Blindness

Sourcing Note: The examples in this article are not hypotheticals. They come from my own captured daily logs, technical sessions, and lived experiences. For a plain-language breakdown of the physical mechanics behind my diagnoses, see my Human Terms summary.

The Comfortable Lie of the Sum #

There’s a model of disability that feels mathematically tidy and is almost entirely wrong.

It goes like this: a person has Disability A and Disability B. Their overall difficulty is therefore $A + B$. If we build an accommodation for A, we’ve reduced the total load to just $B$. Progress has been made. The spreadsheet balances. Everyone goes home feeling useful.

Content Note: This narrative discusses medical trauma and institutional harm.

Preface #

This is a personal narrative about my experience as a blind, multiply disabled student in a residential school setting. It reflects my lived experience and my understanding as an adult, informed by later medical and psychological evaluations.

This account isn’t intended as an attack on individual staff members. It’s an account of systemic failure, medical misattribution, and institutional decision-making, and of the long-term impact those failures have had on my health, functioning, and sense of safety.

Introduction: Why Self-Paced Education Matters #

As someone with multiple disabilities, including total blindness, neurodivergence, and chronic health conditions, I’ve found that traditional education often fails to accommodate my learning needs. I’ve attempted college online four times and community college once in person. Each attempt came with major barriers that made it hard to succeed.

Barriers included rigid schedules, campuses that required physical navigation and mental mapping, fixed expectations around learning styles, a lack of understanding from educators on how to support diverse needs, and financial aid that was only available if I attended at least half-time. Those obstacles made it clear I needed a different approach to learning, one that actually fit my abilities and circumstances. That’s what pushed me toward self-paced education.

Gaming has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. From puzzles as a child to text-based adventures in school, games have always been a place of joy, challenge, and escape.

As a blind, neurodivergent, and chronically ill woman, finding games I can actually play and enjoy has become increasingly difficult. This post is for other disabled gamers, accessibility advocates, and developers who want to understand what accessibility looks like in practice, not just in theory.