I’m blind but I see things... that are not there
WHEN Lorraine Warnock lost her sight, her vision of the real world was all but extinguished.
But in its place came terrifying hallucinations as her mind sought to compensate for the images that could no longer reach it.
‘I see flashes and patterns,’ said 38-year-old Miss Warnock, who started to lose her sight at the age of 24. ‘But I also have quite a sadistic brain which makes me see objects flying in my face, people walking into me.
‘If I am travelling in a car, I think I can see other cars driving at me. I have run through the house because I thought there was someone chasing me. It’s frightening, but I hope that it will ease over time.’
Miss Warnock, from Blantyre, Lanarkshire, suffers from Charles Bonnet Syndrome, which causes people who have lost a lot of vision to see things that are not really there.
There are thought to be more than 100,000 cases in the UK and up to 60 per cent of people who are experiencing serious sight loss may end up developing the syndrome.
Miss Warnock is speaking out in support of the How I See campaign launched by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) to counter the misconception that blindness means seeing nothing at all.
She described how the problems with her sight began when she developed a rare condition at the age of 24: ‘I became very light sensitive one day and my eyes were in a lot of pain.
‘My optician said I had an eye infection, but two days later I was in so much pain I went to A&E. I was referred to an eye clinic.’
She was diagnosed with uveitis, an inflammation in the eyes, and despite treatment she suffered a number of flare-ups which led to her developing glaucoma at the age of 29, resulting in damage to the optic nerve and vision loss.
‘I was left with no vision in my right eye’ she said.
‘Then I suffered another flare-up at 30 which caused glaucoma in my left eye and I slowly lost the majority of my vision over that year until I was left with just a spot. I now have only a small amount of vision left, which is like looking through a straw at a spot on the wall, and I am registered blind. But I have a condition where the brain tries to replace the images it thinks I’m missing.
‘As I lost my sight in the second eye, gradually I was able to deal with it, but you do grieve for the sight you lost. However, I do not do too badly and I am undergoing training in how to use a cane.’
The RNIB says 93 per cent of registered blind or partially sighted people can see something, although their impairment can still impact severely on their lives.
Campbell Chalmers, director of RNIB Scotland, said: ‘Everyone sees differently. This ranges from people with perfect sight to those who see darkness or nothing at all.
‘But what people can and can’t see can manifest itself in any number of visual combinations.
‘Just because someone is blind, it does not mean they see nothing – and if someone is partially sighted, it doesn’t mean their vision is fine.’