What It’s Like to Be Colour Blind
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to see the world through the eyes of a colour blind person?
The truth is likely a lot more complex than you’re thinking. Many people actually never find out that they have a colour deficiency at all! I didn’t learn the truth until I was 20 years old. How can that be possible? Let me explain.
Out of the Blue
When I was 18, I started working at American Eagle in Newfoundland, Canada. Newfoundland only has one AE location across the entire province, meaning the store was busy almost every day.
As a shy introvert, that would already be a nightmare for most. If you’ve worked in retail before, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
What I didn’t know at the time was that I actually had deuteranomaly, a form of red-green colour blindness. The best part? It took me two years to learn the truth.
I would frequently struggle when customers would ask for specific colours. “I’ll be right back with that yellow hoodie!” I said to one customer, confusing the hell out of her. I found out later that it was actually lime green. I would put on a navy dress shirt… only to later realize that it was actually purple.
When I was 20 years old, I decided to look into a career in the military. During the vision test, the medical technician gave me a bunch of different markers to arrange in shades of dark red to light blue. I failed it miserably. He then bluntly informed me that I was colour blind.
Because of that, I was no longer eligible for the job I had applied for.
How could you not know that you were colour blind? you might be thinking. Why didn’t you get tested for it earlier?
The answers aren’t exactly simple. It’s not that I literally can’t see red or green, or that I can only see the world like a black-and-white silent film.
The truth is that I can recognize red and green colours around me, even if I can’t technically see them that well. But how my eyes and brain interpret the various colours I see means that I see the world in a completely different light than most people (light… see what I did there?).
People with a colour deficiency — meaning those that aren’t completely colour blind — have seen the green leaves on the trees during spring, the red stop signs on every road, and the distinct yellow of a lemon.
But our brains interpret those things differently. After seeing a brown tree trunk, for example, and being told what colour it is supposed to be by our parents or teachers, we start associating brown with anything that looks like that tree trunk.
Still confused? Let’s try another example. I can’t see a kiwi’s true colour because my eyes don’t detect green light that well. But I’ve seen kiwis thousands of times before, and I know that people consider them to be a vibrant green.
As a result, I associate kiwis with green now. I can’t see the kiwi’s green exactly as most people do, but I have a general idea of what it looks like through social conditioning. Any time I see another shade of green, I can start comparing it to the colour of the kiwi.
The colour of grass versus the colour of a pine tree, for instance. This helps me identify different shades of the same colour that I otherwise wouldn’t be able to see.
In other words, I use my recognition of the colours of different items to help me see the world in a more accurate light.
Types of Colour Blindness — What We Actually See
To illustrate this point better, I thought I’d show you what each type of colour deficiency looks like with a picture comparison. I’ve taken two colourful photos below and edited them to emulate each type of colour blindness.
Here are the originals:
Red-Green
DEUTERANOMALY
This is what I have. It makes green light harder to pick up on, meaning greens look more red than they’re supposed to. Shades of red, orange, yellow, and green are often difficult to discern from one another.
PROTANOMALY
This is where red light is difficult to pick up on, making it difficult to distinguish from green. Light in general is less bright. Red, orange, yellow, and yellow-green look a lot more green.
PROTANOPIA/DEUTERANOPIA
This occurs when both red and green light are indistinguishable from one another. As a result, both colours look identical. Protanopia makes reds look like greens, while deuteranopia makes greens look like reds. Protanopia also makes some blues and greens look similar; deuteranopia does the same with some greens and yellows.
Blue-Yellow
TRITANOMALY
Tritanomaly is much rarer than the red-green types we’ve seen above. People with this form of colour deficiency struggle to differentiate between blue and green, as well as yellow and violet.
TRITANOPIA
Tritanopia is a much more severe version of tritanomaly, which causes several major colour mixups: reds are confused with oranges, light blues with greys, and black with dark purples.
Complete Colour Blindness
BLUE CONE MONOCHROMACY
While not complete colour blindness exactly, every colour with this deficiency is heavily muted due to the lack of red and green cone cells in the eye. The cones that would detect red or green light are missing or defective, meaning many colours blend together and become nearly impossible to distinguish from one another.
MONOCHROMACY
True colour blindness actually does exist in the form of monochromacy. No colours can be seen at all with the world interpreted in various shades of grey between black and white. This is by far the rarest form of colour blindness. Light is extremely bright and sunglasses must frequently be worn indoors.
Golden Opportunity
As you can see, colour blindness isn’t as straight forward — or black or white — as you might think it is. I hope that this sheds some light onto what people with a colour deficiency see every day. Most of us are so used to taking colour for granted; my goal was to show you what it’s like to have this gift taken away.
Feel free to write about your own experiences with colour blindness below. Regardless of whether it affects you or someone you know, perhaps this will give you some insight into our struggles.
