SCOTOMAPHOBIA — FEAR AND BLINDNESS

Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of people in the RP community discussing the fear of going blind, also known as Scotomaphobia. A phobia implies an irrational fear, but what do you call it when you are going blind? It is not irrational, it is a legitimate fear of the future and how blindness will inevitably change your life.

I’m not sure when the fear first sets in. When you are first diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease, you can live in denial for quite some time. Then changes start to set in, and the debilitating part of the disease begins to show. First, there is the embarrassment of tripping over things or thinking you see something that just isn’t there. You lose your license. You try not to use the cane because that means you accept your fate. Then the questions about what you will do when you can no longer see. Will I be a burden on my family? Will I be able to cope? How will I feed myself? Do I have any right to force my fate on my significant other, my children? Do I consider having children when I could pass the disease on to them? If single, what are my prospects of meeting someone who will want to share their life with a blind person?

So many questions, so few good answers. With RP, each case is different — we hear that a lot, but it is true. As for each of us as human beings, we are all different and must cope with our personal circumstances…