So for someone losing their vision, that's got to suck. I don't know which way it happened for you, whether it was gradual, or just happened, but it sucks. Either way you slice it, that's a tough situation to go through. The thing is, it's what you have now, and you could have it for a long while. Perhaps not the rest of your life, because technology is always improving, but perhaps yes, for the rest of your life. You need to come to terms with the fact that you may be blind the rest of your life, and only keep the slim chance it could be reversed in the back of your mind. You can't let that surface, too often, because its false hope, and false hope can be dangerous. For now, you have what you have. I don't think there's any magic process you can go through to just let that be OK to you. Even then, there are times when you feel it more; but in general, it's not an awful existence. It's something I don't go through my day thinking about, really until it starts causing me no end of problems that I can't seem to get around, which is kind of rare. It seems to me like you have some sort of barrier, a split in your personality. One half is steadfast and unwilling to accept this new condition, and the other is more willing to adapt and change. Since being sighted, or mostly sighted or whatever you previously were was so strong, since vision is such a dominant sense for humans, that part of you, the first part unwilling to change has a powerful hold on you right now. I believe in the power of the mind though, and that things like this can be dealt with from within if you just work at it, but you have to bring every ounce of will power to bear on it. Meditation might help, as well as someone to guide you through meditation.

In short, there's no one quick sure fire way to just be OK with going blind. My only other thing is try to find others like you, possibly support groups so you can talk with others who have also lost their sight. Also, this is a point that a lot of people will probably disagree with me about, but this thing is going to affect you as much as you allow it to. In other words, if you make no attempt to be OK with it, if you make no attempt to try to accept it, it could run away with you and turn into something traumatic for you. Don't let that happen, you have the power to prevent it.

THe things you have told me I discovered a few weeks ago when that realization hit me. You in fact said the same phrases as I did, and I am very greateful that you understand my issue. You nailed exactly what I thought and felt as soon as the realization hit. I have made a lot of progress already, I have changed my mindset a little already, I just don't know the next step. Perhaps the thing I need to understand now, is that a counselor won't always have the next step, I may need to experiement. But having that counselor will help me come up with ways to experiment

I can't speak from the perspective of someone who lost vision after having it. I was born premature and am totally blind. There comes a point when you have to decide if you're going to let that fact prevent you from doing anything or if you're willing to say "Well, this is the way it's going to be, and I might as well do something positive". That's what I have done. I haven't let blindness stop me from enjoying computers, books or talking to people about all kinds of things.

I imagine suddenly going blind would make one realize just how many things most people take for granted. I can't say for sure, but this seems to be the case. In my mind, be grateful that you're still alive and that it wasn't much worse. Blindness is purely an information and attitude barrier. Instead of wasting time wishing you had your vision back, let's work on making the world more accessible for those that don't have it. The truth is that anyone can lose vision at any time for any reason. For some reason beyond our understanding, eye tissue doesn't mend itself unlike 99% of the rest of the human body.

People who go on and on about getting their vision back or hoping God will magically heal them are living in a fantasy world. As far as we know, magic doesn't exist and never will. That's why I read so many fantasy books. They let my mind wander and I get the chance to go on all sorts of fantastic adventures that simply aren't possible in the relatively boring world we live in. Until God shows himself/herself/itself and incredible powers, I don't believe any of it and have to accept that I have to deal with the cards I've been delt.

I don't know how to help you find a counselor who can fit your needs, or how to go about it. That process in itself might be somewhat complex. I don't like how people who have studied about blindness think they know everything there is to know about it. The fact is, if you have working eyeballs, you just don't know and that's that. Now, now they will have insight into things you can find useful, just... take the things they say with a grain of salt. Not with skepticism necessarily, just evaluate it for yourself and question anything you feel needs to be questioned. I wouldn't want a counselor who felt the same way as other sighted people, like how blind people are so inspiring for getting dressed, or oh my god, a blind person is on the street, its a miracle of god.

A well-educated counsellor will not do what you're worried about, Ironcross. They may never fully understand what it's like to be blind, but the good kind of counsellor - and trust me, they're out there - will ask questions and get a strong grasp on what it's like in order to help. They will teach ways to empower their clients and to make them feel good about themselves and to come to terms with their situation. They will, if it's present, help clients deal with any shame, guilt or sadness they feel at their loss. Counsellors can do this for addiction, for relationships, for grief, for trauma, and yes, even for acquired disability, whether it be of the physical or mental variety. That's their job. Some are very obviously better at it than others.

