A lovely friend of mine was on a social network group I’m
involved with yesterday, and asked the question. “How would your life be, if
you could see?” If RP hadn’t have got in
the way? Would you do the same profession?
An interesting concept. So if I could see from birth rather
than be what I used to be, partially sighted? My life would have been so
completely different. When I think back now as a person who is now blind, I
just think as an adult, what would I do if I could have seen perfectly all of
my life, what profession I would have entered in? Psychology for sure in some
way, also teaching, whether or not I would have combined the two? Not sure. Now
of course these days, if you are blind, there is no reason why these two professions
could not be yours I know teachers who are blind and I know a very good
Psychologist who is totally blind, so these professions in normal circumstances
wouldn’t change. But with my background, sadly this wasn’t an option.
There will be Doctors out there or truck drivers who find
out that they can no longer do their occupation because of their sight loss, or
deterioration in vision. For sure their job outlook will have to change. As a
person who is facing blindness now, it’s best to prepare for your future, you
may never ever have to follow through with your plans, but if you do, then you
are prepared. For me sight loss wasn’t something I would ever come to grips
with. It wouldn’t happen to me. I needed my sight too much and my God wouldn’t
be so cruel, right?
Wrong. I also believe that if I had not lost my sight, I
wouldn’t have met my now Husband. The love of my life. My soul mate. Again, circumstances.
Life’s situations.
Since meeting Hub he has taught me so much about life as a
blind person. I am at peace in my heart and my life isn’t obsessed by only seeing.
And to see through blind eyes as you would as a sighted person, is physically
impossible, and emotionally challenging. This doesn’t mean to say I pray each
day for a cure. Or at least some sight, sight like I used to have even. Because
there is no doubt about it, life would be so much easier with sight than
without. Now there are people who will completely disagree with this and say
that if they were given the choice of sight, they would turn it down. It is my
belief that those people either live with family members who can see, have
enough money to pay for what they need, or have had to tell themselves that
they will never see to get to the stage they are in life now. Some kind of acceptance?
I have spoken before about how it was much worse emotionally
knowing my eye condition would become where I one day was blind and the waiting
for that day was too unbearable, so I taught myself to believe it would never
happen, a bit like the ostrich burying his head in the sand!
Once I got over the terror, and it was terrifying, life
changing for sure but only life changing after some years as before then, I
didn’t want to change my life. I wasn’t ready to change. I simply refused. I
was in total shock. My rug had been pulled away from me and my skin had been
torn off in a violent manner. I had been kicked out in the bitter icy winter of
life and summer would never return. What was a laugh?
A memory that even
hurt to think about. As to hear myself laughing in my mind, was a sound that
was so far from reality now days.
To never be able to see my baby’s face again. My Son would
stay one in my memory. Never to see his little face in his school concerts, you
know when children look out for you, for some kind of reassurance and comfort
that their parent is in the room watching them, making them feel pride and
proud. The child has pride that he or she is in this play at school doing what
they are doing, and the child knows that their parent is smiling so very proud
to know and see that their child is on the stage.
As a blind parent, the school plays were heart breaking. I
knew my Son was watching out for me coming, knowing that I was not there to see
him, as he knew I couldn’t. If he didn’t have a talking part, what was there
for me?
Not to see your child’s face on Christmas morning as he
opened his gifts or to be able to take all of the photographs you want as a
parent would take of their child.
This world is very visual. But as I have always written
about, I spent the weekend with business men and women who were all blind. This
was some years ago. It was at a conference and the building was in a forest. I
wanted time to stand still and stay there forever. When Hub and I go to visit
our friends who are blind, I’m so happy, because we are all alike and not
judged. It was when I was abroad at the conference a taste of freedom. We had
so much fun that weekend. There was the serious side of life but after working
hours, we played smile. We had a member of staff who brought his guitar, or thinking
back, there was a guitar at the venue. He and Hub sang played music and it was
one of those kind of situations like around the camp fire. There was a lovely
herb garden, we all enjoyed the fragrance. No one was there looking. I didn’t
feel hard done by because I couldn’t see what they were pointing at, or
chatting about how beautiful something was. We all saw the same. I have never
been in that situation again and doubt I ever will be.
When I had sight, waiting, just waiting for that dreaded
day, the day that the Doctors told me would happen at the age of four. Waiting
for the curtains to close and never open. The time when I wouldn’t be able to
get out the house on my own. I wouldn’t be able to pick up a book and read it
or watch the TV. Look at the food in the fridge or freezer or in the cupboard
to see what there was to eat. As for cooking?
I panict I told myself that day wouldn’t ever come.
But it did.
Fixing the measurements
on a baby’s bottle, to change his nappy now blind, was hell. Making sure he
went to his little nursery as he got older in matching clothes? So much had to
change. To turn around as you hear footsteps to see who it was, but it was no
one, not until they spoke. Even then unless they said their name, as before I
would recognise Helens fair hair or Jacks smile. I wouldn’t need an almost introduction.
