[nabs-l] Blindness is scary-how to teach otherwise while still being compassionate

Tue May 20 12:01:23 UTC 2014

Good morning, all,

Hell, if we had to live as a sighted person, it would be equally 
disconcerting. Try laying that on your friend.At 09:33 PM 10/13/2013, 
Kaiti Shelton wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>I am confronted with an interesting situation.  A very close friend of
>mine may/may not have a neurological proglem which, if left untreated,
>could cause damage to the optic nerve and therefore blindness.  I'm
>trying to be a good friend and be supportive, because what she's going
>through is definitely not comfortable or easy by any means, but she
>doesn't even have the test results or know of a treatment plan and
>she's already thinking about the what ifs associated with going blind.
>
>It's really difficult, because I realize that it is scary to think
>about; I probably would not be a happy camper if my vision drastically
>changed, and that's even with the knowledge that it could do so in a
>way that would further limit the sight I have/make me totally blind at
>any time if the right thing were to go wrong having been drilled into
>me since childhood.  I would imagine that discomfort/annoyance would
>be at least ten-fold for a person who has spent nearly two decades as
>a sighted person, with little to no contact with a blind person until
>they met me in college.  Yet, I feel somewhat awkward because I know
>that blindness is not the worst thing that could happen to a person by
>far, and that I've shown her by example that one does not need sight
>to do well in school, to cook and clean around an apartment, to have a
>job, or to be successful in general.  I realize that seeing someone
>else do things differently and imagining yourself have to do them a
>different way is terrifying too, if I had to suddenly switch to using
>a foreign language or sign language to speak I'd definitely be
>freaking about the ramifications of being out of the loop, and perhaps
>that is what this is like a bit.
>
>I'm just trying to think of ways that I can be supportive while still
>showing her that even if the worst does happen, things can be
>done---just differently.  I feel like that is one of the best ways I
>can be supportive, because I have the knowledge about the subject that
>others around her do not, and since blindness has such a bad
>connotation, it is possible that those who don't know much about it
>are not helping the situation by panicking themselves.  I'm trying to
>be empathetic as well, because although I have lost vision in chunks,
>I am probably the only person she knows who has experienced any form
>of vision loss, and there was a time in my younger teen years when I
>was terrified of losing all of my vision in which I had to put
>blindness into perspective and realize that much worse could happen to
>a person, too.
>
>So far I've been telling her to not freak about it is she doesn't even
>have test results yet, which I realize is much easier said than done
>but I thought it was the best I could do.  I've also reminded her that
>even if she does have this condition there are treatment plans which
>could prevent vision loss, so even if she were to receive the
>diagnosis it is not a death sentence for her sight.  I do not know
>what else I could do at this point but remind her of those things,
>since the rationalization seems to help for a while once she thinks
>through it.
>
>I would love to hear from people who have had similar experiences
>and/or lost sight later in life.  If you are the latter and you knew
>there was a possibility of blindness before it happened what specific
>aspects about blindness bothered you the most?  What, if anything, did
>others do that made you feel a little better about the situation?
>What do you wish others would have done to help you?  What would you
>suggest I do to help my friend?  Did contact with other blind people
>help you durring that time?  (The thing I'm worried about is her
>saying, "Well you can't empathize because you don't know what it's
>like," because in terms of having the sudden shock I do not, but
>everything else I do).  Any thoughts?
>--
>Kaiti
>
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