I have always struggled with visual issues because of Cerebral Palsy. I am nearsighted and must wear glasses to see distances. However, my glasses don’t help much with my visual perception difficulties. My brain interprets some things differently than most people.
If you ask me to complete a maze or look at an optical illusion, odds are I won’t be able to figure it out. I went to a corn maze once and found it incredibly difficult to understand. In school, geometry was very difficult. I have trouble viewing flat shapes and plotting points on a graph. Labeling diagrams is nearly impossible for me.
Art class was another challenge for me. If pictures have lots of different colors, shapes, and patterns, I can’t focus on one aspect of the picture. Most of my art is quite simplistic for this very reason. I stick to similar color schemes and shapes in most of my art.
This affects my everyday life as well. In open spaces, I tend to get lost easily. This makes grocery shopping a challenge. I focus on a specific aisle each time rather than thinking ahead. I have trouble staying on one side of the aisle. Parking lots are also challenging for me to navigate. Sometimes, I have trouble finding my car. This is why I learned to memorize license plate numbers growing up.
My visual-perceptual challenges mean I will never be a best-selling artist or a school bus driver. My way of seeing the world is unique. Cerebral Palsy means that I’ll always have a unique perspective on the world, and that is okay. Everybody is unique in some way.