#vision problems

[this-is-infantilization]

being made to feel like I'm "being difficult" because math is something my brain genuinely can't do very well. i can sit and look at a problem for hours and sometimes logically know what to do, but the numbers add up wrong or i get confused performing some of the operations. i used to do simple math somewhat well, but i think somewhere along the way, the trauma that causes a lot of gaps in my memory and retention must have dislodged my ability to do it as efficiently. some types of math i am pretty decent at, with some of those being considered more complicated math. i don't know if this is because formulas are provided for me or certain concepts are attached. i remember feeling really humiliated about how bad my math score was in relation to my other scores and being treated like shit because i had panic attacks over both being in a new place and trying to finish problems i didn't think I'd complete in time. i'm good at academic stuff otherwise, though i think my family didn't realize how burned out i was until college because i wasn't really in a public school environment (the available school options were mismanaged disasters too focused on testing, so i was pulled).

because i wasn't used to navigating that environment or even keeping up with all the lecture notes i had to take, i was just as isolated from my peers as i was when i was a kid. i felt like I'd be judged if i explained why i was having panic attacks in the middle of lab class and as "someone who needed to grow up". unsteady hands and eye focusing issues (my vision was fine, my eye has corrected itself since) made it to where i was disqualified from so much of the lab work because of the precision required. and god, the resentment i got for it. even my lab teacher hated me (not entirely and definitely not like a few of my teachers) because i was drawing to keep my hands occupied enough to listen to what she was saying. i did that to be unobtrusive and because I'd often do that in many of my in-person supplemental classes i had earlier in my school career.

oh and, throughout a *lot* of my life, no one would ever really tell me what specific social cues i was supposed to follow *and would get mad at me later for what they termed as "immature behavior"*. it is not my fault i did something weird and you didn't tell me! communicate or wallow in your irritation forever - the choice is there. there are a loooottt of people who hated me - both peers and those much older - for no discernable reason and they'd get huffy when i couldn't read their minds about it. the culprit was likely me being "annoying" (as a neglected child, that was how i tried to make people laugh/reassure myself that someone still cared) and so i was forced into a level of maturity i shouldn't have been to make up for the "childishness".

i feel like i have to suppress authentic and important parts of myself constantly so that i get a sliver of respect as the adult i am now and not get talked to like a toddler showing their parents a bug. there wasn't room for much of the self-expression i was inclined towards growing up and now it's seen as an indicator of "immaturity". i'm still self-conscious about it all, especially since people these days looooveee posting strangers they think are "cringe" on the internet in increasingly sneaky ways.

not always knowing how to initiate/continue conversations gets me treated as selfish and immature as well. but if i wait for my turn in a convo, it never comes. odd how that works.

not sure how to keep managing masking my "immaturity" while dealing with the rest of my life. it gets really draining fast - i don't even have to be out that long before i just feel exhausted and depressed as hell.

This is infantilization regarding people with academic difficulties, unsteady hands/tremors, vision problems and with issues regarding social cues. Which is based in different kinds of ableism.

@thisis--ableism

[disability-and-cats]

These are accessibility features that i use on my phone! I wanted to have a single post dedicated to this, containing information about the tools i use that give me the ability to use my phone : ]

(this is a continuation from another post where i talked about my letter enlarging slidable scale, and zoom accessibility features : ])

(my phone is an iphone)

☆ Reduce white point

this is very self explanatory, it reduces the white point! it is much easier on my eyes, allowing me to process visual stimuli easier and doing so won't cause me pain.

★ Live captions

when this is active, it will display any and all spoken words that are playing on my phone as written words, live. from youtube, to livestreams, to facetime!

☆ Zoom

the zoom option allows me to zoom in anywhere at any time no matter what. i quickly tap anywhere on my screen twice with three fingers. on the second tap, i keep my fingers held down on the screen. then, i'll slide three fingers up, and boom! i'm zooming in. i control how far i zoom in and out by doing the same as before, but i slide my fingers down. i can move around the screen while zoomed in by dragging anywhere with three fingers. this allows absolutely anything on my phone to be enlarged!

★ Voice control

i don't always have the ability to use my arms, hands, and or fingers to navigate my phone. when this is happening, i can use voice control!! when active, it allows me to control my phone with my voice. the way mine is set up is with numbers. every interactive selection on my phone gets assigned a number on screen, and when i say that number, it gets interacted with. there's also key phrases, which i use the standard pre-set ones. like "swipe left" and "go home". an example of me using the spoken numbers control could be my messages app being labeled "4", so to open, all i would have to do is say "four" and it would open messages! it will assign a number to each letter on my keyboard, but instead of saying each number for each letter to spell out a word, when in messages, it will automatically begin speech to text instead. so i don't have to call out each number for each letter for texting.

[in Settings -> Accessibility -> Display & Text Size, Larger Text, there is an option for even larger accessibility sizes!]

one last side thing would be, i've always used larger letters for most of my published posts on here cause it's easiest for me to read.

when i don't post with larger letters like this, it's cause i was writing with larger letters in the writting process like how i am rn, then quickly make it another size or font right before i post it, for stylistic purposes : ]

[amity-candylust]

hang on you mean to tell me that people DONT see random specks of static and floatie thingies or moving patterns in their vision?????

