I’m tired of surviving a world that wasn’t built for me
This week broke me in ways I didn’t see coming.
It didn’t start with some dramatic moment. No car crash, no hospital visit, no thunderstorm of trauma. It started with something small: I was just trying to help someone with their phone.
That’s all. I thought I could walk someone through enabling SIM card security. But within minutes, I was locked in a mess I didn’t create. A PIN code I didn’t have. A PUK code I couldn’t access. A provider that required an account I didn’t have — and an account that required receiving a text I couldn't get. You know. Catch-22, but make it modern.
I hoped someone close to me would understand — that they’d recognize I had good intentions, that I was trying to help. But instead, I got blamed. Not comforted. Not supported. Just blamed.
And when I said, “I don’t like how this is being handled,” the response wasn’t compassion. It was, “Then deal with it yourself.”
So I did. Alone. Because apparently, that’s my job: navigate disasters I didn’t cause, solve problems I didn’t choose, and do it all without pushing anyone’s patience too far. I must not be too inconvenient, too emotional, too blind, too autistic. Or else I’ll be left to figure it out alone.
Later that same day, I decided to try logging back into Amazon. I hadn’t touched it in nearly a decade. Naturally, the password was long gone. Reset link arrived just fine. But then — the final boss — Amazon asked for the postal code of the billing address tied to a payment method ending in 65.
Nine years ago.
How many places have you lived at in the last nine years? How many card numbers did you end up having in the last nine years?
Wrong. Wrong again. And then? Locked out.
“Just log in on a device where you’re already connected,” the error message chirped. Or call Amazon support.
I wasn’t. Obviously. And I couldn’t, obviously.
And so it was, that the day kept spiraling.
This morning, I got my new debit card in the mail. That should’ve been a small good moment. New card, fresh start, maybe something working for once.
I called my bank and explained, calmly, that I’m blind. I told them I needed help identifying the basic details on the card — the long number, the expiration date, the CVV. You know. The stuff any sighted person reads in two seconds.
They refused.
Protocol, they said. Security.
I asked what I was supposed to do. I asked if they expected me to just grab someone off the street and hope for the best. I asked what blind people do when we’re alone, or when we need to access our own damn money.
The answers? Mostly silence. Some awkward fumbling.
One person suggested I “feel the card numbers” because “they’re embossed, right?”
Let me be clear: embossed numbers are not braille.
I can’t read them. Not with fingers. Not with magic. Not because I “haven’t tried hard enough.” They’re just raised ink. That’s it.
And then someone — no joke — asked if I could just use AI to read the card.
Like I’m supposed to take a photo of my private banking info and hope the algorithm doesn’t upload it, leak it, or hand it over to some corporate black box that wants to sell me a toaster. Like trusting a machine to handle my finances is somehow safer than trusting myself.
But here’s the kicker: AI isn’t some magical neutral helper. It’s as ableist as the humans who build it. Most AI models recognize the card as a credit or debit card — and then promptly refuse to read out the sensitive info. It’s like they were trained to gatekeep access, not break down barriers.
This is where we are now. Real people telling blind folks to “just use AI” to access their own money, ignoring that the tech itself often shuts us out too.
This world is not built for people like me.
Not for blind people. Not for autistic people. Not for anyone who dares to ask, “Can I get this information in a way I can actually use?”
Every system I touched this week told me the same thing:
You’re on your own.
Your needs are not compatible with our protocols.
And if that makes you suffer, that's your fault.
But here’s the worst part: I didn’t even fight back. Not really. I just kept pushing through the pain, like I always do.
Until I didn’t.
When I opened the window, the sun didn’t feel warm. The wind didn’t feel gentle. They felt like exits. It felt like jumping would be quieter than another day of being gaslit by protocols, forgotten by the systems that should protect me, and punished for needing the most basic human assistance.
I didn’t want to feel better. I wanted to feel nothing. And that scared me. The emptyness was so deep it was like being in a pool too deep, where your feet can't touch the ground anymore.
Not because I’d never been there before — but because it felt so normal. So logical. Like the final answer to a question I’m always too exhausted to finish asking.
But I didn’t go through with it.
I stayed.
And now I’m here, writing this. Still hurt. Still tired. Still ice cold toward the people and systems that failed me. But still here.
Maybe that counts for something. Maybe it doesn’t. I just don't know anymore.