Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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confused about my vision and place in this community (self.Blind)
submitted 3d ago by MVRQ98
so i was born with cataracts, nystagmus, strabismus and amblyopia on the left. i was one of those kids who had to wear an eye patch (didn't do all that much). i had my cataracts removed as a baby and don't remember ever having blurry vision the way it's portrayed. only thing i remember is having a few more surgeries for to remove the residual cataract and being happy about my vision when i was like 3 years old. they didn't immediately gave me artificial lenses as they said my eyes needed to finish growing first. for the first 17 years of my life, i lived with 50% visual acuity (6/12 or 20/40 depending where you are) in my better eye and 20% in the other. apparently this is what the WHO considers "mild" visual impairment. considering how much i struggled at school though, it did not feel mild. my vision was also more or less the reason i got into a traffic accident as a child. i also got diagnosed with secondary glaucoma when i was 7 and have been using eye drops ever since as well as having had multiple surgeries. my vision was never "blurry", but the outlines of objects weren't clear. it looked a bit like very close together double vision, but it wasn't full on double vision. this also affected letters, especially when they were further away. reading books was mostly fine, but reading stuff that was further away and not huge was difficult, like teachers writing on blackboards. i also massively struggled with seeing very small things or with reaction (though idk if that's a vision thing or an ND thing). oh, and light sensitivity. my parents always taught me that what i was experiencing was visual impairment, despite not fitting any legal requirements for recognition, so this was normal to me.
then when i was almost 17 it was time for me to get artificial lenses. and something somehow went wrong. to this day i don't entirely understand what happened. it was supposed to take 6 weeks to heal and after that time my eye doctor said it's apparenely not what it's supposed to be. after 3 months i went to the hospital that did it and they said they "destroyed some cells" or something. i never really got a diagnosis. after that, my vision was pretty much halved and i now had 25-30% (6/18-6/24 or somewhere around 20/70, my nystagmus makes it vary a bit) in my better eye and around 10% (6/60 or 20/200) in my worse eye. this is when i started taking magnifying glasses to school to be able to read the textbooks (comfortably - i could read them without but my eyes would hurt) and started using an e-reader for literature. i was also no longer legally allowed to drive.
now here's the thing that confuses me: somehow my overall visual acuity decreased, but the outlines of objects actually look clearer than before. i have no idea how that's possible. did the lenses just make the world smaller or something? there was one moment where i thought my cereal bowl liked smaller than before surgery, but who knows. it's hard to compare vision. and again i've never seen a visual representation of how i see things, and besides "always moving" i find it incredibly difficult to describe. looking up representations of 20/70 visual acuity and i'm finding blurry pictures, which is not what i see at all.
and despite having 6/18-6/24 visual acuity i somehow got legally recognised as sight impaired? maybe the glaucoma affects my visual field and no one ever told me. it's certainly not in any of my diagnoses. my visual field "feels" okay but who knows. having it measured is also hard on me because of the nystagmus. i always thought i didn't have glaucoma symptoms except discomfort.
like, my list of diagnoses hasn't changed from before surgery except aphakia is now pseudophakia, but i cannot comprehend how artificial lenses halved my vision. surely if it was destruction of cells it would be some kind of diagnosis? i've been confused for years.
