Reactions to Blindness

The first time I realized that ableism was widespread was in a class in college. I knew people had made ableist comments but I just thought it was the person themselves. This experience told me it was widespread.

A movie had come out. In it, some people just went blind. It was either a major percentage like 1 in 2 or everybody. I don't remember the exact details. The teacher asked what we would do if that happened in reality. Everybody in the class said they would kill themselves. My thought, which I said, was I was going to learn Braille. Also, I didn't know the term but the people who helped blind people deal with things, like learnging how to navigate, I said that they would be in extreme demand. From the way my classmates reacted, I thought I had made a huge social blunder. They just kept asking why and then I asked them why.

It got worse. I said that maybe they were depressed. That was my experience, in that I would get suicidal over things like loosing a one-day job. I realize now that was not a good thing. But calling them all depressed was wrong. They were furious that I had implied that they were mentally ill. I pointed out that depression was fairly common. It didn't help. The teacher finally turned the topic to something else.

For a long time, I was puzzled by this exchange. I could not understand why so many people who were not depressed, were extremely mad to be thought so, would just think of killing themselves. I knew that becoming blind very quickly would be hard. It certainly was a severe change from a lot of things they knew. But to hear that everybody else in the class, some thirty people would all say that was beyond my understanding. It did not help that I am concrete and literal. Since they didn't say why, I couldn't grasp why.

It was years later that I did understand. One person, who will go unnamed since I don't want them to know I am talking about them, said bluntly, that people who had lost a sense (like blind or deaf people) could never lead happy, fulfilling lives. I was stunned. This explained a lot. I realized that a lot of people had this assumption. I tried to explain to the person that this was wrong. The person said I had no idea what I was talking about since I wasn't blind or deaf.

I told the person that I when I was younger, I had much worse vision. For a time, I couldn't see the big E of the eye chart without glasses. One day, my glasses broke at an amusement park. I could see color, light, and movement. Everything was a blur, I couldn't really see distinct outlines unless I was very close to the object. The group I was with were surprised to see how bad it was. I didn't want to go home. The end result, was that I had my hand on one of the group member's shoulder or arm at all times. The entire time I was wishing I had some blindness mobility lessons. I thought that at leas then, I could go off on my own. At that time, I thought, wrongly, that I would go blind, or at least, severe vision impairment. This idea was not traumatic to me. For me, I saw it as as consequence of getting older. As people get older, they start having grey in their hair. I thought that as I grew older, my vision grew worse. That was simply how the world worked. I told this to him.

To be continued.