By June 15, 2013 Read More →

Coming Out Blind

For most of my life I have not lived openly with my blindness. I have hid it and rejoiced in its invisibility. The sad thing with most things you try to hide about yourself the only person I was fooling was myself….   It takes a lot of energy to appear sighted, you’re constantly acting and anticipating the needs of these around you. It takes a lot of effort and a personal toll. You feel like you’re never good enough and you are constantly lying to yourself about yourself. The other detail is what do “normal” people look like and how do they act?

Coming Out Blind Podcast
Misrepresentation of you is ultimately still a lie. It was a harsh realization. The sad thing is it makes those around you coconspirators in the lie. You surround yourself like a person with an addiction with people that enable and reinforce the lie.
Ultimately no one wins. There is no integrity in it. People just end up resenting it. You end up hating yourself and doubting your abilities and value as a person.
The ugliness of hiding your disability is in the unexplained behaviors or capabilities. Having something happen out of the blue that you can’t compensate for or not being able to do something that people expect you to do. Blind behaviors are very scary for “normal” people. Well some of the “normal” people that act like disabled people should not been seen or heard but hid away in an institution.
In the end you are only hurt by hiding your disability it doesn’t help a thing and in the end people know anyway.   Coming out disabled is the same process as a homosexual coming out of the closet.  I used a book called “Out” to help me along.
I am no longer a closet blind man now I’m outed.

Posted in: Disability & Blindness

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