and then there's the impostor syndrome about identifying as partially blind or as anywhere else on the blind spectrum and participating in blind community. there are so many conversations i don't relate to but it's not like i love a sighted life either. i don't use a screenreader (apart from the odd "speak selection" option on the iphone for emojis or long text sometimes), i just have my text size at 160%. i can read smaller but this is where it doesn't strain after 2 minutes. this unfortunately makes many apps inaccessible because their formatting doesn't support my font size. when given the option i will ask for large print. again, can read smaller, but it's uncomfortable. i pretty much switched to audiobooks exclusively. as for subtitles, i'll never watch anything in a language i don't understand with subtitles in english because i can't read that fast. i've tried that before and it annoyed me so much i contemplated throwing my PC out the window. i still use subtitles in english because it's nice and thankfully a lot of streaming services have font and size options for their subtitles, but sometimes i still struggle. because of my amblyopia and strabismus, my depth perception doesn't seem to be great and i often bump into things )sometimes people - which is one of the main reasons i carry a symbol cane when i'm out alone). i also struggle with balance a bit which apparently is related to focusing your eyes on something which is nearly impossible with nystagmus. once i flew through my school bus because i couldn't hold on to something with both hands. i sometimes turn on audio description when watching stuff because i either don't recognise people's faces (i can't remember faces. idk if that's a vision thing or an ND thing), because something is happening in very low lighting and i can't tell or because they're showing some kind of object and i have no idea what i'm looking at. this happens with pictures sometimes too, someone's showing me something and i just can't tell what i'm looking at. i feel like i can see it but it's not making sense, which is why i'll sometimes read the alt text if it exists. again, don't know if it's my vision or some ND processing thing. it's fun being both and never knowing what's caused by what. it shouldn't really matter but it doesn't really help with my impostor syndrome if i could technically "blame" everything on my neurodivergence. as for mobility, when alone i only use a symbol cane. when i'm with someone else i usually don't. i'm terrified of crossing streets, which is in part trauma related but also because i can't actually estimate how far away a car is - i always feel like they're closer than they are so i don't go even though i would have had plenty of time. as of now, i would not cross a street in a busy town, symbol cane or not. i also absolutely don't do well in unfamiliar environments. i have a horrible sense of orientation even when there are signs or someone tells me where to go. i seem to get overwhelmed from lots of visual input, especially outside and/or in unfamiliar spaces. it's very hard for me to actually get an overview about a situation. there's a room full of people and i can't find who i'm looking for, there's a shop full of things and i can't find what i'm looking for. again, no idea if it's because of neurodivergence or because in order to tell exactly what something or someone is i would actually have to get closer and look at each item or person individually. it's like i can't see the trees and all i see is forest. the whole faces thing doesn't help. i usually go off other stuff like hair but even then i struggle. i've also had it happen to me many times that someone pointed somewhere at something and told me what they were pointing at. i could see the direction they're pointing in but when i looked i couldn't find what they were on about for the life of me until they describe that it's between this thing and that other thing, or sometimes not even that would help. this is also why apart from school buses i've never done public transport alone. not even a bus. it's so confusing, and limiting, and disabling.
like i feel like i don't fit in with the sighted world at all because of all this but i don't feel visually impaired/partially blind/whatever enough either because i do still mainly rely on my vision. and i know legal definitions of disability shouldn't matter in this but me barely fitting the legal threshold and not actually feeling any difficulties with my visual field don't help feeling fraudulent. like visual acuity wise i'm way closer to no vision than sightedness and i know that blindness is a huge spectrum but i don't know how to get over this internalised ableism and impostor syndrome abut my own place on the blind spectrum. i haven't even met many people like me either who don't use screenreaders or long white canes but are very much blind/VI. i think part of it might also be that i've lived like this for all my life/8 years with the lower vision so all the adaptations i made to my life stopped feeling like adaptations to me and just feel normal, and if i live "normally" i can't be partially blind, right? except for all the other stuff i struggle with.
i'm confused and this sucks.
i would love to know if there are actually other people like me here who identify as blind/partially blind or somewhere else on the blind spectrum and i'd love to know if i'm welcome to call myself that with my undefinable weirdness.
then when i was almost 17 it was time for me to get artificial lenses. and something somehow went wrong. to this day i don't entirely understand what happened. it was supposed to take 6 weeks to heal and after that time my eye doctor said it's apparenely not what it's supposed to be. after 3 months i went to the hospital that did it and they said they "destroyed some cells" or something. i never really got a diagnosis. after that, my vision was pretty much halved and i now had 25-30% (6/18-6/24 or somewhere around 20/70, my nystagmus makes it vary a bit) in my better eye and around 10% (6/60 or 20/200) in my worse eye. this is when i started taking magnifying glasses to school to be able to read the textbooks (comfortably - i could read them without but my eyes would hurt) and started using an e-reader for literature. i was also no longer legally allowed to drive.
