001 An Introduction
In this first episode, I’ll introduce myself and the inSight Out podcast…who I am, why I decided to create this show, and what I hope inSight Out will offer to the low and no vision community. So, unlike other episodes where I will help you get to know a variety of guests, this episode asks my longtime friend to help me tell my story to you, my new audience.
From Vision Loss to Vision Found: My Story Behind Insight Out Podcast
Sharing my journey from childhood vision loss to becoming a therapist specializing in disability adjustment
I recently launched Insight Out, a new podcast about living well with low vision, with a deeply personal conversation between myself and my longtime friend Dave Leach. What emerged wasn't just the origin story of a podcast, but my own narrative about resilience, community, and the intersection of disability and mental health.
A Childhood Changed
My story begins at age 10, when I first complained about not being able to see the chalkboard at school. What followed was a frustrating two-year journey through multiple specialists who could see that something was wrong but couldn't identify what.
"Every time they looked at my retina, they couldn't figure out what was going on," I remember. The experience of being accused of faking symptoms—something I now hear frequently from my clients—added emotional trauma to an already difficult situation.
Eventually diagnosed with Stargardt disease (later confirmed through genetic testing), I faced the reality that I would be legally blind and would never drive. This was 1986, four years before the Americans with Disabilities Act, making accommodations much more challenging to secure.
The Isolation Factor
One of the most striking aspects of my early experience was the profound isolation. Unlike today's connected world, resources were limited to quarterly newsletters mailed to members of national organizations.
"I was the only one in my... so that sense of community comes a lot later," I explained to Dave. This isolation shapes much of my current work—understanding that even well-meaning loved ones struggle to comprehend the daily reality of vision loss.
From Hiding to Healing
I can relate to a common pattern among people with invisible disabilities: the desire to keep their condition secret as long as possible. For years, my goal was to delay anyone discovering my vision impairment, fearing I would be reduced to "the blind guy."
The transformation came through significant personal work. "Now it's the exact opposite," I told Dave. "I want them in my story... I go out of my way to invite them in, make it really casual and nonchalant."
This shift represents more than acceptance—it's about reclaiming power and refusing to let others' potential limitations define my identity.
An Unexpected Career Path
Working in stage production as "the only legally blind lighting designer you're likely to meet," my career transition to therapy began with a casual joke. When my own therapist mentioned I seemed ready to discuss career plans, I quipped, "Why? Are you hiring?"
Her response—"You'd be really good at this"—planted a seed that grew into passionate exploration of the field. The timing aligned perfectly with my discovery of Clinical Rehabilitation Counseling, which combines traditional psychotherapy training with specialized focus on disability and chronic illness.
The Intersection That Matters
What makes my approach unique is understanding that practical challenges and emotional wellbeing are inseparable. As I explained to Dave, even mundane tasks like buying milk become "a thousand questions" when you have vision loss—each creating its own mental health impact.
"Everything connects to mental health, everything," I emphasized. "Neither the practical nor the emotional side by itself is enough."
Why This Podcast Matters
The idea for Insight Out emerged from my recognition that people receiving vision loss diagnoses often get minimal support. The typical experience: a doctor delivers a permanent diagnosis and says "See me in a year"—leaving people feeling "afloat in the middle of the ocean without a buoy."
I want the podcast to serve multiple audiences:
Newly diagnosed individuals seeking regular, accessible resources
Long-term community members looking for connection and opportunities to contribute
Friends and family wanting to understand and support their loved ones
Looking Forward
Future episodes will feature experts addressing specific challenges, voices from people who've moved from "surviving to thriving," and innovators creating new solutions. The audio format is particularly fitting for this community, avoiding the additional barriers that text-based online resources can create.
My journey from isolated child to community builder illustrates a profound truth: what begins as personal struggle can become the foundation for helping others. My story reminds us that resilience isn't just about individual strength—it's about creating the connections and resources that help entire communities thrive.
Insight Out is available on all major podcast platforms. Visit insightoutpod.com for episodes and additional resources, or leave a voice message at speakpipe.com/insightoutpod to share your story or suggest topics.
