Re­cent­ly, I had the plea­sure of read­ing a quote that said the biggest fac­tor in a blind child’s suc­cess is not their blind­ness, but you.

Now be­fore par­ents start feel­ing at­tacked, re­lax. No­body is hand­ing out blame to­day.

The quote was di­rect­ed to­ward par­ents rais­ing blind chil­dren, and rea­son­ably so, be­cause par­ents shape a lot of what chil­dren be­come. Still, I kept think­ing about it af­ter I read it be­cause some­thing about it stayed with me.

What if “you” does not on­ly re­fer to par­ents?

What if “you” refers to the en­vi­ron­ment around a child? What if it is fam­i­ly? Maybe it is teach­ers. Maybe it is so­ci­ety. Maybe it is all the lit­tle lessons chil­dren ab­sorb with­out any­one re­al­iz­ing they are teach­ing them.

May is Blind­ness Aware­ness Month here in Trinidad and To­ba­go. It is al­so Men­tal Health Aware­ness Month. At first glance, those sound like two com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent con­ver­sa­tions, right? One is about vi­sion loss and one is about emo­tion­al well­be­ing. The more I thought about it though, the more I re­alised they over­lap in places peo­ple do not usu­al­ly think to look.

Peo­ple of­ten talk about men­tal health like it sud­den­ly ap­pears in adult­hood. One day life is nor­mal and then sud­den­ly there are bills, work stress, re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, and your body starts mak­ing strange nois­es every time you stand up. Your knees be­gin ne­go­ti­at­ing terms and con­di­tions be­fore al­low­ing you to sit down. Get­ting out of bed be­comes less of a move­ment and more of a care­ful­ly planned op­er­a­tion.

Then we all sit there won­der­ing what hap­pened.

The truth is that a lot of what be­comes adult strug­gles starts long be­fore adult­hood.

Chil­dren are con­stant­ly learn­ing things about them­selves. Not on­ly from the things peo­ple in­ten­tion­al­ly teach them ei­ther. They learn from rep­e­ti­tion. Re­ac­tions. Small com­ments re­peat­ed so of­ten that even­tu­al­ly they stop sound­ing like words and start sound­ing like facts.

Take some­thing as sim­ple as move­ment.

Chil­dren used to dis­ap­pear out­side for hours. The road used to be­come one gi­ant play­ground. Foot­ball in the street. Crick­et with makeshift bats. Bi­cy­cle races. Run­ning up and down un­til the street­lights came on and some­body start­ed shout­ing for every­body to come in­side.

No­body called it ex­er­cise. No child ever stood up and an­nounced, “Right every­body, time for car­dio.”

Chil­dren sim­ply moved be­cause move­ment was part of be­ing a child. Now a lot of child­hood hap­pens in­doors. En­ter­tain­ment hap­pens in­doors. Friends hap­pen in­doors. School­work hap­pens in­doors. Then blind chil­dren some­times get an­oth­er lay­er added on top of that.

Fear.

What if they fall? What if they hurt them­selves? What if some­thing hap­pens? I un­der­stand it. I re­al­ly do. No­body wants to see a child get hurt.

But I was that blind child.

I was the child run­ning with my cousins and falling be­cause I ig­nored the adults telling me not to run. To be fair, that is not ex­act­ly unique be­hav­iour for chil­dren. Sight­ed chil­dren have al­so spent gen­er­a­tions treat­ing ba­sic in­struc­tions like op­tion­al sug­ges­tions.

I should prob­a­bly say this. My sto­ry is not your sto­ry, and I am not pre­tend­ing to speak for every blind per­son read­ing this. Blind peo­ple are not one gi­ant hive mind se­cret­ly shar­ing thoughts with each oth­er.

Still, I have no­ticed things. I have no­ticed con­ver­sa­tions. I have no­ticed pat­terns. I have no­ticed that a lot of peo­ple, blind and sight­ed alike, seem to have com­pli­cat­ed re­la­tion­ships with move­ment and ex­er­cise.

Some of us played sports grow­ing up. Some of us climbed trees and ran around out­side. Some of us ab­solute­ly did not. Some of us heard “be care­ful” of­ten enough for it to be­come back­ground mu­sic.

Sit down.

Slow down.

Do not go too far.

Be care­ful.

None of those things are bad on their own. Par­ents say those things all the time. Chil­dren just hear things dif­fer­ent­ly.