now here's the thing that confuses me: somehow my overall visual acuity decreased, but the outlines of objects actually look clearer than before. i have no idea how that's possible. did the lenses just make the world smaller or something? there was one moment where i thought my cereal bowl liked smaller than before surgery, but who knows. it's hard to compare vision. and again i've never seen a visual representation of how i see things, and besides "always moving" i find it incredibly difficult to describe. looking up representations of 20/70 visual acuity and i'm finding blurry pictures, which is not what i see at all.
and despite having 6/18-6/24 visual acuity i somehow got legally recognised as sight impaired? maybe the glaucoma affects my visual field and no one ever told me. it's certainly not in any of my diagnoses. my visual field "feels" okay but who knows. having it measured is also hard on me because of the nystagmus. i always thought i didn't have glaucoma symptoms except discomfort.
like, my list of diagnoses hasn't changed from before surgery except aphakia is now pseudophakia, but i cannot comprehend how artificial lenses halved my vision. surely if it was destruction of cells it would be some kind of diagnosis? i've been confused for years.
and then there's the impostor syndrome about identifying as partially blind or as anywhere else on the blind spectrum and participating in blind community. there are so many conversations i don't relate to but it's not like i love a sighted life either. i don't use a screenreader (apart from the odd "speak selection" option on the iphone for emojis or long text sometimes), i just have my text size at 160%. i can read smaller but this is where it doesn't strain after 2 minutes. this unfortunately makes many apps inaccessible because their formatting doesn't support my font size. when given the option i will ask for large print. again, can read smaller, but it's uncomfortable. i pretty much switched to audiobooks exclusively. as for subtitles, i'll never watch anything in a language i don't understand with subtitles in english because i can't read that fast. i've tried that before and it annoyed me so much i contemplated throwing my PC out the window. i still use subtitles in english because it's nice and thankfully a lot of streaming services have font and size options for their subtitles, but sometimes i still struggle. because of my amblyopia and strabismus, my depth perception doesn't seem to be great and i often bump into things )sometimes people - which is one of the main reasons i carry a symbol cane when i'm out alone). i also struggle with balance a bit which apparently is related to focusing your eyes on something which is nearly impossible with nystagmus. once i flew through my school bus because i couldn't hold on to something with both hands. i sometimes turn on audio description when watching stuff because i either don't recognise people's faces (i can't remember faces. idk if that's a vision thing or an ND thing), because something is happening in very low lighting and i can't tell or because they're showing some kind of object and i have no idea what i'm looking at. this happens with pictures sometimes too, someone's showing me something and i just can't tell what i'm looking at. i feel like i can see it but it's not making sense, which is why i'll sometimes read the alt text if it exists. again, don't know if it's my vision or some ND processing thing. it's fun being both and never knowing what's caused by what. it shouldn't really matter but it doesn't really help with my impostor syndrome if i could technically "blame" everything on my neurodivergence. as for mobility, when alone i only use a symbol cane. when i'm with someone else i usually don't. i'm terrified of crossing streets, which is in part trauma related but also because i can't actually estimate how far away a car is - i always feel like they're closer than they are so i don't go even though i would have had plenty of time. as of now, i would not cross a street in a busy town, symbol cane or not. i also absolutely don't do well in unfamiliar environments. i have a horrible sense of orientation even when there are signs or someone tells me where to go. i seem to get overwhelmed from lots of visual input, especially outside and/or in unfamiliar spaces. it's very hard for me to actually get an overview about a situation. there's a room full of people and i can't find who i'm looking for, there's a shop full of things and i can't find what i'm looking for. again, no idea if it's because of neurodivergence or because in order to tell exactly what something or someone is i would actually have to get closer and look at each item or person individually. it's like i can't see the trees and all i see is forest. the whole faces thing doesn't help. i usually go off other stuff like hair but even then i struggle. i've also had it happen to me many times that someone pointed somewhere at something and told me what they were pointing at. i could see the direction they're pointing in but when i looked i couldn't find what they were on about for the life of me until they describe that it's between this thing and that other thing, or sometimes not even that would help. this is also why apart from school buses i've never done public transport alone. not even a bus. it's so confusing, and limiting, and disabling.
