Thomas, an accomplished visually impaired student, explains how transitions in life create new opportunities for self-acceptance.
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Unlike most blind and visually impaired individuals, I was born with my condition. While that distinction may seem minimal, it gave me an advantage compared to those who lost their vision later in their life. As a result of being born with my visual impairment, I had a substantially easier time adjusting and accepting my condition. I explored the world with a visual impairment, and that became my regular. I never experienced the sudden shift that occurs when a wholly sighted person loses their vision; however, while my adjustment and acceptance to my visual impairment were not dramatic, it still is gradual. I am continually in the process of coming to terms with my condition. As I grow older, I find that there will always be some adversity to overcome. There was a time when I felt like I accepted my disability, but then things would change, and I would be thrown back into that processing stage again. For example, during my high school years, I had come to terms with my condition because I did not feel different from anyone. Often, people forgot I was blind because I functioned no differently than any other high school student. We all could not drive, we had a curfew, and my friends had a sufficient understanding of my visual impairment to assist me without making me feel different.
Unfortunately, that changed when I enrolled into university: everyone was able to drive; everyone hung out after dark; and everyone was unaware of my visual impairment. I felt different once again, and that acceptance slowly faded into insecurity. With time I adjusted, but I eventually found more things that introduced doubt and wavered my acceptance. As new doubts emerge, old ones dissolve, creating this cycle of progression— it is an indefinite meter hurdle race where you need to overcome obstacles and just keep on running! The prospect of an endless race may sound exhausting, but I feel that I can grow and improve as a person because of these trials.
One obstacle that I frequently overcome is acclimating new people to my impairment. In high school, friends understood my condition and adjusted, creating smooth and seamless transactions that made it seem like I was not visually impaired. That kind of relationship took nearly three years of work. In university, I meet new people every day and work with them for a short time before moving on to another new group of people. This makes the acclimation process extremely tedious because persons may undercompensate, overcompensate, or even forget that I have a visual impairment. On the other hand, I have known individuals who have substantially overestimated the severity of my condition, which leads to them to infringe on my independence. I have even had people forget I was visually impaired and not accommodate at all. These instances of forgetting, under compensating, or overcompensating have led to uncomfortable situations where I must constantly mention that I have a visual impairment and need these accommodations. After multiple times of explaining my condition, one would believe I would get used to it, but instead I felt more and more self-conscious. Fortunately, there are some questions that new people ask me that I am more prepared and confident to answer, like the infamous “What can you see?” After several trials and errors, I found that the ordinary description could not do the job. Therefore, recently I have been playing around with macro lens filters to develop an image that mimics my vision. After stacking several lenses together, I managed to create a +16-power lens that resembles what everything looks like through my eyes. There are also minor adjustments like fogging up the lens to imitate a haze or limiting the field of view to represent tunnel vision. This visual example has been relatively beneficial in helping others understand what I see. It has been a stepping stone in creating an environment where people can understand and accommodate my needs as a visually impaired individual without making me feel like an outcast.
Thomas, New Jersey
Junior in College
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