Low vision is one of those terms people think they understand until they meet someone who actually lives with it.
It sounds simple. Not fully blind. Not fully sighted. Somewhere in between. Very tidy. Very comforting. And almost completely wrong.
That “in between” is where most of the confusion lives. Low vision is not a single experience or a fixed amount of sight. It is inconsistent, situational, and often uncooperative. It changes with lighting, fatigue, contrast, familiarity, and environment. It works well one moment and poorly the next, sometimes without warning, and rarely in ways that align with other people’s expectations.
For many people, especially those living with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), vision changes over time. Sometimes slowly. Sometimes unevenly. Sometimes in ways that sound contradictory if you are committed to neat categories. You may see light but not detail. Shapes but not faces. Movement but not steps. You may function comfortably in one setting and struggle completely in another. You may be able to do something today that you could not do yesterday, or lose access to something you relied on the day before.
RP is a genetic eye condition that affects the retina and usually involves progressive vision loss. It often begins with night blindness and loss of peripheral vision. For some people, it progresses to total blindness. For others, usable vision remains for decades. There is no single timeline and no universal ending. Two people with the same diagnosis can have vastly different visual experiences, which makes simple explanations tempting, but inaccurate.
That unpredictability shapes how people live.
People with low vision navigate daily life by adapting constantly, often using a mix of vision, tools, and learned strategies. Many rely on magnifiers, large print, screen readers, or high contrast settings to make information usable. Colour contrast matters more than people expect.
A white cup on a white counter may disappear completely, while a dark one is immediately obvious. Lighting can determine whether a task is manageable or impossible, which is why some people carry task lights, avoid dim environments, or arrange their homes carefully to reduce glare and shadow.
For people with RP, navigation is often shaped by night blindness and reduced peripheral vision. A space that feels familiar and safe during the day can become disorienting after dark. Someone may move comfortably through a room they know well but miss obstacles at the edges of their vision, especially in unfamiliar places. This is why a person with RP may walk independently in daylight but use a cane at night. None of this is inconsistency. It is adaptation.
Low vision often means choosing when to rely on sight and when not to. A person might read mail with a hand-held magnifier, use a phone camera to zoom in on a label, and switch to audio for longer reading. Functioning is rarely about doing everything visually. It is about using whatever combination of tools makes a task possible without burning out.
That adaptability, however, is rarely visible to others.
Most public ideas about blindness still live at the extremes. Either you see or you do not. Low vision disrupts that logic, and as a result, people with low vision are often expected to explain themselves on demand.
You can see, but not that well. You can read, but not like that. You can walk alone, but not at night. These explanations get old quickly, especially when they are met with scepticism instead of understanding.
Low vision often comes with credibility checks. Are you really blind? Are you blind enough? If you can see that, why can’t you see this? The questions may be unspoken, but they are present in classrooms, workplaces, medical offices, and public spaces, quietly assessing whether a person’s needs are legitimate today or merely inconvenient.
For people with RP, this is especially complicated. Vision loss is often gradual, which means constant adjustment while everyone else assumes nothing has changed. You are expected to function the way you always have, right up until the moment you are suddenly expected not to.
Living with low vision often means living between categories. Too blind for some spaces. Too sighted for others. Never quite matching the picture people have in their heads. This affects access to accommodations, support, and sometimes even community.
Low vision awareness is not about drawing firmer lines. It is about accepting that vision loss does not come in one clean, user friendly format. Two people with the same clinical measurements may function very differently in real life.
For those living with RP, awareness means acknowledging uncertainty. Building a life without knowing exactly how vision will change requires flexibility and continual recalibration. It also requires systems that can respond to change, rather than insisting people choose a category and stay there.
What people with low vision and RP need is not disbelief or motivational speeches they did not ask for. They need access. They need accurate information. They need proper instruction and timely support. They need environments that do not punish variability. And they need the freedom to describe their own experiences without being corrected by spectators.
Low vision is not confusion. It is not contradiction. It is simply a valid way of moving through the world.
As we observe Low Vision Awareness and Retinitis Pigmentosa Awareness this February, the most useful thing the public can do is listen. Not to one story, but to many. Not to decide who qualifies, but to understand that blindness, including low vision, has always existed on a range. People living with RP and low vision are not waiting for awareness to catch up. They are already adapting, adjusting, and moving forward, often quietly and without applause.
Awareness should meet them there.
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
WhatsApp: (868) 395-3086