like i feel like i don't fit in with the sighted world at all because of all this but i don't feel visually impaired/partially blind/whatever enough either because i do still mainly rely on my vision. and i know legal definitions of disability shouldn't matter in this but me barely fitting the legal threshold and not actually feeling any difficulties with my visual field don't help feeling fraudulent. like visual acuity wise i'm way closer to no vision than sightedness and i know that blindness is a huge spectrum but i don't know how to get over this internalised ableism and impostor syndrome abut my own place on the blind spectrum. i haven't even met many people like me either who don't use screenreaders or long white canes but are very much blind/VI. i think part of it might also be that i've lived like this for all my life/8 years with the lower vision so all the adaptations i made to my life stopped feeling like adaptations to me and just feel normal, and if i live "normally" i can't be partially blind, right? except for all the other stuff i struggle with.
i'm confused and this sucks.
i would love to know if there are actually other people like me here who identify as blind/partially blind or somewhere else on the blind spectrum and i'd love to know if i'm welcome to call myself that with my undefinable weirdness.
linuxaddict333 11 points 2d ago
Disclaimer: I am a fully sighted person, not visually impaired, so I may not understand things fully.
But...it doesn't matter if your vision is slightly better than that of most visually impaired people. From what you described, you have trouble interacting with the world because it is designed for sighted people, so that counts as visually impaired to me.
But...it doesn't matter if your vision is slightly better than that of most visually impaired people. From what you described, you have trouble interacting with the world because it is designed for sighted people, so that counts as visually impaired to me.
DanC403 6 points 2d ago
Hi, Totally blind here. Only been here a couple of months but from what Ive seen you will be totally welcome. It's all about learning new tricks to cope and not feeling alone.
TK_Sleepytime 3 points 2d ago
You are definitely visually impaired and it affects your daily life.
I have aphakia with corneal scarring in my left eye, my right eye was enucleated. I can correct my vision to 20/80-ish on my left with glasses but that doesn't account for tunnel vision or light sensitivity or my inability to focus on anything that isn't at the exact right distance from my face.
Blindness is a complicated spectrum.
It's ok to count yourself amongst us.
I would, however, encourage you to talk with your ophthalmologist to get a better understanding of your diagnoses and how they may affect your vision today and in the future.
Your health should not be a mystery to you and any good doctor will want you to be informed. I had childhood cancer and cataracts but the details were never explained to me until I asked for all of my records and went through them with my doctor as an adult.
I have aphakia with corneal scarring in my left eye, my right eye was enucleated. I can correct my vision to 20/80-ish on my left with glasses but that doesn't account for tunnel vision or light sensitivity or my inability to focus on anything that isn't at the exact right distance from my face.
Blindness is a complicated spectrum.
It's ok to count yourself amongst us.
I would, however, encourage you to talk with your ophthalmologist to get a better understanding of your diagnoses and how they may affect your vision today and in the future.
Your health should not be a mystery to you and any good doctor will want you to be informed. I had childhood cancer and cataracts but the details were never explained to me until I asked for all of my records and went through them with my doctor as an adult.
Tarnagona 3 points 2d ago
With 20/70 vision in your best eye, you’d be considered low vision or partially sighted most places. Not quite legally blind but clearly having enough issues to effect daily life. That said, those kinds of numbers are really only important for things like government funding or who’s allowed to get a driver’s licence (which is still important stuff, but not at all the whole experience). For everything else, use what works!
Accessible technology like screen magnification and screen reading is built in to every modern OS. Use it! It doesn’t take away from someone else who is more blind also using that technology. Likewise, you asking for large print doesn’t prevent me from also asking for large print. And you purchasing and using a white cane doesn’t stop anyone else from using a white cane. In fact, the more people take advantage of accessible technology and inclusive design, the more businesses and organizations are encouraged to make themselves inclusive and accessible.
This isn’t the case of a sighted person pretending to be blind. Everyone should have access to the accommodations they need, regardless of whether they have a mild visual impairment, total blindness, or anything in between.
