What It's Like to Be a Blind Adult

Man with Dog

Source: Roman/Adobe Stock

Blindness found me when I turned 60. For me, blindness was a mindless, faceless, voracious beast that consumed my sighted self. I emerged as a sightless shadow self and started to rebuild my life. That new self still is growing.

The onset of sight loss is devastating because we do not yet have the skills needed to function nonvisually. The despair experienced initially is evident in the following description of a woman in a support group:

[The woman was] crying because she couldn’t peel a potato and an onion…. She cried for a whole hour because she couldn’t peel that potato. That potato was so important to her, it was her whole life. (Fraser et al., 2019)

In my case, sight loss has affected me most by transforming how others view me (Ricker, 2023). In the minds of many sighted people, my white cane announces that I am missing something essential for being fully human.

A young blind woman makes a similar point in the following passage:

I could be the smartest, I could be the prettiest. I could be the funniest, but it doesn’t matter because all people will see is blind. (cited in Romo et al., 2023)

Stereotypes and Ableism

When people see only our blindness, we become a stereotype. The blindness stereotype includes traits such as incompetence, dependence, and helplessness (Ricker, 2023).

Disability stereotypes produce ableist attitudes. “Ableism” refers to “prejudice and discrimination toward individuals simply because they are classified as disabled” (Nario-Redmond, 2020).

People who are blind also learn the stereotype and so they may develop “internalized ableism” which can produce feelings of inferiority. (Pérez-Garín et al., 2021; Romo et al., 2023)

Ableism also is related to “stereotype threat,” or the fear that a poor performance on tasks related to negative stereotypes will appear to confirm the stereotypes (Jóhannsdóttir et al., 2022; Romo et al., 2023).

I often fear looking incompetent when using a cane. This fear results in performance anxiety. I imagine sighted observers evaluating my competence negatively, which distracts me, thereby causing me to make embarrassing mistakes, such as tripping over obstacles.

Mistakes can evoke feelings of humiliation and shame, which may result in maladaptive responses such as avoiding social situations entirely (Fraser et al., 2019; Nario-Redmond, 2020).

Elevator Assist

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Stereotypes and Helping

Another stereotypical feature of blindness is dependency. It is true that we are dependent on others to help us with tasks such as driving to appointments. Becoming overly dependent on others' help is stressful because it conflicts with a fundamental human motivation: the need for autonomy.

If we consistently give up our autonomy, we experience lowered confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth (Heaslip, 2024). One woman put it this way:

“When you ask for help from a friend, it puts you in a dependent role. And that, to me, puts you in a less-than role” (cited in Romo et al., 2023).

When requesting help, we worry about becoming a burden. Thus, we learn strategies intended to reduce any potential damage to the relationship. A common strategy is to give up control over scheduling to the helper, as in the following example:

If I start to ask [my wife for help], sometimes she just gets…a little bit irritated …. So I’m usually just asking in terms of, “What’s your plans for the weekend or where are you going to? What time do you wanna take me to the store?” I usually don’t ask for a specific time. (cited in Romo et al., 2023)

At the other extreme are people who offer unsolicited and unwanted help. This help usually appears to be well intentioned. But the helper often assumes incorrectly that the blind person is incapable of performing a task on their own.

For example, about six months ago, a delivery person called me from his car because a dog was in front of my place barking at him. I walked out with my cane, petted the dog for a bit, and began to walk back to my front door. The delivery person yelled, “Stop!” He ran up and started to guide me. I reminded him that he had just seen me walk the route by myself.

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When I am standing outside waiting for a ride, people sometimes stop and ask, "Are you OK?” or “Do you need help?” One person offered a possible explanation for this behavior:

“I think they've made an assumption that if they see a blind person standing there waiting for a bus or a train, [the blind person doesn’t] know where they are” (Heaslip, 2024).

Some people feel compelled to protect me from unknown dangers. For example, nurses have worried about leaving me alone in an examination room. And at large social gatherings, people may try to isolate me in a safe area away from the crowd.

We often have to decide in the moment whether or not to accept unsolicited help. Refusing help is stressful because the helper is likely to feel offended (Heaslip, 2024). On the other hand, accepting unwanted help also is stressful because we feel less autonomous. When it comes to unsolicited help, we must walk an emotional tightrope.

Empathy, Not Pity

Of all the reactions of the sighted world to my blindness, I am most disturbed when people say to me, “I am so sorry this happened to you.” Their dismay is unnecessary. In fact, their pity implies that living with blindness may not be worth the trouble.

My blindness has benefits that I could not have imagined when I had sight (Ricker, 2023, 2024). For example, I now teach people about blindness and low vision. And I think that my work helps some of them. Nothing we do with our time here on earth is more important than that.