Just wrote the page on my ‘first birthday’ as a visually impaired person a few days ago in real time. Then this week I taught myths in DBT. My brain sort of put them together and I started to think about myths about the visually impaired.
There are all sorts of pages online about what fully sighted people think – sometimes totally incorrectly – about the visually impaired. But what did I think was going to happen to me? What are you thinking is going to happen to you? Those are the important questions. Who cares what those pesky, fully-sighted people think about us??
When I first lost my second eye and had to take a leave of absence, I thought I would never work again. Did not happen.
I was out for about a month. Land speed record? Yeah. I told my blindness and visual services guy I was (and am!) a pain in the butt and he would be doing himself a favor to get me back in harness as soon as possible.
My first anniversary for being back to work will be something like late March. It might not last forever, but I have gotten at least a year’s reprieve. I am slowly transitioning into more ‘low vision friendly’ work and even when I cannot test anymore, I expect to work at least part-time.
I am not an anomaly! (OK, I will accept strange, different, quirky but not anomaly.) National Federation for the Blind reported that in 2014 approximately 40% of those with “significant vision loss” (don’t ask me exactly what that term means) were employed. The stats are not fantastic, but if you want to work, it is possible.
I also thought I was going to sit around the house bored to tears and depressed. I had my moments (several of them!) and expect to have more but in the big picture, I am just about as engaged as I was before my loss. This morning were my two, usual classes at the gym. Tomorrow is a hot yoga class. Last week I went to one job party and next week I am going to another. I have plans to go to a concert next month.
OK, so I am not getting out of town as much as I would hope but at least I am getting out of the house!
Those were my ‘biggies’ as myths. I also had a few other ones. Getting around would be impossible, for example.
Sometimes my transportation arrangements are worthy of Rube Goldberg, but somehow I get there.
Then there was I will be all alone. Nope. Crazy, but people volunteer and go out of their way to help. I have become part of at least one person’s master plan for getting into Heaven! Who would have thought that one?
So right now all those myths are not coming true. Grain of truth in every one? Of course, that is part of the definition of myth. But on the whole, not so bad and we continue to take things one day at a time.
So here are your discussion questions: what were your myths about being a visually impaired person? How much truth was in them?