Accessible technology like screen magnification and screen reading is built in to every modern OS. Use it! It doesn’t take away from someone else who is more blind also using that technology. Likewise, you asking for large print doesn’t prevent me from also asking for large print. And you purchasing and using a white cane doesn’t stop anyone else from using a white cane. In fact, the more people take advantage of accessible technology and inclusive design, the more businesses and organizations are encouraged to make themselves inclusive and accessible.
This isn’t the case of a sighted person pretending to be blind. Everyone should have access to the accommodations they need, regardless of whether they have a mild visual impairment, total blindness, or anything in between.
anniemdi 8 points 2d ago
> It doesn’t take away from someone else who is more blind also using that technology.
If anything, when people that need accommodations ask for accommodations it tells the world
#WE NEED MORE ACCOMMODATIONS!
If anything, when people that need accommodations ask for accommodations it tells the world
#WE NEED MORE ACCOMMODATIONS!
oldfogey12345 1 points 2d ago
Last time I was at an ophthalmologist's office, she held her hand6 inches away from my face before I could count fingers. She shrugged her shoulders.
I still dont really use a cane much and I read some without a screen reader.
I happen to have great pattern and color recognition so I sort of get by.
I absolutely belong in the blind community because I can't see to drive, and screw around with everything on my computer to make things legible on any app I use.
I think you might be a bit fixated with that whole cane/dark glasses/total loss of all vision stereotype for blind people that tends to be prevalent.
We have all manner of different severities and corresponding needs.
It's more of a community based on those needs than anything else. Whether you screw with accessibility settings, or need screen readers or magnifiers or whatever, people here have already been through it and learned about those things.
Most people are happy to share any info they can.
You are welcome here because you physically belong. The imposter syndrome is just your psychology trying to catch up with reality. It is normal for it to take a while.
Also, your doctor should be sued. There is no reason for them to do surgery on both eyes that close together. They screwed up and it might be worth looking into if you can find a different doctor.
I still dont really use a cane much and I read some without a screen reader.
I happen to have great pattern and color recognition so I sort of get by.
I absolutely belong in the blind community because I can't see to drive, and screw around with everything on my computer to make things legible on any app I use.
I think you might be a bit fixated with that whole cane/dark glasses/total loss of all vision stereotype for blind people that tends to be prevalent.
We have all manner of different severities and corresponding needs.
It's more of a community based on those needs than anything else. Whether you screw with accessibility settings, or need screen readers or magnifiers or whatever, people here have already been through it and learned about those things.
Most people are happy to share any info they can.
You are welcome here because you physically belong. The imposter syndrome is just your psychology trying to catch up with reality. It is normal for it to take a while.
Also, your doctor should be sued. There is no reason for them to do surgery on both eyes that close together. They screwed up and it might be worth looking into if you can find a different doctor.
dweebass23 1 points 2d ago
So your story is actually very similar to mine, one of the stories I relate to the most out of the others I've seen. I was also born with cataracts, wore an eye patch (but didn't cooperate about it at all lol) have aphakia, was diagnosed with glaucoma at around 7 years old and am on eyedrops for it. Also had two surgeries in one eye for it.
For most of my life I didn't fully understand what I had going on seeing as it's very hard to really figure out vision. I was always told as a kid that it's especially difficult for young people because we don't really have anything to compare it to or the language to explain it. For years I just tried to blend in with sighted people as much as possible because that seemed easiest.
Nowadays, I realize that I don't fit in. There are things I tried to do that I couldn't do, because I was trying to do things the sighted way. I never could, and that caused me a lot of issues. Like you, I felt kind of bad labeling myself as visually impaired. For one, I didn't want people to treat me differently, for two, I didn't want it to seem like I was attention seeking and annoying. My family unintentionally made things worse for me in that way. They did their best but I think they always wished I could just be sighted and I could tell so I always tried my best to look that way.
I think from what you've explained, my vision may be slightly worse than yours. Yours might be moreso what mine was 3 or so years ago. But I wish I'd identified as visually impaired sooner. I could've had more accomodations, could've felt more understood, and I don't know it just would've probably made my life easier.
I sometimes still struggle really identifying my issues in this area and I've considered therapy to work it out, but I just haven't gotten there yet. I was thought to be neurodivergent when I was in preschool but they said it was too hard to tell since the visual issues I was having going on. So I never got diagnosed with anything there. Either way I wouldn't be surprised but someday I hope I can know for sure.
