... powers... come out their eyes or something. I've seen it in cartoons. Surely it also works in reverse. Have you tried that?

Well, have you?

Were you using a cane?

I'm so sorry this happened.