Being Labelled

I’ve been thinking a lot about labels because a life-changing experience often changes how others see you. For example, I have gone from being a “sighted person” to a “visually-impaired person” - or as the politically-correct will insist, I am now a “person with a visual impairment”. Supposedly the latter is more empowering, as labels go, but according to my understanding of English it is simply a passive phrase. I don’t know.

A friend asked me, “What do you say to someone when you need assistance?” I simply say that I don’t see very well – that seems pretty straight forward and unthreatening. I know a man who actually wears a button that says he’s visually-impaired so that others will know that he has low vision and is not just clumsy or drunk. The CNIB encourages clients to use a white cane to identify them as having low vision. I use my white cane strictly for mobility.

Whether I want to admit it not, optic neuritis left me with a visual disability. Unfortunately, it means that I need to be labeled so that others can “understand” me. I am neither fully sighted nor completely blind. The fact that I can no longer drive my car, cross the street safely without my mobility cane, or use my computer without assistive software tells me that I am blind. Rather than accept that I have impairment, I employ new skills and alternative techniques to do most of the things I used to do.

People are very curious to know exactly what I can and cannot see but don’t always come right out and say what’s on their minds. I find children’s honesty and empathy refreshing. I show them how my cane helps me “see” bumps and stairs and I love when they ask to use my cane to try it themselves with their eyes closed.

Adults on the other hand need the specifics; they want me to describe exactly what I see compared to them. There seems to be degrees of acceptance involved. It insults me when someone says, “oh well, then you’re not really blind.” Despite meeting the medical definition and government criteria, I guess to them the label doesn’t fit me – as if somehow I’m cheating or making it worse than it is. Yes, I have some remaining sight, but I have to work very hard now to navigate my new world and do all the things I used to take for granted. But I’m still me – neither label changes that.