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Please be sure to subscribe to catch every episode. And remember to share the show with others in the blind and low-vision community!
In this first episode, I’ll introduce myself and the inSight Out podcast…who I am, why I decided to create this show, and what I hope inSight Out will offer to the low and no vision community. So, unlike other episodes where I will help you get to know a variety of guests, this episode asks my longtime friend to help me tell my story to you, my new audience.
ABOUT THE PODCAST
inSight Out is your podcast home for living well with vision loss. Host Matthew Reeves (LPC CRC NCC) is a legally-blind psychotherapist and rehabilitation counselor specializing in helping people thrive while living with disability. Matthew is licensed in Georgia and is a nationally certified rehabilitation counselor.
CONNECT WITH US
Podcast Home: https://insightoutpod.com
Talk to Us: https://speakpipe.com/insightoutpod
Email: mailto:insightoutpod@integralmhs.com
Watch on YouTube (with transcripts): youtube.com/@insightoutpod
Reddit Community: https://www.reddit.com/r/inSightOut/
Social Media Handle: @insightoutpod
©Integral Mental Health Services, LLC
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The following transcript is AI generated and likely contains errors.
INTRO
Matthew Reeves: You're listening to Insight Out a podcast about living well with low vision. Maybe you're feeling confused, scared, isolated, or disheartened about a recent vision loss diagnosis, or maybe you've been managing your vision loss for a while and now you want to hear from others about how to continue growing and thriving. Insight Out is your supportive space to find healthy and impactful tools to build and maintain a truly rich and gratifying life with low or no vision.
I'm Matthew Reeves. I'm a legally blind psychotherapist and rehabilitation counselor. I specialize in helping people adjust to disability through my practice, integral Mental Health Services in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm really glad you're listening.
[00:01:00] Please subscribe so you don't miss an episode, and let others in the low vision community know about the podcast so the word can spread to those who might find it helpful. And now on with today's discussion.
TOPIC INTRO
Alex: this is placeholder for generic voiceover.
INTERVIEW
Matthew Reeves: Well, Dave, thank you for being here. Uh, this is the first episode of this brand new podcast, and I could think of no one better to help me introduce myself to an audience. Um, you've known, we've known each other for, what is it, about 30 years now? Is that
Dave Leach: Yeah. I mean, it gets, it gets longer every time we say that.
Matthew Reeves: it. Does that, uh, so I, I, I thought the idea of me sitting in front of a microphone and just blathering on for a while sounded really boring. I would much rather just talk to a friend and, uh, have you help me tell the story. So, uh, thank you for doing that, and we'll just have a chat about my story and how we got to this podcast, so
Dave Leach: Absolutely. It's my, it's my pleasure. I think it's gonna be fun. It seems like every time we have like a, a [00:02:00] more in-depth chat or something like that, I end up learning something that I didn't know about you. Even though we have known each other for 30 years. So I think it's gonna be a lot of fun.
Matthew Reeves: It's probably true of everybody. We all have our depths.
Dave Leach: Seriously. No kidding. Well, so let's kick it off just a little bit, talking about your vision. Um, in my memory, ever since I've known you, ever since college, you have been dealing with lower vision. But do I remember that it wasn't something that goes all the way back to your childhood? It was a little bit later than that.
Matthew Reeves: yeah. Um, so I first started having symptoms of vision loss when I was about 10 years old. Um,
Dave Leach: Okay.
Matthew Reeves: the, I get the question a lot, like, do you remember what it's like to see clearly? it's a, it's a nuanced answer. I remember being able to see clearly, I don't remember what it looks like to see clearly. Like, I
Dave Leach: Oh, wow.
Matthew Reeves: being [00:03:00] able to see—I'm dating myself—the chalkboard at school, um, or being able to, uh, read print without a magnifier. Like I really remember the action of doing it, but I don't remember what it looked like to see clearly. Um, so yeah, when I was about 10 years old is when I started complaining that I couldn't see the chalkboard at school, um, to my, to my parents and my teachers. And that started, um, uh, really a multi-year process of trying to figure out what was going on, which was, you know, first just going to the regular eye doctor. And this was in the 1980s, so the technology is nothing like it is today. Um, so it was very much just look at the chart and they would use lenses to look at the retina and they, and the doctor was like, “we see nothing wrong.”
