Re: Your choice? Would you restore your vision?
@81 - I'd be interested in reading but i dont see a link. Can you provide a link?
@83
Alright you know what, blind people aren't the only disabled people in the world and this attitude pisses me off. You are one person. Sorry if its controversial and ticks a few heads here but it's true. Seriously, how about you google ableism sometime.
First off, you're really showing your ignorance of deaf communities. The whole reason why this group even exists is because deafness causes an isolation in communication that results in the creation of their own languages. This has been recorded in real time and is so significant that it has contributed significantly to linguistics and understanding of language synthesis. Curing every deaf person leads to the loss of those languages. I am not going to argue with you why that's a bad thing. Like blind people they are obviously not homogeneous on this issue because of a wide range of experiences - but here's the thing: just assuming that people who are afraid of change are stupid because they can't see the whole world like a sighted person means you are stepping into other people's lives. It's actually you who is homogenizing the deaf by saying this vocal minority has no valid reason to complain - THEY DO.
You're allowed to have your own perspective on how to treat your own body but you're literally telling other people how they should live (and don't tell me you're not - you're literally diagnosing them as having a "coping problem" when they express their opinion). That's the problem. It has nothing to do with identity, disability identity is actually really stupid and alienating - it has to do with someone saying, oh this is what you should do with your body.
And seriously, talk to people born with glaucoma. I'm not saying that parents who treat their kids are abusers obviously, but I've talked to several and they all had severe PTSD from their surgeries. One of my closest friends went through over 50 invasive surgeries across 30 years. Just looking at people who are just born totally blind in comparison and you can see the psychological impact. Reducing it into a system of cures is not facing the actual problem that disabled people face.
Let's not get into how cures are just a commodity anyways and don't really exist, and how this approach completely neglects people who go blind because of trauma or late-life health (aka, a lot of them). A lot of blind people are even familiar with this problem because their condition is caused by a complex change in their eyes or nerves. Basically the problem is caused by an organ in your body changing its function which impacts your ability to see, possibly removing it altogether. Because of the complexity of this function, how you adapted to the change of it ect. impacts your development, you can't simply just "fix" it in many cases, especially in people born blind. Research visual development in the brain - after a while your body is unable to adapt to vision because the brain has already developed past a critical period. So many blind people wouldn't even gain vision like other blind people who had vision before would.
Now this is not to say that treatments and alternatives shouldn't be investigated or looked into, in fact the more options the better, but when we talk about how "offended we are" and how "wrong" it is for people to feel uncomfortable with the idea of becoming sighted, and reduce their opinion down to a strawman about "identity", you're the one who's introducing what a blind person should be (someone who desires to see again). The "blind identity" doesn't exist; what exists is our experiences and our comfort zones, and its perfectly valid for some people to want to have a different opinion. You say yourself that you were able to see somewhat and this explains your motivation very clearly for wanting to gain vision again, but you write off other blind people as having a "coping mechanism" when you only encompass one kind of possible blind experience. You certainly couldn't have known what it was like to be born totally blind, and I notice many people who are born totally blind tend to have a bit more of a problem with the idea of gaining vision again.
Sorry for getting angry about this but I really wish people would actually talk to other disabled people on this subject instead of assuming their own experience represents everyone, and then get offended at other people because they're expressing their own opinions. This is a very complicated subject that can't be just referenced from your own point of view. If this offends you you should seriously talk to more people, especially those with other disabilities, because this "identity" crap isn't coming from them.
@ 86 - But here's the thing - the whole reason why you're missing out on the world in the first place is because its a sighted world. Even if you gained vision you would have to struggle with the fact that your brain is playing 20 years of catchup. neuroplasticity is not going to make it so that you can fully get around this problem. In fact, its the reason why as you get older, becoming sighted becomes harder to do - your brain actually adapts to the stimulus you receive, and so gaining vision later in life becomes more and more difficult to do; critical periods are linked to these phases.
It's true that you would still be you but it wouldn't be the same as a sighted you; and if you were born sighted, you really wouldn't be the same person because a lot of the experiences that shaped you were based around you being blind. I should point out that this is true for anyone and not just "blindness" in general, but rather all the unique experiences shape us and blindness all of them in a very notable way.
And what you bring up as the uniqueness of your perspective of how you couldn't see society the same way that you were expected is exactly what is possibly lost from implying that blindness should be something that should aim towards being cured. This is something some people would rather not impact. But in your case following that path makes a new person, a new you - and I think its important to emphasize that the reason why the new you is not a "different" you like you bring up in your post is because you transition from a blind person into a sighted person, bringing along all those unique views along with it. This is the core of what I'm trying to express.
At the end of the day what I'm really advocating for is options, the ability to choose if you want to change your vision at all; so becoming sighted shouldn't really be shunned against; what I have a problem with is people getting mad at blind people who are comfortable staying blind. It should be a two way street and we should adapt for many ways of life.
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