Confidence Starts with Community: How I Navigate the World with My Blind Friends

I’ve been blind since about a month after I was born, so this is the only life I’ve known. I don’t have any visual memories. I often reflect on how I grew up, how fortunate I was to have surrounded myself with other blind people early on in life—and how that shaped the way I view my disability, and how it helped me gain confidence. I’ve realized how much influence the blindness community has had on me and how I view myself, and it’s really made me realize that confidence starts with community. 

I think surrounding yourself with other blind people really helps in a variety of different ways as we go through life. For one, just knowing that we have allies is such a comfort. Other blind people just get it. They understand the day-to-day lives of living with blindness and some of the struggles we undoubtedly face. And there can be a lot. There could be all types of transportation mishaps, from poor paratransit service to rideshare discrimination, to accessibility barriers when applying for jobs or navigating new spaces. It’s been really nice to have a good circle of friends that I can talk to about these things. Not that my sighted friends or family aren’t supportive, because they are, but I feel like it’s helpful to confide in people who understand—because it’s a different experience, at least for me. There’s listening, and then there’s understanding. Not only can our blind allies listen, but they can offer empathy and maybe even some tips and suggestions if they’ve dealt with the same issues. 

This type of community support has definitely happened many times before. One of the most stressful things I deal with since living on my own now is, oddly enough, reading my mail. It’s such a simple task that sighted individuals may not often think of. This was something I really struggled with for a long time and would often just FaceTime my dad to read it. This could work, but I don’t always like to do this. Sometimes he’s not home, or he’s in a work meeting. Or sometimes I just want to feel more independent. I’ve shared this with my blind friends, and they offered a lot of different solutions that they use to read mail, such as the Aira service, whether they’re using it to a trained, professional agent or using their access AI feature, which uses artificial intelligence to describe pictures. I can take a picture of my mail with my phone, and it’ll read it back to me. And it’s not just hearing how other blind allies have done these tasks, but how they succeeded and how confident they feel while doing it. 

I also relied heavily on my community when I planned my first solo flight. There’s a little extra comfort that comes with a blind person recommending a certain airline or a certain airport, especially if they are frequent fliers. That speaks volumes to me—they’re obviously coming back for a reason! So, as I was planning my first solo flight back in late 2019 for a post-graduation gift to myself, I relied on my friends who are also blind to share their experiences with me. All of them—and I mean every single one—insisted I go with Southwest Airlines. After my first solo flight with them, I was sold. The customer service was exceptional, so I stuck with them when I flew to and from Houston to visit my long-distance boyfriend, and then to and from Chicago to visit family once I became a Houston resident. 

Not everyone has the same experience, though, or the same resources to learn or gain these skills and thus gain confidence as a blind person. Some of the people I know, for example, didn’t go to the same type of school that I went to, where we were offered a program specifically for blind and visually impaired students. I was mainstreamed for most of my classes, meaning I was placed in classes with sighted students, but the program had a vision resource room. This room was dedicated to putting materials into Braille for us or teaching us classes one-on-one that otherwise might be too difficult in a mainstream class. That class, for me, was geometry. 

But not everyone grows up with this support. Some only had training once a week, whether it was learning Braille or learning to travel. 

The point is, not everyone grows up with the same background, resources, or experiences, and this is why community is so important. Since I was fortunate to have a lot of orientation and mobility training (O&M), for example, I can offer my advice and knowledge to my friends who don’t feel as confident in their travel abilities. Just as they did to me when they were more confident in solo flying than I was at the time! That sense of community gave me confidence. Now I absolutely love traveling and, while I do have new experiences from time to time that make me nervous, I travel several times a year and feel liberated every time. And if I have questions, I have a community of people to ask. 

And that’s the thing. We grow up with different resources, we experience different things at different times, and it isn’t a one size fits all type of thing. Some blind people I knew were taking their first solo flight as teenagers. Some, to this day, are still not very good at street crossings. It doesn’t matter what it is, we all have our strengths and weaknesses, myself included. I think there’s a popular stigma that if one blind person can do something, you should be able to do it too, and quite frankly I don’t think this is the healthiest way of thinking. We will never master every single skill, and that’s okay. We can learn from those who thrive where we may struggle.  

One area I personally struggle with is advocacy. Not necessarily advocating and asking for help—I’ve gotten pretty good at that over the years—but speaking up in situations that do not call for silence. Maybe it’s the people pleaser in me, maybe it’s that I am very anti-conflict, or maybe it’s that sometimes, I have the mindset that I will never see this person again so it isn’t worth ruffling any feathers, but I need to get better at this. 

This is a realization that hit me late last year, when I was with another one of my friends who is also totally blind. We took paratransit to a nail salon and, as we were walking to the door, a man approached and asked if she needed help. My friend said no, politely thanked him, and proceeded forward. He asked her if we were going to the nail salon and informed us that the door was straight ahead. She said yes, she knew that, and again, thanked him for his help. Then, a few seconds later, I heard her say, “Excuse me, I’m gonna need you to not touch me because I said I didn’t need your help.” 

I can only guess that he did what a lot of people do—they touch us without our consent. This happens to me a lot. A rideshare driver will pull me by the wrist to their vehicle, or someone will place their hands on my shoulders to steer me, you name it. It happens to all of us at some point. And watching the way my friend handled it—assertive but not overly aggressive, and how it actually worked, made me realize how often I keep quiet at other people’s expense. I need to get better at standing up for myself and taking back my autonomy.

I’m very fortunate to have a good community of people that helps me gain confidence. I don’t think there’s ever a time when we are fully confident in ourselves. We’ll still have new experiences that make us nervous, but community is crucial. It’s not just because of my friends, but because of getting involved with the community. The American Council of the Blind is a great resource. They offer daily community calls via Zoom, some of which focus on sight loss, or just making friends and meeting members of the community. I registered a few years ago and met some amazing people. 

We won’t ever have it all together, but no one ever really does. But surrounding yourself with good models is a great way to gain confidence. Confidence starts with community.