We couldn't, couldn't discern any problem other than the fact that I was complaining that I couldn't see. Uh, the doctor sent me to a specialist, a retina specialist, and then that retina specialist said the same [00:04:00] thing. And then we went to the next retina specialist who said the same thing, and it was rinse and repeat
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: and over and over again. Um, and that has some depth to it. Like, uh, eventually we found, um, uh, a clinic was doing probably world-class diagnostics at the time, they brought in, I remember, uh, they brought in a bunch of, um. today, I know they had to be either medical students or residents. I don't know who they were, but it was a, it was this room full of young training ophthalmologists, because I was such a weirdo that they, they were like, they, they were like, you gotta see this, um, like, you're, you're never gonna see this again. Um, so they were trying to figure it out. Uh, and yet every time they looked at my retina, they couldn't figure out what was going on. So they eventually came back and said to my parents, like, we have determined [00:05:00] that something is definitely wrong. And they, they had to say that because I went through something that now that I'm doing this as a therapist for low vision folks a lot, I'm hearing this story more and more. and that is that a lot of people, especially children who. They can't figure out what's wrong. The children are being accused of faking it,
Dave Leach: Oh wow.
Matthew Reeves: which we could do a whole episode on that because that's
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: I can feel myself getting emotional just talking about it. Um, but they were able to say to my parents at that point, look, we've done enough tests to determine that yes, there is something actually wrong, but we don't know what it is. our best guess is it's X and it's actually a diagnosis. I don't even, I hardly ever hear anymore, so I don't even know if it still exists as a diagnosis.
Dave Leach: something maybe just really [00:06:00] dated.
Matthew Reeves: It's probably really dated. Um, and so they, they told me at that point that I was going to be legally blind, that I was never going
Dave Leach: Mm-hmm.
Matthew Reeves: to drive, um, and that this was a permanent condition and that started this, and that was two years after my first, complaint. So it took
Dave Leach: Okay.
Matthew Reeves: two years,
Dave Leach: So around age 12 or so?
Matthew Reeves: Age 12 is when I got my first diagnosis, which was incorrect. and that was what they now call a clinical diagnosis. It's, in other words, it's a, well, this is what we can notice about your vision, so we're gonna slap this label on it, this diagnosis on it. It wasn't until between five and ten years ago, probably closer to five years ago, that I actually got genetic testing to absolutely confirm that I do have what I was diagnosed with, uh, which is Stargardt disease.
Dave Leach: Oh wow. No kidding? Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: yeah. And that
Dave Leach: Yeah, I remember that name.
Matthew Reeves: yeah, Stargardt Disease, [00:07:00] which is, um, pretty rare among.
Dave Leach: Mm-hmm.
Matthew Reeves: Juvenile onset inherited retinal diseases. It's pretty common, but that's a very, very tiny percentage of the population. So, uh, it is not common among those who don't know about this world. Uh, it's
Dave Leach: Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah. So that's, that was the age, and at that point I started, you know, figuring out, okay, we're gonna have to get some accommodations and we're gonna have to ask for some help.
And that was still, several years before the Americans with Disabilities Act. So this would've been in 86, which was four years before the ADA, if I'm getting my timeline right. Um, so it was a lot of asking for help from the school. I actually went into a different school, thanks to my parents, um, because, uh, they didn't feel like my local public school was gonna be able to accommodate me and give me the education that we all wanted for me. So we, we shifted, uh, and that was a financial burden, [00:08:00] but they made it happen somehow. so yeah, it was, it was the, I guess that was like one of the first big adaptations that we had to make is figuring out education. Um, and we did
Dave Leach: I mean, particularly at that age, that's like the biggest part of your life at that point.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: Um, and, and we also went to, uh, the and, and these are all over the country, but there's various vision and, uh, blindness assistance community agencies.