Its when you have got there, reached the door of the forever
darkness, that you learn new ways. It’s really hard, you go through a very deep
depression. There are times when you are very much alone. You lose all of your
sighted friends. You are now the different one. The person no one speaks to.
They can see the grief in your face. your heart is on your sleeve. They can’t cope
with your sadness. Their lacking in compassion and understanding perhaps intelligence
forbids them from communication. Fear to speak with you in case you ask for
help. How can they help you, what if they did something wrong? Would it interfere
with their lives? The majority of people are selfish. We live for ourselves.
But when you get out and about, whether you get someone to
pick you up, OK you now have to pay for lifts. When you could see, your friends
would collect you, but now you are blind. You are the person who has a
disability badge before your name, you are no longer Fiona, but the blind girl
as I was once a girl, though many moons ago now.
You join all the groups with people who are also blind, but
you hate those groups. They are full of labels. You are still the intelligent
person you were before sight loss, just your eyes don’t work now. You still can
laugh; you would learn how to do that later on along the track. You still fancy
your preference in either same or opposite sex. Yes, blind people have sex, and
I can tell you, as a person who is blind, sex with a sighted person in comparison
to a person without sight, is so different. Better with a person without sight,
in my experience. Of course I can only speak of one sighted person and one
blind. As far as sexual relationships, in my past I had a lot of boyfriends as
way way back I was a pretty girl, so I was told and when I looked in the mirror,
I never complained… Mind you, now if I was to get my sight back, gosh, I think
I would need a chair… I don’t think I would be impressed. But sighted boyfriends,
they were really handsome guys. Then I met my second Husband, and boy, how I
fell in love. He says he never fell out of love with me, as we knew one an
other at school, but that is the charm of my love. I guess what I am saying, we
are like you, we are not different. We can’t see, so may need directing on
where we need to be, or a friendly person to shop with to make our lives
easier, but we are you.
When we are talking with you, do we see your damaged heart?
Do we see you have an ulcer in your stomach? I don’t know you don’t have
cancer? Do I know you have a splitting head ache this day and all words I’m
saying are getting all mixed up? Just my disability, a word I hate, is visual
to you. Ironically.
We still bleed, we hurt, we cry. But when we have been to
the school of the blind life, we too laugh, in fact laugh until our stomachs
hurt, but in a good way. We still need love and need to love you. We are the
best parents. And true friends but we also have such challenges in life that
could almost disappear if those in the sighted world met us half way.
If I was born with full sight. I wouldn’t have had to go to
the God forsaken boarding school I had to attend. I would have been home at
nights to have dinner with my Mum, Dad and big brother. I would have been
tucked in bed perhaps with a goodnight story, rather than have the cold damp
hostile loneliness of boarding school dormitories from the age of six. If I had
a bad day at school or as a six year old who had a fall and scraped her knee,
at night, after school, My Mum or Dad would attend me and show me love. Rather
than that, I had to get on with life. We had each other, our friends who were
like our brothers and sisters, but our parents? They were some miles away and
we even only could call home once a week so there wasn’t even a voice at the
end of the phone.
If I could see, I wouldn’t have nightmares still today about
some of the things I saw at school. I would drive a car now. How would you feel
never to be able to drive? Your game of golf at the weekend would never be
again? Your garden, it was grey, or full of nothingness. Your flowers were your
pride. You wanted vegetables for your casserole? Your allotment or veg patch was
just a patch of land where no longer you knew where to start looking for what
you needed. Going for a simple walk along the coast? No more. A newly blinded
person has to become someone else until they have entered the world of
blindness.
After years you cope. If I was born sighted. I wouldn’t have
won my child of courage award as a little girl, meeting so many famous people
in my life, I wouldn’t have gone to Russia for twenty years seeing changes from
old Russia to the perestroika and mixed with KGB and Russian mafia. I wouldn’t
have sung on stage with famous people met the queen and have times like I had
this morning, a later blog. But hey to see my baby grow up and to open a letter
and be able to read it as it fell through my door, or to look at my Husband and
see what he looks like to see your child on their wedding day, to shop for
clothes in real life without having to order invisible clothes on line. I know
what world I want to be in. I want to enter a restaurant of my choice, not one
I know my guide dog will not be turned away from.
In short, I live to see, but it’s no longer my life. If you
are faced with a disease that could make you blind or if you have diabetes or
any other condition or even if you have lost your sight in an accident, if you
are new in the blind world. Go for everything and don’t say no to new things
open your mind and live outside your comfort zone because once you get comfy,
you will stay still and stagnate. Don’t procrastinate keep moving.
For those who can see, one hundred people in the UK start to
lose their sight every day. You don’t have to be born with poor sight. Just be
grateful for all you have as I would love to swap you my shoes for yours. I
would still have my dear friends who had no sight, but I would see for once
through your eyes.
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