blindness part 1

My blindness is not something I write very exclusively about simply because it’s not really very important. It has shaped my identity, but it’s only a small part of what has made me who I am today. I do believe I’ve experienced a few things I otherwise wouldn’t because of it, such as being a youth delegate for Norway in a youth hearing in the EU parliament. I do consider myself to be one of the lucky blindies. I’ve had parents who’ve raised me well swell as mum and dad2. I’ve always played in the streets like other children, I got involved with fights in the school playgrounds and I cycled on my own. Now I am a very ordinary young woman getting drunk, caring about make-up and the way I look, caring about my flat, cleaning, cooking, making love, the list just goes on. The only times I see my blindness as a problem however and the only times I wish I could see is when someone has the nerve to tell me it limits me in any kind of way, which I believe it doesn’t, and when my mum tells me everything which is wrong about me. Let’s take my mum first. I have to prepare mentally a few days before I am about to see her. Mum did raise me well alright, but with her little baby girl being blind, she thinks it’s easier to shape me into her ideal daughter. I know how mum wants me to look. Nice and stylish, but classic. I dress like that most of the time. It suits me and many people tell me I’m fashionable, so I’m not worried about looking weird. Then my hair. It has to be in a certain way, not too short, not too long, not too straight and not too curly. Then my body. Have I put on weight since I last saw her? All this is very stressing, but it’s worth it. The more “perfect” she thinks I look, the less criticism I’m going to receive when I get home. For example, I was comfort eating in my 1st year at uni. I weighed about 60 kg when I got home which isn’t fat, but more than I’d weighed before. The first thing my mum said when she saw me was, “Hi Angel, you’ve been eating lots of good food this year haven’t you?” I remember going to bed that night crying, disappointed in the welcome I received after six months of not seeing each other.

I thought I was well prepared for when I got home this time. I know the lack of exercising hadn’t done me any good in terms of my figure, although I was at least 5 kg less, I think that 12 lb or something, or about 2 stone, than when I came home after 1st year of uni. My hair I thought looked good and it was nice and shiny after the black hair products A has gotten me into using. I made sure it didn’t look greasy and assuming that five different people wouldn’t lie to me, especially not TG who laughs at people looking just a bit stupid. I thought my clothes were ok and I was all settled to go back. “What have you done to your hair?” was the very first thing she asked me. “It looks horribly dirty.” Then both she and dad who’s very over weight, my dad that is, said they noticed I’d put on weight and that I needed the exercise. I was frankly quite hurt. I really didn’t think different people lied to me about my hair, and I also didn’t think A lied to me when he said I have a gorgeous figure. Then, there are little things such as how I do the dishes, how I put them back in, how I lay the table. Things aren’t to mum’s liking. She even critiqued the mooncup. I’m sure she’s gonna try to get me back to using tampons again, but sorry mum, that aint happening! She makes me tired constantly saying these little things. She even tells me how to eat. “Now you can take another bite, now, put the fork down. Sit back and chew. Enjoy the food.” My blindness is caused by my optic nerve being detached from my brain. This means I can’t see any light or darkness. A person with absolutely no perception doesn’t have the advantages of being able to orientate in a room by focusing on sources of light. I use echo location a fair amount plus I have developed quite good mobility skills over the years. Mum however, still likes comparing me to somebody who can see light. “She’s much better orientating than you,” she said once when I had a friend over who had good light perception and who can work out shapes and shadows. I pointed out that the criticism wasn’t fair as she had those advantages and said that she was lucky that I did as well as I did without any fucking perception. She replied by saying, “I know that having light perception gives you some advantage” a reply that frankly made no sense whatsoever.

I’m writing all this now because it’s been bottling up inside me during the time I’ve spent with her. I moaned to Mad, my long lost friend who’s blind too. Like me, she has no light perception. She’s a semi celebrity in Norway. Her dad was a famous jockey when he lived and she lost her sight in a traffic accident. She, like me is very independent. She’s married, has a little girl and a second child on the way. She’s a marvellous cook and keeps her house clean. She could tell me that her mum was exactly like mum. And when she asked her mum: “Look, everyone’s telling me things look clean and nice. I’ve even had compliments on clothes and things in the house. Then you are the only one coming in telling me it’s not good enough. Shall I trust you or them?” Not very well written, but I hope you get the gist. Her mum answers: “Well, I’m your mother and I want the best for you.” This is just like mum and I. I’m just wondering why they are like that. Do they wanna break us in some kind of way? Maybe it’s the mother thing about feeling not needed after kids have grown up and trying to make us depending on them again? I don’t know. I just know it hurts me and it shouldn’t and I should rise above it, but it’s hard.

We watched a documentary last week about Ben Underwood. The Californian teenager with the fine echo location skills. We = mum, dad and I. At first I hated the documentary. Of course the boy was clever. He skated and cycled around just using echo location and not anything like a cane when he was walking around. “Ben has an independence other blind people can only dream of” the comment woman said at least twice. I wanted to get up and punch the screen. Not that that would have helped, the wide screen TV would be broken and my parents would have been fuming. I know that although my echo location skills might not be as fine as Ben’s, they are still pretty good and I can hear trees, cars, walls and lamp posts, but I use a cane which made me feel less able than him. I sat there knowing both mum and dad thinking “Wish our daughter could be like that.” I felt a little better though when Ben’s arrogance finally made him lose track of where he was and he got a blind mobility teacher to train his echo location skills further, but also teach him how to use a cane. At first Ben didn’t want to hear of it and thought he was champion of the world. He behaved like a little bugger until at the end of the documentary he did start to use a cane. It was good to see blindies like me who were some of the worlds most independent and efficient with mobility use a cane and it made me feel slightly better.

Then, the society. They have so many misconceptions and they think it’s ok to talk to me any time of day just because I’m blind. Too tired to write about that now though, so will continue tomorrow. It feels good to write all this down.

Tags: Ben Underwood, Blindness, Cane, Echo location, Mobility