Five Years Blind: An Accidental Journey

Overview

Five Years Blind: An Accidental Journey reveals the intimate account of how Whitney Trilling became one-in-a-million to be blinded by a side effect of a prescription drug and how she transitioned from a life in the performing arts to life in the world of the blind and beyond.

This book follows Whitney as she attended blind schools in Los Angeles, where new blind friends, some of whom skydived, climbed mountains, or earned PhDs in math, helped her regain hope. Relationships with the sighted, including her boyfriend, changed. She won the Braille Institute’s Adjustment to Blindness Award in 2010. Whitney served as President of the Board of Directors for Empower Tech, a technology school for the blind. She adapted. Then, for reasons her doctors cannot explain, her vision miraculously began to heal.

For her, the most challenging part of this experience was the rollercoaster of emotions that living without vision brings. One significant benefit was the expanded awareness of what it means to be human and live among others.

Her memoir depicts life under conditions that most dread and cannot even imagine. From Whitney’s unique story, you will learn truths about blindness (most blind people see something) and gain insight into coping with trauma. This is the book she wishes she had read before blindness struck her.

Excerpt

Walking into Twelve Lanes of Traffic

I want to know if I am brave enough to meet the next challenge that Sofia and I have been working towards—to cross a major twelve-lane intersection without sufficient sight to lead me safely across. So, on a blisteringly hot June morning in Studio City, Sofia and I walk east on Ventura toward Laurel Canyon Boulevard. This once familiar neighborhood shopping area now appears to me to be a mess of murky shadows interspersed with bright lights. I cannot decipher where the drab grey of the buildings meets the lifeless grey/browns of the sidewalks or where the silver/grey of the parked cars mush into the granite/grey of the four-lane boulevard. It’s as if I am lost in a vast live impressionist painting of an elephant. READ MORE

Table of Contents

Introduction
PART ONE

  1. Something is Wrong With My Eyes
  2. You Have Nothing to Worry About
  3. But, I Can’t See
  4. Merry Christmas with Dark Glasses and a Talking Watch
  5. Sorry, There’s Nothing We Can Do
  6. Dead Girl Walking
  7. What Would a Blind Person Do?
  8. New Year’s Eve – Dining on My Ego
  9. You’re Blind. I’m What?
  10. Escape Plans
  11. Flying Blind to NYC
  12. Poop Soup, Bright Light and Monsters
  13. End of a Career
  14. Denial from the Inside
  15. Grasping at Sanity
  16. Pacing in the Dark
  17. Reactions of Friends
  18. The “If There’s Anything I Can Do” Mumble
  19. Confronting the Doctor
  20. Goodbye Mercedes, Hello Paratransit
  21. Can Anything Help?

PART TWO

  1. Meeting Awesome Blind People
  2. Getting Therapy
  3. Registration at the Braille Institute
  4. First Day of Blind School
  5. What’s Your Diagnosis?
  6. Walking on Wonderland
  7. Braille Dots & Chocolate Chip Cookies
  8. Proprioception and Body Awareness
  9. Mobility Training at Staples
  10. Walking into Twelve Lanes of Traffic
  11. Don’t Order Spaghetti
  12. Emoting in Coping Class
  13. Cedric in Pilates
  14. Not Ready to Write
  15. JAWS – A Blind Computer Program
  16. Blind Bowling
  17. Singing Therapy
  18. Merengue Flashback
  19. Weird Visuals
  20. I’ll Try Anything to Heal
  21. Under the Yucca Tree
  22. Not Seeing is the Least of It
  23. On Each Other’s Last Nerves
  24. Suicide is Always an Option.
  25. Mystical Experience
  26. Friends to the Rescue
  27. Surprise Party
  28. Medical Malpractice
  29. It’s Only a Game, Right?
  30. Finding the Door at the Grocery Store
  31. Luminaries
  32. Practicing Going Out at the Hollywood Bowl
  33. Empower Tech, Technology School for the Blind
  34. Crush on My Teacher
  35. That’s What the Neighbors Get, Not Me
  36. Kidnapped
  37. Losing It Under a Bridge

PART THREE

  1. Blind Dates
  2. A Proud New Identity
  3. Touch My Face
  4. Mediation
  5. Ceramics Therapy
  6. Adjustment to Blindness Award
  7. Baby Steps Back to the Sighted World
  8. Practicing Normal Life with Family
  9. Breaking Bones in LA
  10. Hiding in NYC Apartment
  11. Dreams of Driving
  12. Do I See Something?
  13. Ward on a Bike
  14. A Change in Vision
  15. Miracles Happen
  16. Bioptic Telescopic Lens
  17. Driving Blind
  18. Goodbye Braille
  19. How Did She Do It?
  20. Ward’s Choice
  21. Something Good Will Come of This

Acknowledgements