Af­ter years of hear­ing cer­tain mes­sages, you are not on­ly teach­ing safe­ty any­more. You are teach­ing some­thing about iden­ti­ty too.

You are teach­ing whether try­ing things feels worth it. You are teach­ing whether move­ment feels nor­mal. Whether their body is some­thing they can trust.

That is where men­tal health qui­et­ly en­ters the con­ver­sa­tion.

Peo­ple hear “men­tal health” and think stress, anx­i­ety, de­pres­sion, burnout. Those things mat­ter. Con­fi­dence mat­ters too. Self-im­age mat­ters too. Feel­ing ca­pa­ble mat­ters too.

Chil­dren may not re­mem­ber ex­act words years lat­er, but they re­mem­ber feel­ings. They re­mem­ber feel­ing con­fi­dent. They re­mem­ber feel­ing lim­it­ed. They re­mem­ber feel­ing afraid. Chil­dren be­come adults, and some­where along the way the con­ver­sa­tion changes.

Sud­den­ly peo­ple are talk­ing about high blood pres­sure, di­a­betes, weight gain, heart dis­ease, lifestyle ill­ness­es, and poor health out­comes. Blind peo­ple ex­pe­ri­ence these things too, some­times much younger than they should.

This is the part peo­ple do not like to talk about.

We are com­fort­able talk­ing about ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty. We are com­fort­able talk­ing about ed­u­ca­tion, tech­nol­o­gy, in­de­pen­dence, and in­clu­sion. Those con­ver­sa­tions mat­ter.

There is an­oth­er con­ver­sa­tion sit­ting qui­et­ly in the cor­ner though.

Blind peo­ple get sick too.

Blind­ness it­self is not rais­ing any­body’s blood pres­sure. Blind­ness it­self is not de­cid­ing mus­cles should weak­en or sta­mi­na should dis­ap­pear. That re­al­i­sa­tion both­ered me be­cause blind­ness is nev­er the whole sto­ry.

Maybe some of us spent years be­ing taught not to move and then be­came sur­prised by the out­come.

Not be­cause any­one failed. Not be­cause any­one in­ten­tion­al­ly caused harm. Most peo­ple were try­ing to pro­tect the peo­ple they loved.

The prob­lem is that pro­tec­tion and re­stric­tion can some­times change places with­out any­one notic­ing.

Some­times those lessons fol­low peo­ple fur­ther than any­one in­tend­ed. You be­come an adult who hes­i­tates be­fore try­ing things. An adult who feels awk­ward mov­ing. An adult who as­sumes ex­er­cise be­longs to oth­er peo­ple. Oth­er bod­ies. Oth­er lives.

Not be­cause you are in­ca­pable.

Some­times sim­ply be­cause cau­tion set­tled in so ear­ly that it start­ed feel­ing nat­ur­al. The good thing about adult­hood is that lessons are not per­ma­nent. Adults get the chance to rewrite things. What is stop­ping you from start­ing now?

This is not the part where I tell every­one to sign up for ex­pen­sive gym mem­ber­ships and sud­den­ly be­come fit­ness in­flu­encers. Some of us are al­ready ex­haust­ed just hear­ing the words “high in­ten­si­ty in­ter­val train­ing.” I am con­vinced cer­tain ex­er­cise names alone burn calo­ries through stress.

Move­ment can be small­er than peo­ple think.

Walk around the house while talk­ing on the phone.

Stretch when you wake up.

Dance while cook­ing.

Walk stairs if you have them.

Lift bot­tles of wa­ter.

Move around while lis­ten­ing to mu­sic or read­ing an au­dio­book.

Do squats while wait­ing for the ket­tle.

Small things count.

Peo­ple like dra­mat­ic trans­for­ma­tions be­cause they make good sto­ries. Re­al life usu­al­ly works dif­fer­ent­ly. Most changes hap­pen qui­et­ly. They hap­pen through rep­e­ti­tion.

Men­tal health is not on­ly about what is hap­pen­ing in­side some­one’s mind.

Some­times it is shaped by con­fi­dence.

Some­times it is shaped by move­ment.

Some­times it is shaped by years of learn­ing whether your body feels ca­pa­ble or frag­ile.

Chil­dren are al­ways learn­ing some­thing.

The ques­tion is whether we are teach­ing con­fi­dence or teach­ing fear and ac­ci­den­tal­ly call­ing it pro­tec­tion.

And some­times those lessons stay long af­ter child­hood is over.

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