I was first told that I was color blind when I was about 12 years old and got glasses for the first time. I was at the eye doctor’s and they gave me the Ishihara test for color blindness…I got 1 of 20 right, and it was more or less a guess. The funny thing about it is that I had been living for 12 years, and until that point I didn’t know that I was color blind. Since then, every time that I go to the eye doctor’s I get tested, and every time I fail in spectacular fashion, but if I had never been tested, I would probably never have known that I was severely color blind. I don’t see the world in black and white, and if someone were to ask me tomorrow what color their shirt is, I would be able to tell them without hesitation. I do not see the world in shades of gray, and I am able to appreciate a sunset or garden as much as anyone else, essentially, my color vision is not really that different from anyone else’s. As it was explained to me, since I was a child I have been learning what to call the colors I see, whatever they may be. When I was a kid, I was told that the sky is blue, grass is green, blood is red, and the ocean is blue (or a murky shade or garyish-brown in the case of my home town of Boston). I see all of those colors as shades, what shade I cannot really be sure, but a specific shade, unique and identifiable from other shades. I also began learning at a specific age the locations of certain colors. I know that when the bottom light of a stop light is illuminated, that that is a green light, yellow above that, and red above that. I also learned that my house is painted a light shade of blue, and that when I grab an orange, that the color I am seeing is orange. While all of this may seem confusing or hard to do on a day to day basis, I have been learning to distinguish different shades, or know the locations of certain colors since I was so young, I don’t even know that I am making the associations I am making when I perceive a color. The only time that I really know I am color blind is when I go to the eye doctor’s, or when Professor Boucher puts displays up in class that test for color blindness, normally, I don’t even know, or think about the fact that I am color blind.
There are occasional times that I am aware of my colorblindness. Colors that are similar to one another are very hard to tell apart, and I occasionally run into problems when I match clothing that I am subsequently told clash horribly (although this might just be a lack of fashion sense more than an effect of colorblindness). There are also times when I will mention the color of an unfamiliar object and am told that I was way way off on the actual color, but aside from these times, none of which really have drastic consequences, my colorblindness has not had a major impact on my life, its more of a conversation piece than anything else. So while everyone else might have “better” color vision than me, if I hadn’t told you that I was colorblind, you never would have known.
April 13, 2008