My take-away from this is as follows:

1. You're young, Zarvox, and this is actually to your advantage. From a neural perspective, you lost your sight at a relatively early age, and your brain probably remapped itself pretty speedily. People who lose their sight at a more advanced age often struggle to learn new tasks, or relearn old ones, in the absence of their sense of sight. I don't tell you this in order to say, "See? It's not that bad. Shut up". Not at all. Rather, I am saying that this is probably the worst it will ever get, and you're very likely to only go upward from here. You appear to be reasonably intelligent, and you're seeking help. Those are two strong points in your favour. Good on you. That's a good place to begin. But if there are moments or days or even whole stretches of time where you feel like you're overwhelmed by the whole thing, where you're feeling constantly misunderstood or misjudged or simply inadequate, just remember that as bad as it is, it's going to get better if you persevere.
2. Most blind people, whether that way from birth or having acquired the condition somehow, have faced increased and undeserved awe and respect from sighted peers for doing simple tasks. Likewise, they've also faced the assumption, sometimes unspoken and sometimes boldly stated, that being sighted is so naturally the right choice that we cannot help but wish for it, no matter our state of happiness or contentment. Frankly, if these people are fully sighted themselves, and have no other major disabilities, they're ignorant, and you're better off just shaking your head. They don't know what it's like, so while their chatter may be hard to ignore, it's basically just interference. Easy to say, hard to put into practice; believe me, I get it. If I've heard from one family friend that it must be awful not being able to see such-and-such, I've heard from dozens of them. It gets tiresome. I can't help with this too much, except to gently remind you that it's your own perspective that shapes your life experience. Feel free to advocate for yourself, and if you're able, to live by example. If you are able to find happiness and purpose and fulfillment for yourself, it will become harder and harder for these people and their errant words to affect you.
3. Last but not least, you may have no power at present over the loss of your eyesight, but you have plenty of power over the way you live your life, and the way you perceive things. I'm not going to go so far as to say that you can simply make happiness appear, and make all your negative thoughts disappear, if you simply shut out the latter and relentlessly focus on the former. I'm not that optimistic and I'm not that naïve. But what I will say is that positivity, self-discipline, self-awareness and personal regard go a long way. See yourself, as much as you can, as a person deserving of a good life, and try to make choices that further your goals, your dreams, your realistic aspirations. You have a right to want things and need things, and you also have a right to be upset when the world comes along and slams you in the teeth more times than you can frankly tolerate some days. The question is not whether or not you'll make mistakes; you will. It's not whether you will get knocked down, either; you will, and it won't be pretty sometimes. The best measure of a person's life is in their ability to learn, to process the experiences they are a part of, and to improve based on what they take in. Try your best to do that, and other things will very likely follow.

All very vague, self-help-style advice, I know, but this is what I do.

You put this thread in the appropriate forum. The off-topic part of the forum can be used for pretty much anything as long as it's not breaking laws or flaming people, and this clearly does neither. In other words, you're fine here. Don't worry about it.

As far as training your hearing: there are things you can do, but I think the best thing is just to let your brain do its work. It will anyway, in time. It probably already has, just a little. If you have any sight, this may be a distraction, since you may be wanting to try and use your remaining vision to do what you used to do, with limited success. If you do have any sight, wearing sleep shades for brief periods of time (especially important at the start, there's no sense flooding yourself) may help. If you're totally blind, however, my advice is really just to go to a safe place that isn't precisely known to you (so, like, not your bedroom or something) and listen. Just stand still, or sit still, and listen. Pick out sounds, and identify what they are, and try and picture them around you. Imagine, for instance, you're in midsummer, lying in the grass on your back in a park. You can hear the rush of water way off to your right, but it sounds muted. You know there's a hill in that direction, so you can figure out that the muted sound of the water is from both distance and the contour of the land. Hear the high silky rush of tree-leaves above you and sort of behind you? Or the sound of feet crunching gravel on a footpath in the complete opposite direction? Stuff like that. Just put yourself in a safe, unthreatened space and allow yourself to listen. Don't worry about failing. Don't worry about time. Try and set aside a little freedom so that you can enjoy at your leisure. And go from there, teaching yourself to first hear sounds, then to recognize them, and then to start using them. It will take time, but you'll get there.