Um,
Dave Leach: Mm-hmm.
Matthew Reeves: we went to our local one and they helped with, like, okay, do you, do you need to learn braille? Do you need to learn how to use a cane? Do you need to have magnifiers? Do you need, what, what tools do you need help you be as independent as possible? Um,
Dave Leach: Awesome.
Matthew Reeves: It,
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: awesome and it was very helpful. And I remember, like the tools they gave me early on, I carried with me for years and years and years. Um, so [00:09:00] the, the work they did was very, very helpful. What the, what I didn't get was any sort of sense of community. Um, I,
Dave Leach: Oh
Matthew Reeves: I was the only one in my, in my
Dave Leach: yeah.
Matthew Reeves: Um, so that, that, that part of the story comes a lot later.
Dave Leach: Yeah. I think it's something that maybe we almost take for granted now. Having the internet, having so many people be internet savvy, being able to find groups that you have things in common with. I would imagine it's so much more easy, so much easier to find community now much less than it would've been back in the eighties as a kid.
Just, yeah. Where, where would you possibly find something like that?
Matthew Reeves: 'cause such a small fraction of the population has any idea about low vision. Um,
Dave Leach: Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: which. And that comes up a lot in the work I do with, with my clients. And, but you, to your point, like the very fact that we're recording this podcast, type of format didn't exist. There was nothing, uh, the, the
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: there [00:10:00] was was membership and, you know, national organizations where you would get maybe a, a monthly or a quarterly newsletter like,
Dave Leach: Oh, wow.
Matthew Reeves: mailed to your house on paper.
That was the, and I mean, that, that was the closest thing I had to community. So
Dave Leach: Yeah, yeah,
Matthew Reeves: very disconnecting. Um, and the people
Dave Leach: yeah. You,
Matthew Reeves: go ahead.
Dave Leach: something you just said there kind of, uh, spurred something for me, which was, well, a lot of people don't have a, a, a real image of what low vision or vision impairment is a like. I notice anytime I'm talking about you, I tend to say, yeah, my friend Matt, he's legally blind. What you're picturing is so much is, is not nearly as bad as what you know, it really is for him.
Um. And so I know you as a fairly independent person, um, yeah. You've got things like the magnifier and things like, uh, that, that that help you get around day to day, but from, from the outside [00:11:00] looking in, it is something that you're able to sort of navigate through life without a whole lot of trouble.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah. It, it is for me, and I think you're highlighting something that's important, and that is that every, there's a, there's a notion, there's a, there's a conception. blindness among
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: know about it, it's binary, you're blind or not. Um, I think age related low vision is getting more attention these days where
Dave Leach: Mm-hmm.
Matthew Reeves: with, with retinal degeneration, I think more people know somebody in that category now than it
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: Um, so that might be changing a little bit, but maybe that's just my perception. I'm not really sure about that. But what I, what I do know is that among people who are affected by various different rare conditions or injuries, [00:12:00] um, and, and this could be anything from glaucoma at any point in life, this could be a car accident, this could be a sports accident, this could be a genetic condition. who knows? It could be anything. Um, but. The thing to know is that everybody's experience is pretty distinct. It's usually a mistake to think that person A's vision is like person B'S vision, just because they have the same numeric score on the eye chart, uh, that doesn't,
Dave Leach: Okay.
Matthew Reeves: come anywhere close to painting a full picture.
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: Um, it's, it's kind of like I liken it to, uh, like how healthy are you based on your BMI? It's just one number. It can't possibly paint a full picture of how healthy you are. Um, so you've got things like color perception, light perception, visual field, which includes not just loss of peripheral, but it could be loss of central vision.
It could be, you know, things like, things like that. It could be, um, floaters. It [00:13:00] could be good days and bad days. It could be, you know, there's just, there's no end to how complicated vision is and that does that. And everything I've talked about just refers to. problems with the eye itself. There are blinding conditions that are neurological that have
Dave Leach: Oh, okay.
Matthew Reeves: with the occipital lobe.
