It's okay to freak out. It's normal for this to feel overwhelming and hard and like there's never going to be an end to the stress that it brings. But there are things to help you have the best quality of life you can, and blindness is nowhere near the end of your world. Cane training can help you regain and maintain independence, learning braille and how to use a screen reader will give you access to information, and knowing other blind people, online or in real life, will help you feel less isolated and trapped by your blindness.

Give yourself time and remember that it's normal to grieve your sight, but also remember there's a good blind life you can live and there's resources out there to help you

Take some time to process your feelings and know that things will be different but not terrible. After that look up organizations like the National Federation of the Blind and the American Council for the Blind and any local resources you can find. Look into Vocational Rehabilitation if you want training or to go back to work. And yes, look for communities of blind people whereever you can find us, online and offline both.

Get to a rehabilitation center as soon as possible. Check out LCB or CCB, centers in Louisiana and Colorado.

That most things can still be accomplished with a little ingenuity and perseverance. That experiencing life without/with less sight does not have to be negative, just different.

There's the practical side and the emotional side. Emotionally, you've just lost a sense that probably facilitated some really important things. And that fucking sucks. You are allowed to feel grief over that. There is no time limit on that. You are a strong human being and you are going to be okay, but it is okay to have days when you are not.

Logically, the world is going to constantly tell you you are less capable than you are. People will wear kid gloves over their kid gloves. People will be uncomfortable and fearful around disability, and will project those fears onto you. Do not let them fool you into believing you are less capable. Other people will firmly believe that accessibility is an afterthought at best, and that you aren't important enough to deserve the same consideration you would have if you were sighted. Do not allow those people to fool you into thinking you are unworthy. You are a capable human being and no matter how much this fucking sucks, you can still have control of your life. There are resources to help you do that, and while you need to let yourself process your feelings, you also need to let yourself learn new ways of getting things done.

To both sides, we are here, locally and online. You will get through this. You will find purpose and happiness in life, even if those are not constants.

There is no single correct way to do things. There's no shame in getting help but there's also nothing wrong with going out of your way to do things independently just because you can. Lots of people in the blind community are strongly opinionated. You get to piece together your own user manual for how to go about life, just as anyone else would do. We're not always right.

Simple blindness is not the end of the world, get up there’s no time for self pity and let’s go and quickly too or your life will disappear. Come on!

Also get training for mobility and orientation, independent living skills and assistive technology and also braille.

That onset of disability is going to follow a similar pattern of the 5 stages of grief, and that’s ok. Taking time to grieve is important, and people will move in and out of the 5 stages in no specific order.

But to be very cognizant that it’s easy to get stuck in denial. At some point you have to think about the future, and start moving forward. A lot of folks get stuck because they don’t know it’s possible to live a full life with a disability. It’s common also to start avoiding dealing with it because it’s too scary. For those with conditions related to aging, the grief can be mixed with a fear of mortality in general, so getting the right support is SUPER important.

Try to learn how to live as a blind person.

Try to look on the bright side