I will say it did help reading what you're feeling though, because to me you totally belong in this community and aren't wrong for identifying as such. But for me? Well I'm a lot harsher on myself.
For most of my life I didn't fully understand what I had going on seeing as it's very hard to really figure out vision. I was always told as a kid that it's especially difficult for young people because we don't really have anything to compare it to or the language to explain it. For years I just tried to blend in with sighted people as much as possible because that seemed easiest.
Nowadays, I realize that I don't fit in. There are things I tried to do that I couldn't do, because I was trying to do things the sighted way. I never could, and that caused me a lot of issues. Like you, I felt kind of bad labeling myself as visually impaired. For one, I didn't want people to treat me differently, for two, I didn't want it to seem like I was attention seeking and annoying. My family unintentionally made things worse for me in that way. They did their best but I think they always wished I could just be sighted and I could tell so I always tried my best to look that way.
I think from what you've explained, my vision may be slightly worse than yours. Yours might be moreso what mine was 3 or so years ago. But I wish I'd identified as visually impaired sooner. I could've had more accomodations, could've felt more understood, and I don't know it just would've probably made my life easier.
I sometimes still struggle really identifying my issues in this area and I've considered therapy to work it out, but I just haven't gotten there yet. I was thought to be neurodivergent when I was in preschool but they said it was too hard to tell since the visual issues I was having going on. So I never got diagnosed with anything there. Either way I wouldn't be surprised but someday I hope I can know for sure.
I will say it did help reading what you're feeling though, because to me you totally belong in this community and aren't wrong for identifying as such. But for me? Well I'm a lot harsher on myself.
Rethunker 1 points 2d ago
You're welcome here!
Also consider checking out r/LowVision and r/Strabismus.
Vision is a spectrum in a sense that, say, a song could be described as having a spectrum of frequencies: technically true in a very limited sense, but hardly expressive of a complete experience. You could call yourself "complexly visually impaired" if you don't want to use the terms "low vision" and/or blind.
You might also be able to use specific terms as the need arises. For example, if your depth perception is impaired due to strabismus, then you may be "stereoblind," meaning you lack the component of depth perception that relies on stereo vision.
You wrote that "i can't remember faces." You may have a condition called prosopagnosia. That may or may not be related to your vision. There are tests to determine the degree of prosopagnosia, although it may be difficult for you to take the tests if the images aren't large enough, clear enough, and of high enough contrast.
If you have an option to find a ophthalmologist of regional or national stature, then that may help. Sometimes it may take someone special to give you a more complete diagnosis. You'll find some good pointers here, and on other subreddits, but you'll also need doctors to answer direct questions.
Do you already have an orientation and mobility instructor? If not, then a doctor or a government agency may be able to refer you to an O&M instructor.
Before you visit your current ophthalmologist, or a new one, I'd suggest that you take the text you've written here and copy & paste it into a document. Spend some time adding more text to cover other experiences you have. Then edit a copy of that long document into bullet points, and pick the points that are your biggest concern. Write down the most pressing questions you have about those. Don't leave your doctor's office until you have those questions answered. If possible, have someone go with you so that you can ask the questions and the other person can record the answers.
Also consider checking out r/LowVision and r/Strabismus.
Vision is a spectrum in a sense that, say, a song could be described as having a spectrum of frequencies: technically true in a very limited sense, but hardly expressive of a complete experience. You could call yourself "complexly visually impaired" if you don't want to use the terms "low vision" and/or blind.
You might also be able to use specific terms as the need arises. For example, if your depth perception is impaired due to strabismus, then you may be "stereoblind," meaning you lack the component of depth perception that relies on stereo vision.
You wrote that "i can't remember faces." You may have a condition called prosopagnosia. That may or may not be related to your vision. There are tests to determine the degree of prosopagnosia, although it may be difficult for you to take the tests if the images aren't large enough, clear enough, and of high enough contrast.
If you have an option to find a ophthalmologist of regional or national stature, then that may help. Sometimes it may take someone special to give you a more complete diagnosis. You'll find some good pointers here, and on other subreddits, but you'll also need doctors to answer direct questions.
