This one is go­ing to be … Dif­fer­ent.

To­day’s col­umn isn’t about ad­vo­ca­cy or preach­ing a no­ble ide­al. In­stead, I’m go­ing to talk to you about some­thing I don’t dis­cuss with any­one, re­al­ly.

Not be­cause I don’t have any­one to talk to about it who can re­late—quite the op­po­site, in fact. There are many peo­ple in the same boat, but the top­ic is too scary, too heavy, to even think about what to say.

Since we re­cent­ly cel­e­brat­ed Hal­loween, I fig­ured it was a good oc­ca­sion to write about some­thing which, to many vi­su­al­ly im­paired peo­ple, is a hor­ri­fy­ing and spooky thing.

What’s so scary, Jaidon?

Pro­gres­sive vi­sion loss, my dear friends.

Pro­gres­sive vi­sion loss is, as the name would sug­gest, the process of los­ing your sight slow­ly over time. Some peo­ple com­plete­ly lose their sight and wind up to­tal­ly blind, while for oth­ers there’s a floor and they main­tain some vi­sion, be it vi­sion as we would nor­mal­ly think of, i.e., colours, shad­ows, shapes, etc., or more ab­stract forms like light per­cep­tion.

This is an as­pect of blind­ness which many peo­ple deal with but isn’t re­al­ly talked about. When it is, it’s more frus­trat­ing and down­right de­press­ing be­cause peo­ple don’t un­der­stand.

I jok­ing­ly say that I’m past my ex­piry date. That’s be­cause when I was six years or so, my doc­tor said I’d have lost my sight at age 12. I’m 20 now, and that hasn’t hap­pened.

At least not yet, thank God.

While it’s true I may still have some sight, 20-year-old Jaidon sees sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than 12-year-old Jaidon did and, I sus­pect, if I gave him my cur­rent lev­el of vi­sion, he’d burst in­to tears.

The thing about pro­gres­sive vi­sion loss is it’s not some­thing you ob­serve in re­al time. You on­ly no­tice it when the things you were used to do­ing, the things you loved do­ing, be­come more dif­fi­cult or im­pos­si­ble to do with­out help.

A few days ago, I went in the fridge in our shop to get some­thing to sip on. I saw a can of … some­thing. I have no idea what it is be­cause I tried to look at it, but I couldn’t see it. All I could do was rest it back and gaze at the fridge blankly for an un­known amount of time.

Yes, there’s Be My Eyes and Gem­i­ni. I wrote two columns about them. Yes, there are peo­ple with func­tion­al eyes in my life, and I have an Eng­lish tongue in my mouth which works like a charm.

But you have to un­der­stand the psy­chol­o­gy of some­one liv­ing with de­te­ri­o­rat­ing vi­sion.

Be­ing blind is per­ceived as un­cool. The think­ing in our so­ci­ety is blind peo­ple need to be cod­dled, as­sist­ed and tak­en care of. We like to do things “by we self” in this coun­try, and im­age is a big thing. No­body wants to be per­ceived as help­less, weak and def­i­nite­ly not in­com­pe­tent.

Now imag­ine go­ing your en­tire life be­ing able to read signs, recog­nise faces and all the things ex­pect­ed of dai­ly life, then need­ing help iden­ti­fy­ing what flavour So­lo you’re pick­ing up.

“Em­bar­rass­ing!”

It’s a hard pill to swal­low. Some­times you tell lit­tle white lies and pre­tend that you’re see­ing some­thing oth­ers point out, even though you don’t. The func­tion of that is twofold. One, and the one you tell your­self is the main rea­son, is to pro­tect your loved ones from the pain of know­ing you’re los­ing your vi­sion, be­cause it im­pacts them as well.

And sec­ond, which is the ob­jec­tive­ly im­por­tant one, you lie to avoid con­fronting the re­al­i­ty that maybe you’re see­ing less than you did.

Hav­ing that con­ver­sa­tion with your loved ones is hard, though. Some­times they can’t un­der­stand the stress of los­ing your vi­sion.

“Doh spit in God face, at least yuh could see,” they re­tort.

While on the oth­er end of the spec­trum, ex­press­ing the heavy emo­tions at­tached may be too much for some, and they over­load.

I man­aged to pass my ex­piry date, but that’s a dou­ble-edged sword. While a bless­ing, it’s scary hav­ing that ham­mer over my head which may or may not drop some­day.

Un­cer­tain­ty is a killer.

Mean­while, for those who do have a date, they hold on in dread un­til it in­evitably ar­rives.

This col­umn doesn’t re­al­ly have a hap­py end­ing like the oth­ers. For those of us with fad­ing vi­sion, we go on, learn to adapt and still en­joy our lives. How­ev­er, while every­one jumps at zom­bies, ghosts and vam­pires this week­end, for us, we’re left with a scari­er, more in­sid­i­ous de­mon qui­et­ly lurk­ing year-round.

Hope­ful­ly, this piece sheds some light on it, and peo­ple with pro­gres­sive vi­sion loss can fi­nal­ly start talk­ing about it more in the open.

Af­ter all, talk­ing is the best form of ther­a­py.

This col­umn is sup­plied in con­junc­tion with the T&T Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion.

Head­quar­ters: 118 Duke Street, Port of Spain, Trinidad

Email: ttb­wa1914@gmail.com

Phone: (868) 624-4675

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