Life through a colorblind person’s eyes
It’s not bad, really. Maybe a little inconvenient.
I colored in the ocean of a big world map in fourth grade. I was about nine years old, merrily scribbling away by myself in the school auditorium at an after-school program, tasked with filling in the seven seas after everyone else did the continents.
The program instructor — a short, stout middle-aged lady with brown curly hair that stopped at her ears — hobbled over to check up on me. She peered over my shoulder and gave me a look.
“Everything okay? You don’t need help with the oceans, do you?” she asked.
I told her I was alright.
“Oh, okay,” she said, and with a funny face whispered, “Because usually, they’re supposed to be blue.”
As she walked away to tend to the rest of the class, I stood back to look at the deep hue I had put on paper, confused. Looked blue to me. What was she talking about?
Then I turned the crayon in my hand to read the color: “purple.”
My reaction:
Looking back, it’s cool that my teacher didn’t make a big deal out of it, even if she did kind of mock me. Maybe she thought it was a creative choice. Or maybe she actually thought I was stupid. Either way, it’s (purple) water under the bridge.
Growing up, I always found it a little weird that other kids could identify colors just fine while I had some trouble. I had to double-check color names on crayons all the time so I didn’t make my drawings Dr. Seuss-esque with red tree trunks or purple skies.
After I told my mom about that grape ocean incident, she told me that she’d known about my special sight since I was in the second grade, when my optometrist diagnosed me with colorblindness (which I don’t recall). I kind of figured anyways, but why she didn’t bother to tell me, I don’t know.
Somehow I also remember my pre-preschool self asking my mom, after we drove around and ran errands, about how traffic lights work. I asked her if the “white” lights meant “go,” as green lights to me look pale and desaturated. She corrected me and I was a little confused, but I took her word for it.
This post, however, is not for the purpose of saying “woe is me” or that I’m brave for overcoming some kind of crippling childhood adversity or disability. It was just Crayola. I am not Helen Keller. Rather, I just want to let you in on what I see.
I’m here to set the record straight: I can see color. I do not see in grayscale, as some people might think when I tell them that I’m colorblind (but there are people, although very rare, that do have monochromatic vision, so that is real thing).
What I have is a moderate severity of the most common type of colorblindness called deuteranopia, which renders me less sensitive to green light because of a defect in my green pigment cones. So “colorblindness” is kind of a misnomer, but it’s much catchier than “color vision deficiency.”
I sometimes have trouble distinguishing between certain colors, such as:
- Mid-reds with mid-greens
- Mid-reds with mid-browns
- Blue-greens with grey and mid-pinks
- Bright greens with yellows
- Pale pinks with light grey/white
- Light blues with lilac
- Deep blues with purple
Safe to say, the term “red-green colorblindness” wouldn’t cover it. Though if you haven’t seen a red-green colorblind test before, it might look a little something like this:
Yeah, I can’t see shit. Apparently, it’s supposed to read “74” in the circle, but all I see is a bunch of maybe red dots surrounding a cluster of maybe green ones. If I squint hard enough, I can vaguely make out a “21.”
But it’s really not as bad as I’m making it out to be. Christmas is still fun, flowers are still pretty and contemporary art still doesn’t make sense. All is well. And I’m really not alone in my cone deficiency.
According to the National Eye Institute, about 1 in 12 men have some sort of colorblindness, so chances are a dude in your life is color challenged. For many of you reading this, that dude is me.
I have two friends that are colorblind, and one of them happens to be my roommate. How we managed to competently (or so we think) furnish and decorate our apartment is a mystery to me. I’m betting that neutral colors are our best friends.
Women, on the other hand, are much less likely to actually be affected and are usually just carriers for the gene. My mom, for instance, is not colorblind but my grandpa, her dad, has it especially bad. So naturally I rely on her eye to make sure my clothes’ colors aren’t too funky.
Sure, my eyes are little cooked, but life really isn’t harder, aside from a few inconveniences. Some maps are completely useless. I play games with colorblind assist mode on. Picking good fruits at the grocery store might pose a bit of a challenge.
I have to ask my friends what color an object is sometimes, to which they’ll give me a strange look and reply, “What? Ohh, I forget that you’re colorblind.”
There are special glasses that may claim to aid those like me, “unlocking” a whole new spectrum of color vision. Maybe you’ve seen videos of people reacting emotionally to putting these glasses on for the first time. It’s all a sham, unfortunately.
They do increase color contrast and vibrancy, but by no means do they give people normal color vision. If I wanted to go outside on a hike to see nature and all its colors in their full splendor, there are drugs much cheaper than these glasses that can help me do that.
I can only hope that one day, there might be something to help me with the biggest challenge, at times even frustration, my eyes give me: color grading my videos. The science of color grading is such a big component of making my projects look gorgeous, but it might not just be in the cards for me.
But even Beethoven went deaf eventually. And he was still cranking out bangers.
If you want to learn about more about color vision deficiency, click here. If you want to read more of Talon and me yapping, consider following and/or subscribing to Boxer Briefs!
