nope. i miss my sight. i miss driving a vehicle, i miss seeing people's different faces, i miss seeing my own face, and most importantly i miss the safety of being able to see what's in front of me and what i'm approaching.

i guess it's a bit different when you're only recently experienced vision loss. i don't complain much because it won't fix anything, so i just roll with whatever is happening anyway.

I have no idea why anyone would be ashamed, but I also have no idea how anyone would love it.

In my experience the people who happily claim to love it and that it's part of their identity have never had good sight and often don't know what they're missing. I have nothing but respect for anyone dealing with a lack of sight but I think people in that situation should reserve comment, especially since everyone must be aware of what sight lets people do. I don't think I'm ever going to be able to pretend that I enjoy lacking that stuff. Now I don't go around every day in a state of total misery but I'm not going to say I wouldn't love to fly on a jet pack if I could, especially as jet packs now actually exist!

What I will say is that I work very hard to make it not be a big part of my identity. I'd rather have my identity be my choice rather than have the world impose something on me. I used to have a job for a big corporation and when a questionnaire came around with a question about how many disabled people were on our team, all but one of my colleagues said none. When later someone said what about Jan, everyone went, oh well sure okay but she's not disabled disabled. You can get political about what people really mean by disabled in that sort of context but it was the best day of my life to that point.

For 36 years I passed as sighted going around without a cane and being able to ask for accommodations a bit on the down low.

This past August I broke the ankle on my blind side and realized I’ve had several injuries tripping on things on my blind side.

I got my cane and love it. I like interacting with people. I do notice how many people while giving directions out habit use non-verbal signals like pointing. I have hemianopsia so I often see this, but I do suggest that pointing isn’t useful for many people using a white cane.

I'm just trying to live. No disrespect, but I got over the peppy, false-positive shit a long time ago. Everybody's gotta play the cards their dealt, its not something I constantly think about. But would I change it if I could? Fuck yeah. Although hearing loss restoration comes first on my list of priorities, personally.
There's just so much more to life than "wooooooo I have a disability y'all, I'm just like yoooou!" We all gotta make our way in a sighted world, its not a blind world, and I just don't think being so wrapped around BLINDBLINDBLIND is the way to do that, for me anyway. I was lucky to have competent instructors around where I was when I was young, so I didn't have to go to a school for the blind. I get why some people may do that, I'm not saying nobody should do that. But idk, its an identity thing.

I don't know that love is the right word, but I don't dislike it any. I'm comfortable with my vision loss and it's part of who I am, and I generally like who I am. I don't think I would change it if I could at this point.

I started using a cane a few years ago, when I got to the point where I'd aged out of being able to easily tolerate sprained ankles and falls. At first, I was self-conscious, but now I enjoy the confidence and security it gives me.

Honestly, yeah, I do like being blind (for the most part). For me, it'a sense of stability and it's better than the light sensitivity, needing to magnify everything etc (not to downplay low vision people). I just miss being able to do things like shop completely independently or look at images for story covers, things like that.

I missed out on driving, my entire life. My mom finally bought me a ride when I was 48--a gas powered Yamaha golf cart. We have 5 clear acres. I zip around with my beagle like crazy. LOVE it. But I always wished, and it's been my biggest lament of my lifetime, that I should drive......
Everything else? No problem!

Yeah, I have no problem with being blind. It is what it is. I try not to make it my whole personality either lol its just how I am. I use talking crap and tap loudly when walking. Thats life. I try to make jokes about it too and not making it a big deal, makes it easier to fit in so to speak. If its not a problem for me others won't see it as a problem.
I have no interest in gaining site, personally. Yeah sure it would be helpful in some ways but everyones got problems, blind or not.

I don't know that I always feel so positive about it, but at least, for my left eye (it's always been the more blind eye) I wouldn't change it.


The other day, when my cane got nike swooshed by a shopping trolley, I realised it would have been so easy to say 'being vision impaired sucks' but the real problem was the attitude of that lady.


