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Blindsimming, age 8
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Written by Claire on Friday, February 9, 2007
By age 8 I was in third grade and in class we had to choose a book to read. I chose a book about a blind boy. I was fascinated by the book and blindness, and started blindsimming daily. We had a bathroom that had no window, so when the light was off, it was pitch black in there. Every day for months I would take my shower and get ready for school in the pitch dark. I loved pretending to be blind, and I got quite good at finding my way around the bathroom and performing my daily grooming in the dark.
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4 Comments
What is it about simulating a disability (simdis) or an injury that is so exhilarating. Simply using crutches or patching an eye is often sufficient to illicit the feelings. People in general don’t have this response for otherwise everyone would be out there on crutches or using a wheel chair. But there are a fair number of us that do have this response. This would make a good discussion
3 On 1 March, 2007, Marie said:
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I think it might be “doing the forbidden” or something taboo. It’s one of those things where we repress and repress and repress but one day we just “snap” and give in and do our best to recreate what we need. It makes sense that it’d be emotionally rewarding, after all, this is what we want.
I was just blindsimming for the first time ever, and it’s hard! There was a little feeling of right to it, but my feelings belong with paraplegia (no offence to blind transabled feeling people), and besides, if I want to ‘pretend’ in public, it is a whole lot easier to be paralyzed than it is to be blind. It goes faster, you can ’see’ what your doing, you don’t have to worry about accidentally walking only when the ped light says walk (how can you tell, do you start and someone stops you?), and a few other things. And, like Sean said somewhere earlier, the last things I want are to be blind or a TBI. Same goes for me.
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1 On 9 February, 2007, jen said:
I read lots of books about blind boys (why was it always boys?) when I was a kid.
I “blindsimmed” and read everything I could about being blind - I even learned Braille when I was in the fifth grade.
This was mostly because my eyes were getting so bad between second and fifth grade that I was afraid I was going blind.
I wanted to be ready for it.