I think theres a huge distinction between 'I'm okay the way I am, and I have equal value," which is a philosophy and attitude, as well as statement about human rights, and...

"I would decline medical treatment if offered," which is about having the best human physical experience possible while being alive.

A lot of people really confuse these ideas. As if saying, "Yes, I'd take medical intervention" means you admit to needing less human rights or not being allowed to feel okay about yourself.

But that's nonsense.

And then there's another nuance, where the idea of "easy" is confused with "not independent emotionally, or being needy and helpless."

Again, two different things.

So for the record, Hell yes, I'd love my life to be easier than it is now, and I'd love to take advantage of everything medicine offers!

And also, I'm wonderful the way I am and kick a lot of ass.


:-)

I lost most of my sight suddenly 5 years ago after a stroke at age 40. I would take a 'magic' cure in a heartbeat

Same here. I am happy the way I am, but that said, if someone walked up offered me a cure, I would have to consider it. I don't know whether I would take it, but I will have to admit that having sight would be handy at times.

It would also take a lot of adjustment though. I would have to relearn everything from a sighted perspective.

I've met a few people who just refused treatment because they were fine being blind, and that blows my mind. Like, I've adapted, I've lived blind for like 7 years almost, but I'm still waiting for stem cell treatments for optic nerves to be viable. I have too many other issues for me to just be like "lol ye being blind is the tits" the way some people act. Like, let's be real. It sucks. It sucks being infantilized, it sucks being phased out of so many things because everything has to be touch screen, it sucks not being thought of in general, and so many other things. It's not a party, it's like... here's a heap of baggage, just carry it and if you show that you're struggling, you're just a self-hating blind person and not a Good Blind™.

If it really were a magic cure (no side effects, no risks, etc) it would make little sense to refuse it. Real cures don't usually come like that, though.

Another issue is the whole learning to see thing. If the magic cure includes being able to used sight like a person who had it all their lives, again, little sense to refuse it. In my case, though, I've never had sight and I wouldn't begin to know what to do with it. There are case studies of people gaining sight who didn't have it during childhood and it seems to be very hard to adapt and even to learn and understand perspective, how 3d objects are perceived and so on.

That said... of course being blind sucks. No, it's not only society that makes it suck. Having less access to perception isn't good. Having less options isn't good. There's not enough adaptations in the world that'd make it possible for me to independently run an oscilloscope or do archival research or any number of other things I might want to do. It sucks, there is nothing good about it.

This makes total sense and I actually agree with you on all the relevant points.

I held a long rant about this a few months ago on this sub, so I will try to keep it short this time. I find it incredibly obnoxious when blind people go around acting like it's all totally cool and they never have any problems. I also see this far too much in this sub unfortunately. All these people here who say stuff like: "blind people can do anything sighted people can do!"... it's super aggravating. Like, I get it, they want to be optimistic but this is a dumb, cheese and un-nuanced form of optimism that is obviously not true. If I'm blind there are many things I can't do and even for the things that I can do, it usually takes very exhausting workarounds. It's even more frustrating when people go around spouting these over-joyful statements who have been born blind. Not to be mean but they are in a way utterly ignorant. They are ignorant because they've never experience sight, hence they don't know how easy or hard life is for sighted people. However, they are also ignorant because they never had to go through the immense trauma and pain of losing one's vision. So yeah... it's easy for those people to claim that everything's perfect.

I have lost my vision very slowly but steadily over the course of my life. I'm now 31 and blind on both eyes. Contrary to other blind people I don't bend over backwards to hide my frustration with the way things have turned out for me. Having had to go through this process fucking sucks and yes, it made me kind of bitter. I have no problem admitting that. I used to be an extremely optimistic and upbeat person but years of physical and emotional suffering have destroyed these traits. I had to wait 30 years to go blind and it felt like a really slow and painful way of dying. How many times did I get my hopes up again, only to be disappointed? How many times did I try to stand up and continue the fight although I had no energy left inside of me? I don't even remember.

Just like you, I thought I had my life perfectly figured out. I studied super hard to get into Gymnasium, a type of high school here in Europe. There was a very competitive entry exam but I passed it and I was super proud of myself. Back then my vision was still quite good. I continued to study very hard, planned out my career etc. I was so mature and grown-up about it and I felt like what could possibly go wrong this way. I wasn't like some other students who don't know what to do with their life until they're 30. But then my vision began to decrease at a faster pace and everything began to go south. I couldn't work so much anymore and later I started to suffer from depression. There are so many things I missed out on in life, like all the fun experiences other young adults make when they get to explore sex. All my sighted male friends had their fair share of spicy experiments with girls before they settled down into a serious relationship - I never got to do any of that. No one-nighter, no friend with benefits, no girlfriend, nothing. Women were always friendly to me but they clearly didn't want to have sex with me. Now, people in this sub can tell me whatever they want but I KNOW it's due to my blindness. I know it's because my visual impairment made me look insecure, I know it's because I couldn't participate in certain activities. I was pretty good looking and had good social skills during those days and I know things would have been very different if I hadn't been born this way.