Your mileage may vary regarding the LCB/whatever training center you choose. From all the stories I've heard, I have some mixed feelings. They all seem very vaguely cultish to my way of looking at it (they have an insistence on sleep shades that I find can actually get in the way, and the way they approach orientation and mobility is controversial). It turns into a pretty heated topic, where proponents will rave about how wonderful and right it all is, while others will howl about just how ridiculous ehe whole setup is. I don't fall in either camp. I only advise that you do your research. Please don't let me dissuade you though; if you've done your due diligence already and think this place, or some other like it, would do you good, then I wish you the best of luck. I do know some people who've gotten a great deal of independence from such places.

I started going blind when I was 10 and the biggest thing that helped me was going to the blind center in my area, and seeing an actual blind councilor to help me.  We'd talk through problems, and he had the actual perspective I needed to understand life as a bind person and it heped me so much.  I'm also blessed to have a Mom that made sure no matter what anyone said, she'd tell me I can do whatever I wanted to do, there'd just need to be a different way of doing it. 

But yeah, you simply need to tell yourself that you won't let feeling srry about not having vision rule you, and work through it.  There are some small tasks where you'll get annoyed and wish you had vision, but at the end of the day you need to just know that you're living your best life, and that would be the case whether you had vision or not.  As to the people that say those things you posted, I just think it's so stupid and you have to get bold and confront them about it.  Not rudely, but if someone says "Oh, I wish one day you'd be able to see" you just have to be liek "Why?  I'm happy the way I am."  or with the other comments, just say it doesn't work that way.  I usually answer things with sarcasm or humor, and that's been my defense mechanism towards people with well intentioned rudeness towards my disability.

I think your best bet is to find a Blind center in your area, they give you help for free (at least, mine did) and go from there!  Hope this helps.

I recognised some of these mindsets, especially those praising people with disabilities by able-bodied people. This is also known as inspirational porn.
For me, getting my sight back is not a decision I have made solely based on the inconvenience of being blind. It is on a basis of having to comtend with severe and progressive hearing loss, though maybe I might want to get my hearing restored first, in that case. But, I have always been fascinated with being able to identify colour mechanical waves rather than electromagnetic ones. Throughout the stuff I did many years ago I learned about synaesthesia and other things, so this would provide a new learning curve to how I perceive the world. Having my sight and or my hearing restored wouldn't change my identity; it would just add on and enrich my experiences.
When I was at my high school's technical theatre programme, the teacher was working on the lighting board in the house, so the lights were all out. I, not knowing anything about that fact, went directly to the soundboard, which just happens to be adjacent to the lighting board. The teacher exclaimed how funny it was to see me walking and getting around well in the dark. I later read something similar in Thunder Dog, by Michael Hingson. He said that sighted people are too light-dependent, and they couldn't function without it. Similarly, most blind people I know are too sound-dependent and would collapse if they suddenly lost their hearing and not get up again. I, however, who cannot rely on my sight, and at least, some of the time cannot rely on sound, must resort to balance, touch, proprioception (how your body is positioned in relation to what you are doing in space), smell, taste, and perhaps a few other things. There's this thing called universal design, which is supposed to make things accessible for everyone. Most blind people want things that can talk to the or use Braille. While a deaf-blind person may not be able to use a talking ATM, a deaf-blind person, or even a blind person with significant developmental or intellectual disabilities might not be able to read Braille. The same goes for audio descriptions and closed captions.
Another thing I've noticed about some blind people (emphasis on some) is their lack of understanding and cruelty to the challenges toward people who have blindness, but who have multiple disabilities in addition to the mix. When I say blind people, I think of them to be just as diverse as the sighted population.
Just my thoughts from someone who has had to explain to blind people how I did music if I had trouble hearing it. I had perfect hearing up until the age of seven, and my hearing worsened gradually, so that gave me plenty of time to continue developing music appreciation. So, for this reason, I cannot play as many audio games as I used to be able to ten or twelve years ago. One of the games I really liked was Bongo, which was a Braille-dsiaply -based game. I wish there were more games like it.

Want an interesting look at how society would apparently collapse if most everyone lost their sight? Go read Day of the Tryphids.