I am visually impaired but at first sight you can’t really see that about me. This can lead to situations where people who do know that about me forget that I am visually impaired but there are also people who do know and decide to use it in their advantage (and therefore fooling me and abuse my disability… which sucks…).
I am not saying it happens a lot (to me) but it does happen. Not always in a big way but in such a way that it can still hurt.
I have trouble recognizing people because I can hardly see their faces. This alone makes me feel very insecure when I am around other people (e.g. at work, school, parties or in clubs) because even if people know, they sometimes forget or they don’t care. And I can’t expect that everybody I see says hi to me. It feels a bit like you have met someone and you have introduced yourself. And a few days/weeks later you meet that same person again only you can’t recognize him so you want to introduce yourself again. When this happens 3 times to the same person (as well as with other people), you create this insecurity that makes you doubt everyone you see because you do not want to embarrass yourself (by introducing yourself over and over) but at the same time you don’t want that feeling that you don’t know who is in front of you. It can make you feel very lonely and it can make your world small, that is not what you want.
Unfortunately, this happens more that I can sometimes deal with but that is just something I need to accept. I try not to let it bother me, often it works and very few times I need o shake it off haha. I learn how to deal with it by being more assertive but for a introvert person, assertiveness is not something that comes in one day haha.
But… there are situations where people know that I am visually impaired and decide to avoid me… That is not okay! They think: ooh she can’t see me so why even bother saying hi. So yeah, that sucks… Because if I could see them, they’d probably felt the need to come talk to me but because I am visually impaired the see it as an opportunity to walk away. Or when I am somewhere at some kind of show, they can also think: ooh she can’t see it anyway so she doesn’t need to stand in front.
(You must wonder how I know about these situations if I can’t see the people, right? Well, I sometimes have a hunch about recognizing someone and then they just walk away. But I also hear these stories from other visually impaired people so I know it does not only happen to me).
Luckily I can’t complain too much since I know that there are people who have it way worse that I have. I am still pretty independent but I know that there is still a lot of injustice being done to people who need to rely more on others, trust them blindly (literally). Unfortunately, there are people who make me lose faith in humanity..
So be a good person and be kind to one another 😊