You mean to tell me that a whole ass condition exists for it called visual snow syndrome???

THE SPECKS ARENT NORMAL???

THE SPECKS. WHY CAN I SEE THE SPECKS ;-;

(Its mild-ish with my glasses on cuz then im able to focus on details of the real world but if i take my glasses off the blurriness makes it worse and I can only focus on the specks 😭)

am i just nerfed to the max atp??? I cant keep accidentally discovering shit about ourselves, the more we find out the more we feel absolutely cooked in life 💀

tho the specks are the least of my concerns rn in terms of my health

[thatpollguy]

Do you need glasses?

Yes, I am short-sighted

Yes, I am long-sighted

Yes, I am both short-sighted and long-sighted

Yes, I am partially sighted or blind

No, but I wear contact lenses

No, my eyes are perfectly healthy

No, I've had laser eye surgery to fix my vision

No, I am blind

Voting ended onNov 11, 2025

[poetrysoidonthavetofeel]

Staring at the peeling ceiling

There’s a koi fish stain that swims

The spider is make a web there

Was that a fly? Going by? 

Or just my mind again 

[intothestacks]

Picture Books About Disabilities for Kids

Just Ask: Be Different, Be Brave, Be You by Sonia Sotomayor – Celebrate differences and discover a simple way to learn more about the people next to you: just ask!

Blindness & Vision

The Seeing Stick by Jane Yolen – Hwei Min, the only daughter of the emperor of China, has been blind since birth. Her father offers a reward to anyone who can find a cure for the little girl. It seems that no one from magicians to physicians can help her. Then, one day, a wise old man with a mysterious seeing stick visits the princess. Will he be able to teach Hwei Min that there is more than one way to see the world?

The Pirate of Kindergarten by George Ella Lyon – A little girl with double vision problems gets an eyepatch to solve her vision difficulties and becomes the pirate of her Kindergarten class.

In Spanish & Portuguese:

Caolho, el pirata by Rita Espeschit – A boy who has to wear an eyepatch talks about how he wears it because he's secretly a pirate, and his eyepatch gives him x-ray vision.

Caolho, o pirata by Rita Espeschit – A boy who has to wear an eyepatch talks about how he wears it because he's secretly a pirate, and his eyepatch gives him x-ray vision.

Wheelchairs & Mobility

Hello Goodbye Dog by Maria Gianferrari – A story of a dog who loves his human girl so much that he wants to be with her all day long. But dogs aren't allowed at school, so what to do? After a series of escalating escapades, a great idea and a little bit of training ensures the two can be together all day long.

King for a Day by Rukhsana Khan – Malik, a Pakistani boy who uses a wheelchair, is excited to compete in the annual kite-flying festival of Basant. Can his kite defeat the bully's and make him "King" of the festival?

Autism

The Girl Who Thought in Pictures: The Story of Dr. Temple Grandin by Julia Finley Mosca – A rhyming biography of a famous autistic woman (which is significant because media usally focuses of male autistics).

Deafness & Hearing

Kami and the Yaks by Andrea Stenn Stryer – Just before the start of a new trek, a Sherpa family discovers that their yaks are missing. Young Kami, anxious to help his brother and father maintain their livelihood, sets off by himself to find the wandering herd.

Missing Limbs

Emmanuel's Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah by Laurie Ann Thompson – Born in Ghana, West Africa, with one deformed leg, he was dismissed by most people—but not by his mother, who taught him to reach for his dreams. As a boy, Emmanuel hopped to school more than two miles each way, learned to play soccer, left home at age thirteen to provide for his family, and, eventually, became a cyclist. He rode an astonishing four hundred miles across Ghana in 2001, spreading his powerful message: disability is not inability. Today, Emmanuel continues to work on behalf of the disabled.

Can I Play, Too? by Mo Willems – Teeeechnically not about missing limbs per se, but can be used to talk about how we can/should adapt our games to be inclusive of others if they have a hard time with certain activities.

[sluttyquarantinetheory]

Poor vision is often cited as a disability that is so well accommodated that people forget it's a disability. And that is kind of true if you have enough money to go to the eye doctor. But even then there's so much weird societal nonsense around vision problems.

I've been fighting the long haul against the idea that glasses make you less attractive for my entire goddamn life. People act as though the minor inconveniences of glasses is somehow worse than the inconvenience of contacts. That somehow being able to look as though you don't need glasses is worth it, but wearing glasses is not.

It's such a common thing and you'd never know it because societally we've trained the people who need glasses that contacts are the acceptable answer to vision problems and choosing glasses is the outlier aesthetic choice.

I need them to see sure, but I also like my glasses. I will take the minor inconveniences of cleaning them and occasionally bending them for the convenience of just placing my vision on my face in two seconds. Even if a magic wand could give me perfect vision I'd probably decline. I'd rather just have a magic wand that can keep my glasses clean if I'm being honest.

Why are vision problems seen as a default we'd all prefer if they were cured. I would not. "You can still wear frames as a fashion choice." Yeah and I can choose to not conform to societal expectations of beauty standards and being able bodied.

[arathejedi394]

the longing i have for websites and apps to function properly with enlarged text. i cannot see. my glasses are three years old and my eyes got worse since I bought them but I can't afford new ones rn. pls. I'm so far sighted everything within 5 feet is blurry. let me have size 24 font letters.