B

In the first week of summer 2019, I decided I wanted a job. Though having no previous work experience, I was surprisingly offered a job interview at the local fast food restaurant.

The interview went well. But, before I left, the manager asked me to serve a customer. “Just give her the items shown next to her order number on that screen,” he said, pointing to a monitor on the wall behind him.

To my horror, I couldn’t make out a single word on the display. The customer stood impatiently as I froze. After a few awkward minutes, the manager dismissed me and I received a rejection email the next morning. For the first time in my life, I realized that I was disabled.

I knew I had been born partially sighted. As a child, I remember struggling to see the whiteboard in class, even when I was sitting right at the front. I masked this by copying notes from my friends, face bent close to the paper. As I got older and more self-conscious, I buried the secret even more.

But when I got back from that job interview, I made the first step towards living a life with a disability: acceptance. It was slow, painful progress. I learned that glasses couldn’t improve my vision and that I would never be allowed to drive.

For the first time, I looked at the official diagnosis (诊断) I had received at 12 years old: retinal dystrophy — a group of inherited (遗传的) eye disorders. Seeing the words in cold print made something that had seemed so abstract and confusing a reality. To my surprise, I was filled with relief.

The next step was unlearning the extreme independence I had developed over the years. I hated asking for help — so much that I would say I wasn’t hungry at restaurants because I was too self-conscious to look closely at the menu. But as I started reaching out for help, the love and support of my friends and even strangers warmed my heart. They built up my confidence to ask for help.

Today, I feel very far from the anxiety-ridden girl from that interview. I know that I cannot change my vision, but I treat every new barrier as a challenge. And, these days, I make sure I never go hungry in restaurants.