Mods, please let me know if this is not in line with your plans for this community. I’m flying blind here, lol so funny. Don’t know anything about Lemmy or the Fediverse or what this community is supposed to look like. This is just me, bull in china shop.
I’m a big fan of old-school forums, and every good old-school forum has anIntroductions thread where newbies can pop in and say hi, I exist, and hopefully get some hellos back and feel welcomed and get a sense of what people are like. IAnd I figure, we’re starting out fresh here, very small number of people to begin with so it’s perfect to do now. Hopefully I am not the only one who thinks this and will not just be the solo idiot posting their life story for the entertainment of the public.
So, I’m Miah. I”m 53, have been functionally blind in one eye since childhood annd lost most of the vision in my good eye about ten months ago from Ischemic optic neuropathy. I’m now legally blind, have some central acuity but horrendous vision all around, including toilet-roll FOV, dead spots everywhere, photosensitivity, and lots of artifacts that get worse when I use my eyes too much.
I use a long cane and screen readers, although I do a lot of screen navigation visually. reading screens is doable but sucks. I also llisten to audiobooks.
I’ve been a veterinary technician for many years, and since going blind am still able to work as a lab technician and “Girl in the Chair” at an animal hospital. I’m also a writer of fantasy and horror fiction. I stopped writing for years but started up again last year when I went blind, mostly because there was fuck-all else I could do. I’ve reclaimed some of my pastimes now but am still writing. Working on something that wants to be a novel but is still in very early stages.
My other main hobby is crochet. I’ve been doing it for 25 years or so, and found it was still possible to do it after I went blind. I crocheted like a fiend for my first few months I want to try knitting soon - I did knit before going blind but it was definitely my B game, so much more challenging than crochet. Other fiber crafts may follow, but it’s going to be a while before I feel confident enough to try needle felting without vision.
I’m nonbinary, have been married for decades and have two kids. One teenager and one all grown up and out on her own. Also, one small dog worth mentioning as he was my lifeline during the onset of blindness.
I found r/blind early in my journey when I could not get around the Web at all, could not do anything or communicate properly, and pretty much just wished it would all end. The sub was an invaluable source of information, inspiration and understanding for me. I have been a daily visitor ever since then. I love the sharing of journeys and meeting cool people who know what I’m going through, and hopefully I’ve helped some other newly blind folks with my own stories. I am livid about the way Reddit mishandled the accessibility concerns with their API circus, and while I will continue to visit the sub as long as it’s accessible to me, I fervently believe that there must be a hub somewhere that is hosted and curated by blind people for blind people, that will not suddenly be rendered inaccessible by the whims of a sighted billionaire. That is what I hope will grow here.
Love, Miah
Passes mic
@NVAccess @Miah Welcome from Mastodon, but, like, which Fedi account is gonna be the main fedi account? You can follow this community on Mastodon etc, which is how I keep up with it. @main
To be honest, that’s the bit I really don’t understand. I’m used to one site = one account. So, if I (worked out how to) added RBlind to my Mastadon account… I would get every post and comment in my Mastodon feed? I can sort of see where that could be useful, I guess, but then there would be a lot of extra posts and comments to skip over wouldn’t there be? (Ok here isn’t as busy yet as say it was previously on Reddit, but I expect it will keep growing)
@NVAccess From your mastodon account, you would just follow @main but if your instance is a Hometown, rather than Mastodon, you can add that group to a list without having to follow it. If you are on mastodon rather than hometown or one of the Forks, you will have to follow it in order to put it into a list. I have it going through my home timeline and there honestly isn’t a lot of traffic. If I were you, I would make some lists pertaining to groups like this and then I would put all of these groups in there to organize your timeline a little easier. This is how I run mine. I follow the groups I’m interested in, but I put all those groups into lists. The best way to make a list is through the web platform so it will carryover to all of your devices
I’ve never really used lists - on Twitter or Mastodon. I have a memory on Twitter at least, of having to be following a person before you could add them to a list - but then you saw their tweets in your normal timeline AND that list, so what was the point? Or maybe I just never understood how you were supposed to use the function.
@NVAccess @main Other way around: on Mastodon you do have to be following someone to be able to add them to lists (on Twitter you didn’t). They’re useful if you only want to see posts from people in a particular category (eg from scientists, etc).
On Mastodon, due to the limitations in search, I also find them useful for locating people whose handle I’ve forgotten. If I know they’re in a particular list I’ve created I can skim the List Members to remind myself what it is.
@JonnyT @NVAccess This is correzt!
Well I must admit, the massive shortcomings of search on Mastodon are extremely frustrating. So anything which helps is good!