Back around 1971, the parents who ran the Guild for Fairfield County’s visually impaired students, in Connecticut, arranged for a group therapy session for six high school students, including me. Each of us was the only blind student in our respective schools.
The psychologist initiated the discussion: “Do you want to talk about problems you might be having socially? Or with your teachers? Handling the workload?”
One of the girls said, “I wish teachers would tell us what they write on the blackboard.” A torrent of agreement ensued.
Then a boy changed the subject to ham radio, and another guy expounded on it. I reported that the other night, I’d picked up AM station WCCO all the way from Minnesota. Hardly relevant to ham radio, never mind the problems we were supposed to be discussing, but no one made me feel like an idiot by pointing it out. It was the only time I spoke up that evening. A remarkably self-possessed sixteen-year-old girl told us about singing in coffee clubs, where she accompanied herself on guitar.
And so the evening went on. No more talk of school problems, or any problems at all. A fly on the wall would have thought our lives were states of pure, uninterrupted bliss.
Maybe I was the only one here who had problems. Everyone else either had never seen or had lost their sight long ago. Only I would be indulging the thought, I don’t belong here. I’m not really blind. I’m someone who knows what it means to see and who still translates experiences into the visual. A truly blind person didn’t think in visual images, right?
Such thoughts made me worried that I deemed myself superior because of my one-time vision. Yet how could I feel superior to these kids who all struck me as so much better adjusted. I envied them their braille skills, their comfort using the cane, their ease with each other.
As the meeting wore on, I wondered whether a psychologist could help me. But I thought of myself as stronger for having fought through my difficulties without a therapist’s aid. By the time I was thirteen, when the retina in my remaining eye gave up on me, I’d gathered the strength to face facts rather than run away from them.
Did my agitation show, even though I was consciously projecting a neutral expression? Was the psychologist looking at me? I wished I could tell. If he had noticed, wouldn’t he have asked something? I wanted him somehow to read my thoughts, but even more not to.
The psychologist didn’t draw any of us out. After his opening gambit, he hardly spoke. Did he find us uncooperative? Too difficult? Did he conclude it would take more sessions than the Guild could afford for us to accomplish anything? Or, like my imagined fly on the wall, did we appear inhumanly well-adjusted?
Whatever the reason, no more sessions were scheduled.
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