Positive Disability Identity and Opportunity of Blindness

Those who keep an eye on it tend to do that fear as much or more blindness as other disability disorders (Enoch et al., 2019; Scott et al., 2016). They view blindness as tragic and assume that blind people are desperate for treatment (Nario-Redmond, 2020).

At the beginning of vision loss, people experience severe psychological distress (Boagy et al., 2022; Nyman et al., 2012). At that point, treatments that effectively reverse vision loss are welcome.

But the collapse they witnessed Identity Eventually, they begin to form new identities, including blindness as a central feature.

What is an identity?

In psychology, “identities” refer to beliefs about how they resemble others and different people (Brewer, 1991; Erikson, 1968). We demonstrate our similarities by aligning ourselves with people and social groups with beliefs and values. the goaland other attributes we find attractive. They demonstrate the difference by expressing beliefs, values, traits, goals, etc. that these people or groups do not share.

According to Erik Erikson (1968), identity formation is the main focus of personality Early development puberty Until the early adulthood. Erickson called this focus the “identity crisis.” Susan Blange and her colleagues (2021) stated, “Youth begin to question and explore… (who), the role they want to be, and the place they want to occupy in adulthood, and their place in society.”

During adolescence, we begin to build autobiographical stories that connect who we were in the past, who we are now, and who we will become in the future. In this life story, we come to view ourselves as the same self over time, across different living circumstances.

Identity provides us with purpose and meaning in our lives and therefore is the primary motivation for our actions. Identity helps us:

• Set both short-term and long-term goals.
• After experiencing frustration and failure, endure achieving your goal.
• Establish and maintain a good relationship.

Prepubertal vision loss

The effect of blindness on identity depends on the onset of vision loss. People who lose their vision early in their lives have always seen themselves as visually impaired, and thus easily integrate blindness into their identity. As adolescents stated, blindness “has never really bothered me. Creating blind identity during adolescents helps them to address the challenges they face as adults (Bogart, 2014).

Postpuberty visual loss

The onset of blindness in adulthood divides witnessed identities formed during the adolescent identity crisis. The person must create a new autobiographical story by committing to a new role, group, belief, goal, etc. (Ferrey et al., 2024; Galvin, 2005).

The quality of their relationships is important in shaping new identities (Branje et al., 2021). They need to burn new relationships with those who accept blindness. And, as in the case of a young woman named Pearl, they must prepare to lose a friend who cannot do so.

As with Arizona’s personal development coach, Kyla Allen, identity formation is even more complicated when sufficient residual vision appears to be visible to others during adolescence. She was born in a hereditary retinal state, and during that time she took a vision of the surroundings. Childhood. Although she was legally blind, she had enough central vision to participate in many sighted activities.

Kaila became mainstream until the end of high school. She also received rehabilitation services outside of school, which ultimately prepared her for a central loss of vision.

Kyla’s Twilight’s presence on the boundary between the sighted and the blind world made her deeply unsettling. I asked her if she agreed to a treatment for her retinal disease if retinal disease was available when she was a teenager. She replied “Yes.” Her partial sight made her embarrassed. And she couldn’t celebrate the most important teenage rite of passage: she got a driver’s license.

Kaira had no sense of belonging to the world she was spotted or the blind. The lack of attribution hampered her ability to resolve the crisis of her identity.

She felt relieved when she lost her central vision in adulthood. She finally experienced a sense of belonging in a blind world. When I asked her if she had found a cure for her blindness, she replied “No,” explaining, “I know who I am. I know where in the world I am and I am happy with what I am doing.”

Kaila’s positive attitude towards her blindness indicates that she successfully formed her disability identity (Dunn & Burcaw, 2013; Forber-Pratt et al., 2017). Those who have formed disability identities have shown:

• A positive sense of self
• I take pride in my disability situation
• Feelings of belonging to a community for people with disabilities

Harlan Hahn and Todd Belt (2004) found that people with strong disability identities do not seek “treatment.” They asked a group of disability activists to assess how much they agreed to and opposed to the following statement:

Many participants agreed to the statement. The researchers then found that participants agreed to the following disability affirmation statement, which was enough to reject the idea of ​​treatment:

• “In general, I’m happy to be a person with a disability.”
• “Being a person with a disability is an important reflection of me.”

In my next post I will discuss searching for treatments for blindness and their potential acceptance in the blindness community.

Note: Thank you to Kiera Feng for his editorial assistance.