“You don’t change when you lose your sight, other people change.” This is what a Guild member, Barry, told me recently. Larry had been a partner in a successful construction firm when he lost most of his sight during a bypass operation. His partner eventually forced Barry out, despite the fact that Barry could still do the job. Another Guild member, Georgiana, told me that when she lost her sight due to macular degeneration, some of her friends abandoned her “as if macular degeneration was catching.”
I have heard this sentiment from many Guild members who have discovered that not only do they have to deal with their own fears after vision loss, but also the perceptions of people around them. People have known each other for years suddenly become strangers after vision loss.
Vision loss is much more than just the loss of a sense. It can also be a true blow to one’s self-image and how people see them. As some one who did not know anyone with vision loss when I came to the Guild eight years ago, this puzzled me. I had no doubt that losing one’s vision is an extremely traumatic occurrence. But fundamentally changing who you are and how people see you? It seemed inconceivable to me.
Over the years, I have come to see vision loss more holistically. It affects your employment opportunities, your ability to do the things you used to do for pleasure and even the most mundane activities like getting dressed or making a snack for yourself. The sheer frustration is exhausting and certainly leads to depression and isolation as others simply do not understand what you are going through.
But Georgiana gave me a new way of looking at it — the popular media. Each day we are bombarded with images of perfect physical specimens. We nearly worship those who have been blessed with seemingly flawless bodies. And soon we come to think of those people as being the norm and we feel all the worse for our less-than-optimal selves. It must be doubly worse for someone with a disability who can never hope to achieve the perfect body.
We give ourselves too little credit if we define perfection as the goal. First, and foremost, it doesn’t exist. Make-up and airbrushing do not constitute true beauty nor does vision loss constitute helplessness.
People are more complex than the application of a single adjective — blind. I have always said we work with people who happen to have vision loss, not blind people. I know lawyers, bankers, teachers, business people and unemployed people who are funny, smart and talented. Some of them have trouble seeing, some of them don’t. Don’t we owe it to ourselves to dig a bit deeper? Treasure rarely lies on the surface.