Do you already have an orientation and mobility instructor? If not, then a doctor or a government agency may be able to refer you to an O&M instructor.
Before you visit your current ophthalmologist, or a new one, I'd suggest that you take the text you've written here and copy & paste it into a document. Spend some time adding more text to cover other experiences you have. Then edit a copy of that long document into bullet points, and pick the points that are your biggest concern. Write down the most pressing questions you have about those. Don't leave your doctor's office until you have those questions answered. If possible, have someone go with you so that you can ask the questions and the other person can record the answers.
soongtypedelta 1 points 2d ago
hi, our situation sounds quite similar. i also grew up knowing and identifying as visually impaired (or rather the german word) despite not fitting legal whatever and while i'm more confident now in my identify as partially blind, i still get the same imposter syndrome every now and then. you're right that legal definitions of disabillty are bad. they're made about us but not for us. it's wild that there's this grey area between being blind enough to not be allowed to drive but not blind enough to be legally recognised as disabled as not being allowed to drive can be a huge barrier to independence especially in rural areas.
if there's anything i learned from lurking here, it's that blindness is a huge spectrum which includes total blindness and partial blindness and everyone who doesn't quite fit in with the sighted world. just today i saw an older post of someone talk about how anyone who has to use alternative methods to do the same things soghted people do can call themselves blind and i very much agree, and i very much needed to hear that myself again too, so i'm telling you as well. blindness is not having no vision at all like sighted people think.
your status is not defined by if or how much your low vision is legally recognised, if you're not sighted, you're welcome to identify as blind or visually impaired or low vision or partially blind or any of the many words that exist for us.
i relate to quite a bit of what you said too about kind of accidentally erasing your own struggles. there are many things i don't consider struggles anymore because i've found other ways of doing them and they've become normal to me. there's certain things i do that might take longer but aren't necessarily less efficient than a sighted person doing the same thing - i embrace those things and affectionately call them bullshit with extra steps. i also relate to the stuff about public transport and going into unfamiliar places. i don't leave my house much so of course i'm gonna forget about those struggles because i don't expose myself to them. and the struggles are the reason i don't get out much, alone. that doesn't mean they're not struggles. your struggles with your vision are isolating you, which is very real.
as for not relating to many people because they're "blinder" than you, i have similar vision to you and i often feel the same way; but that doesn't mean you don't belong.
unfortunately i don't entirely habe advice to a really get over this internalised ableism, as i still struggle with that myself sometimes. if anyone's actually got some advice to get over blind imposter syndrome i'd like some of that too.
if there's anything i learned from lurking here, it's that blindness is a huge spectrum which includes total blindness and partial blindness and everyone who doesn't quite fit in with the sighted world. just today i saw an older post of someone talk about how anyone who has to use alternative methods to do the same things soghted people do can call themselves blind and i very much agree, and i very much needed to hear that myself again too, so i'm telling you as well. blindness is not having no vision at all like sighted people think.
your status is not defined by if or how much your low vision is legally recognised, if you're not sighted, you're welcome to identify as blind or visually impaired or low vision or partially blind or any of the many words that exist for us.
i relate to quite a bit of what you said too about kind of accidentally erasing your own struggles. there are many things i don't consider struggles anymore because i've found other ways of doing them and they've become normal to me. there's certain things i do that might take longer but aren't necessarily less efficient than a sighted person doing the same thing - i embrace those things and affectionately call them bullshit with extra steps. i also relate to the stuff about public transport and going into unfamiliar places. i don't leave my house much so of course i'm gonna forget about those struggles because i don't expose myself to them. and the struggles are the reason i don't get out much, alone. that doesn't mean they're not struggles. your struggles with your vision are isolating you, which is very real.
as for not relating to many people because they're "blinder" than you, i have similar vision to you and i often feel the same way; but that doesn't mean you don't belong.
unfortunately i don't entirely habe advice to a really get over this internalised ableism, as i still struggle with that myself sometimes. if anyone's actually got some advice to get over blind imposter syndrome i'd like some of that too.