And so I'm now sitting here, 31 and still not finished with my studies, no friends, no relevant sexual experiences and overall tired with life. I've been going to therapy for 4 years and I'm taking pills and still I wish every day that I wouldn't wake up anymore the next morning. My life is so screwed up and almost all of it is either a direct or an indirect result of the fact that I have gone blind. I know that if on that fateful day of my conception, one other sperm out of billions had made it into the egg, I would now be living a very different life and that thought kills me inside. So yeah, how could I not be resentful.

Meh to people who force you into their way of thinking. It's OK to wish for sight or the conveniences it would bring. It can become worse than that though, I've met some blind people I've privately thought were maladjusted, but you don't seem that way to me at first glance.

I'd take a magic cure in a heartbeat even if there was some risk involved, because while I don't miss sight itself I do miss the convenience and ability that comes with it. The world isn't short of hard problems to tackle, I don't need a disability to make it harder or more interesting.

I'll take the hearing option on sensory restoration. I've lived my whole life vi. The hearing loss became critical more than two decades ago -well into adulthood.

If wishes were fishes, eh?

Who says you’re supposed to say no? I’ve never heard that. Most people who’ve ever brought it up are shocked when I say I’d have to think about it. And this does leave out that many of us don’t know how to live like sighted people at all. So you’d take the cure, become sighted...and then what? If you had sight before you would probably be okay, but if you didn’t how would you cope with suddenly being dumped into a totally alien world? This question is a lot more complicated than we make it out to be.

I would take a magic cure. I'd love to see everything. Like, did y'all totals know that at either end of the VoiceOver Speaking rate slider is a turtle and a rabbit? Yeah, really nice and clever, right? But does VoiceOver,, the magic screen reader, tell us that? Heck no! And why not? Because VoiceOver doesn't read the screen, it reads whatever information Apple developers, who may or, most likely may not, be blind so do not understand that some of us want to freaking enjoy using our $700 computers;! Is that too much to ask, you freaking corporations? Of course it is.

I'd love to play real video games. Not Manamon, or that Wizard game on iOS, but, oh I don't know, the 100 games on Apple Arcade which I'm subscribed to in the failing hope that maybe Apple will license a great, accessible game? 100 games! Y'all with some vision, play some of them for me, would you? Because I'd love more than anything, to have even your amount of vision.

I'd love to see all the birds outside, and actually what comprises those open fields of grass I'd get lost in because I'm blind. I'd love to see why being among nature is so relaxing to many people, when being wrapped up in bed is just as good to me as a blind person.

I'd love to see people's faces, learn body language and maybe even catch some sign language so I can communicate with the deaf people that sometimes help me. Yeah, it breaks my heart not being able to thank them so much for their help, and of course blind people don't need to learn sign language because like, how would they see the deaf person's reply? Yeah they wouldn't so they don't need to learn hyuck hyuck.

I'd be able to work in the Bios of a computer. I'd be able to use Linux fulltime, and not have to deal with its awful accessibility. I might even switch to Android, so I can play video games on it with emulators, and not have to deal with all that blind people stuff. I could drive for goodness sake!

So you bet your iPhone 11 Pro Plus I'd accept a cure!

I'd rather have a cure for my chronic unexplained headaches that don't respond to over the counter meds.

I’ve been blind since I was 12, I have an amazing life that’s totally fulfilling and right now I wouldn’t change a thing - except being blind - I’d accept treatment in a heartbeat if I could see my family again.

A little late to the party, but...

Being visually impaired isn’t that much of a hindrance to me in my daily life it does have its times when it especially sucks.

Traveling around unfamiliar parts of NYC being the worst thing. I remember my job owned about 3 buildings in 1 area and I ended up getting walking past my building several times. Sometimes GPS acts crazy and I can’t see the street signs and whenever you stop someone for questions they are a tourist lol.

It’s soooo frustrating. And you can’t always ask someone to stop their job and help you. It just doesn’t work like that all the time.

Heck yes. Been mostly blind since birth with a weird condition few people can relate to. Weirdly, most of my hobbies — martial arts, video games, audio theatre and music production and voice acting are all pretty visual. I'm pretty content with my lot in life, but I'd take more sight if it was offered, unless there were side effects o! a chance of things getting worse.

As someone who spent most of their life with sight I can easily say that I would probably kill to get it back.