On VI vs blindness. A lot of it comes down to self-identification I guess. I mean of course there’s legal implications. Here in the US, if you can’t correct your vision to be better than 20/200 and/or have a visual field of 20 degrees or less then you’re legally blind. Useful achievement for disability services! Visual impairment means a person’s eyesight can’t be corrected to a normal level, which includes all blind people but also some people with better (still not great) vision. Someone who can only correct their vision to 20/100 is visually impaired but not necessarily blind. Remember folks it’s AT BEST CORRECTION, you’re not legally blind if you see at 20/200 only when your glasses are off. On the other hand “visually impaired” coloquially can be a very broad term so go crazy I guess. I like using blindness as a term because it expresses my needs best. I get treated differently when I’m BLIND to people, like when I use a cane (being visibly disabled) or am classified as blind. But calling myself visually impaired just sometimes doesn’t communicate those needs. People will want to have me rely on my residual vision which can hurt. Maybe I would know how to read braille if I was given different services growing up. Most people who are blind aren’t what people expect us to be. Most of us have residual vision. And this doesn’t even go into all the different ways someone’s vision can suck! Visual acuity isn’t even that great of a metric. Sorry, rant over! For being such a known disability people don’t know anything about blindness so I love talking about it. Also, I approve of seeing eye chicken. Never thought of it before but Gilbird as some sort of guide animal is fucking amazing. He should also get a tacky cane, a far more universal device for the blind! Guide dogs can be hard to get and expensive.
Ahh, okay! I can relate to some of this; something frustrating about disabilities - in my opinion - is how many terms have very specific legal-connotations that make it difficult to self-identify or explain your own experiences. Somewhere on this blog you can find me being confused and debating if I can use the term 'mania' if the DSM-5 considers mania an inherent part of Bipolar I, which I don't have. Realizing that the DSM is a tool for diagnosing, not a universal book of truth, really helped me out there.
I knew blindness, like disabilities in general, is a scale, but I didn't know the specifics. .... now I'm wondering about the differences in terminology and practicality between vision impairment due to a problem with the eyes versus visual impairment due to something malfunctioning in the brain, but I don't have a fully-formed question yet. and please, feel free to ramble all you like! I may not have much to say since I don't have the experience or knowledge, but I like to learn and I'd be delighted to get to use this blog to collect references and people's experiences living with disabilities.
also, the words "tacky cane" have changed me. oh my god the possibilities:
bears for Berlin!
[Left image: a walking cane with a white handle carved into the shape of a bear stretching; the bear's back feet attach it to the main part of the cane, leaving its body and head somewhat hanging off. It's a bit goofy-looking in my opinion. Middle image: a black cane with a Derby handle - I think - shaped like the head of a bear. Right image: another Derby handle cane with a bear head, but this one is brown and more natural-looking.]
canes for when you want your old sword back but it's 2023 and carrying swords in Berlin is illegal.
[Left image: a cane with the handle modeled after the pommel of a medieval broadsword. Right image: obligatory sword-cane that truthfully I am not sure how to describe.]
Alfred is definitely responsible for these.
[Left image: a cane with a handle carved to look like a pistol. Middle image: a cane with a black eagle head on the handle. Right image: a cane with a white eagle head as the handle. Really just the most gaudy canes possible.]
wait. his cane handle is shaped like Gilbird.
