October 16 - Bluffing!

My long time friend and I were having a leisurely coffee chat about this and that when Shirley reminded me of some of the aspects of my initial reactions to my vision loss. In particular Shirley, remarked of how I used to try to bluff my way through situations that really required sight.

Bluffing or faking it is not unusual for people who are experiencing vision loss. I know that in my early years of impaired sight, I was pretty good at this way of coping. I’m not really sure why I wanted to keep up the pretense. Possibly, I just didn’t want to talk about my change in circumstance. Possibly I just wanted to go on being just like everyone else. I know that I had an abhorrence of thinking that others might look on me with pity. Possibly, I thought that if I stuck my head far enough into the sand, this whole vision loss thing would turn out to be just a bad dream.

Although I was good at pretending, this coping behaviour wasn’t especially productive. For instance, when someone asked me to look at something – a photo, some printed information, some distant scene, or whatever, I would simply nod and smile. I wonder now what I was missing out on. In retrospect, it would have been far simpler to admit that I couldn’t see and ask for an explanation of whatever was being pointed out to me.

Lyle and I are church goers, and although this should have been one of my safest environments, I went for a number of years trying to bluff my way through Sunday services.  I would always accept a hymn book and a printed bulletin. Standing in the pew, I would open the book at some random page and hold it in front of me. I have a pretty good memory and was able to sing most of the hymns. I think that the change came one Sunday when Lyle reached over and turned the book from its upside down position to the right side up.

Looking back, I wonder just how many people I was fooling. I think of the old saying that you can fool some of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Today, I wonder why I even tried. Certainly life is easier now that I have emerged from this stage of denial.

These days I have learned to be appreciative of the helping hands of my sighted friends.  Now that I’m not hiding behind the facade of bluff and pretense, I feel more comfortable in my own skin. Hopefully I have also become more gracious and accepting of help when it is offered.