VixenMiah 1 points 21h ago
Hey, my history is very different but I have a lot of the same problems. I am also pretty sure I have some neurodivergence although I’ve never really pursued a diagnosis. It sounds to me like you have every right to call yourself visually impaired or low vision if you want to call yourself that. Thee is definitely room at the table for someone with these problems.
I do understand the frustration of not knowing exactly what your problems are and how much of them is visual and how much is neuro. And it’s very hard to assess. There’s a lot of frustration. My vision is insane, it’s not anything like not being able to see anything, it’s just dealing with a hundred things that just make it easier to close my eyes some of the time, while other teams I want to squint until things make sense again. That rarely works, but that’s what my brain has spent 50-odd years learning to do and it’s hard to stop thinking it is the right way to approach a vision problem.
What everything adds up to is that I’m nowhere near totally blind, but I’m closer to it than I am to normally sighted. I’m legally recognized as blind, which does give me a certain defense against impostor syndrome (still a real thing, btw), but even if my vision was just good enough to not be legally blind I think those issues would still add up to me needing to use alternate ways to sense things. Which is where you are at, from what I’m reading. And yes, that means you’re… blind? Blind-ish? I don’t know exactly, but definitely in the general neighborhood of visual impairment.
All of this means you certainly have a place in the VI community, even if a lot of the chatter doesn’t apply to you. There are a tonne of folks here who don’t use screen readers, but do use magnification. (There’s actually a thread about this right now in the sub, talking about how accessibility isn’t one size fits all. It’s very relevant.) I don’t use magnification that much because it’s not the right tool for me. But it’s the right tool for them, and yes, they are VI. Likewise, there are totally blind folks in the sub who don’t jump out and attack me for ableism every time I mention being able to see something. I’m aware that to many people with normal vision, it may not seem like I’m really blind. But I have never heard that from anyone in the VI community, and to be completely frank I don’t think the normally sighted people get a vote. They have no idea what my world is like. I get proof of this every day, when they either make generalizations like “it’s over there” or tell me “there’s a curb” when I’m already stepping onto the curb that my cane already warned me about.
Well, I’ve completely lost my train of thought now, but hopefully some of this can at least give you a little comfort about your place in the community. The community isn’t
I do understand the frustration of not knowing exactly what your problems are and how much of them is visual and how much is neuro. And it’s very hard to assess. There’s a lot of frustration. My vision is insane, it’s not anything like not being able to see anything, it’s just dealing with a hundred things that just make it easier to close my eyes some of the time, while other teams I want to squint until things make sense again. That rarely works, but that’s what my brain has spent 50-odd years learning to do and it’s hard to stop thinking it is the right way to approach a vision problem.
What everything adds up to is that I’m nowhere near totally blind, but I’m closer to it than I am to normally sighted. I’m legally recognized as blind, which does give me a certain defense against impostor syndrome (still a real thing, btw), but even if my vision was just good enough to not be legally blind I think those issues would still add up to me needing to use alternate ways to sense things. Which is where you are at, from what I’m reading. And yes, that means you’re… blind? Blind-ish? I don’t know exactly, but definitely in the general neighborhood of visual impairment.
All of this means you certainly have a place in the VI community, even if a lot of the chatter doesn’t apply to you. There are a tonne of folks here who don’t use screen readers, but do use magnification. (There’s actually a thread about this right now in the sub, talking about how accessibility isn’t one size fits all. It’s very relevant.) I don’t use magnification that much because it’s not the right tool for me. But it’s the right tool for them, and yes, they are VI. Likewise, there are totally blind folks in the sub who don’t jump out and attack me for ableism every time I mention being able to see something. I’m aware that to many people with normal vision, it may not seem like I’m really blind. But I have never heard that from anyone in the VI community, and to be completely frank I don’t think the normally sighted people get a vote. They have no idea what my world is like. I get proof of this every day, when they either make generalizations like “it’s over there” or tell me “there’s a curb” when I’m already stepping onto the curb that my cane already warned me about.
Well, I’ve completely lost my train of thought now, but hopefully some of this can at least give you a little comfort about your place in the community. The community isn’t
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