I'd say on a scale of 'being VI sucks" (1) to this kind of positivity (10) I'm about a 7.

No. If I could restore my vision I'd do it in a heartbeat.

In fact, I don't want my disability to be part of my identity. It's just something that changes the way I do things. I don't want people to think of me as the disabled guy.

For me it feels like since I still have relatively good vision I have all the negatives but don't really get to experience the nice aspects of it. Most people don't even realize that I have a visual impairment, yet I can't recognise any faces and I always worry to come of as rude if I don't recognise someone in public, I am also really bad at names because of it :/ Maybe it's different if you are legally blind and use a cane so people are more aware of your impairment. Also most likely it's different if you lost your vision at an early age compared to slowly losing it as an adult.

I am completely fine with it now and its just a part of me, I don't mind it much in day to day life it's just something to be aware of when making decisions about the future like career choices or where to live. But if there is going to be a form of treatment in the next decade I would definetly give it a chance

Yes totally. I’m a blind teenager and I’m totally into blind nerd culture, spend a lot of time on blind Twitter, no pretty much everybody in the blind teenage community around the US that’s pretty active. And honestly, it’s just a part of me now. Like, I don’t think most cited people are going to get our love for TTS movies and crap like the evil Samantha series. It’s just not something they pay attention to you were Billy know about. We have a lot of little niche interests like that. I like it.

Pretty sure your post is referencing a post I made in the past so I will illustrate my point again here you’re talking about being recreationally blind basically saying that if there was a cure you wouldn’t take it and you would choose to live the blind lifestyle you claim it’s a majority but I can tell you right now while there is a part of the community who feels that way, you will learn that it is certainly not the majority I think a lot of people would choose to get their vision back if they had a choice or at least try it out and see how they would feel afterwards that’s not to discredit people who do choose to stay blind but you going around saying that everyone is offending you and being mean and rude by saying they would take the cure is ridiculous quite frankly
What you will find is a lot of people in the community who have excepted the fact that they are blind and learn to live with it what you will not find is a lot of people saying they absolutely love being blind I would never want to go back to being cited what you’re talking about which is being recreationally blind has made it a news headlines before for example there was a story where a girl had their doctor pour some kind of bleach or chemicals in her eyes to make herself blind and that made headlines because people thought she was insane not only did people think she was insane, but people found it very offensive who were in the blind community because this woman had perfect eyes which a lot of us here would love to have, and she literally threw them in the garbage can to be blind that’s the person who you are most similarly in the same viewpoint with and I don’t think a lot of us share that you shouldn’t be trying to discredit other peoples opinions none of us are discrediting your opinion but you seem to be going into peoples comments in their threads and being generally a nuisance

i will never have any reversal of my blindness. while i used to hate it i’m nearly 38 now, it’s one of my very best friends now

Honestly a good question

You’re making a lot of assumptions here first off I was born with LCA and I had very very very poor little to no vision when I was born so I’m included in this community you’re referring to and also you’re assuming the majority of people who follow this sub Reddit are fully blind there are plenty of people here who are considered legally blind or just partially blind I’m not sure what you’re trying to get out by saying let’s not create drama you literally created a post after I made mine so who is the one starting drama here exactly? Also I would like to point out that in the description of the sub Reddit it literally says that people who are friends of blind people or family members can post here as well so I don’t really understand your point here

Chiming in to say I love your attitude. As a mom of a toddler with Peters Anomaly it’s been one hell of a rollercoaster already with the surgeries and constant fear of vision loss and glaucoma progression. Appreciative of the vision that she has now but knowing she can lose it at any time.

i'm ok with being blind and have no wish to gain sight actually.
Blind is not my identetty but it's a smal part of it and not in the pitty me way but more in the funny kwerky way.
I still do things like playing games and going on wild adventures all over my country and soon even venturing out to uhm hear, feel smell and taste the world.

I've got wonderfull friends both vi and non vi, an amazing guide dog, cool projects to work on and quite a few hobbies as well.
I'm perfectly happy the way i am and the way my life is turning out right now.