I think, I think I'm getting that right. I'm not a neurologist, but I think it's the occipital lobe that processes vision. So especially that's, that's especially common in traumas where you get a brain injury that could in fact impact your vision, but it's not your eye at all. Um, so it's really important when you're engaging with somebody to appreciate their experience is unique. And then thing that happens, and this is perfectly fine for me anyway, um, is people will say, well, okay, help me understand what can you see? Like, help, right? Like that's a natural question. it is a really difficult question [00:14:00] to answer. Like
Dave Leach: I bet,
Matthew Reeves: if I ask you what can you see? How do you answer it, right?
Like,
Dave Leach: right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, it's, it's funny as, as I've started to get a little older, I'm just now to the point that I'm starting to need reading glasses. And so if someone were to ask me to describe that difference, I'm not even sure I could do that particularly clearly. You know, pun.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah, it, it is a challenge. Uh, I, I think one of the ways that I've started answering that is less what can I see and more, how does it impact what I can do? Um,
Dave Leach: That makes sense.
Matthew Reeves: to be a slightly easier question to answer. but even that is tricky because
Dave Leach: Mm-hmm.
Matthew Reeves: when I can do something in one context and I can't do it in a different context.
You know, is it, is, is the, is it a clear day and I'm walking under a trees and so I've got a bunch of dappled sunlight creating a lot of shadows? That makes it hard to determine whether [00:15:00] there's a step. One condition. Is it an overcast
Dave Leach: Oh, wow.
Matthew Reeves: same location might be a lot easier, right? So even, what can you do?
It becomes really complicated.
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: also, you know, we talked about that sense of isolation earlier as by virtue of not knowing people. That's
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: really big factor I've found for me and for others because it's a sense of isolation that we are going through something. Even if you have people that want to be with you, it's really hard to communicate it.
Uh, and that, that really makes the, the process of, of connecting and getting help and feeling like you're not alone. It's an extra challenge. I, I like to say that
Dave Leach: Yeah, I bet.
Matthew Reeves: think the grieving process related to vision loss is just particularly complicated compared to a lot of other grieving processes, and that's one of the reasons why.
Dave Leach: Oh wow. That's, and what an interesting intersection there between the, the more [00:16:00] medical side of it with, um, I do, I wanna say it, it, it's, it's an interesting distinction between the, the, your vision and how it's affected, and also then how does it affect you day to day. That they really are sort of two different things.
Um, the, the whole thing about, you were just mentioning about, uh, different light conditions. Um, I'm sitting here thinking we're barely into this conversation and here's something I've learned about my friend Matt. I never would've thought about it being that big a difference. Uh, and, and talk about something that, you know, someone with, with, with, uh, without vision impairment would just totally take for granted.
Never even think about that being a part of it, or it's something to, uh, pay attention to, I suppose.
Matthew Reeves: and that's okay. How could you, how, you know we're, we're all with our own story and our own stuff and our own challenges. [00:17:00] It's not, I mean, I think there are times in the process when you feel some, I don't know if the resentment is the right word. Maybe at certain
Dave Leach: Mm-hmm.
Matthew Reeves: process, it might feel like resentment, um, which I'm not judging.
That's, you know, feel what you feel. Um,
Dave Leach: For sure.
Matthew Reeves: I, I, I've gotten to, in my, in my story to a place where it doesn't bother me that people don't know what I'm dealing with. Uh, I would rather them ask the question. And that's, and that actually speaks to like a, one of the biggest processes I've been through, which is, you know, at the early stages I was very concerned, and I think this is extremely common among people with vision loss or really almost any invisible disability, meaning a disability that's not readily apparent to somebody else. For a lot of people with invisible disabilities, including myself for a long, long time, my goal was to [00:18:00] push off as far into the future, anybody finding out about my vision as possible. I didn't want them to
Dave Leach: Okay.
Matthew Reeves: I want, I kept it. I actively kept it a secret as long as I could because I was worried that all, that my identity would become that in their eyes.
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: become the blind guy. Uh, and that felt really minimizing and it is really minimizing to, to have your identity boiled down to this one thing that you have no control over. That's, that's awful. Um,
Dave Leach: For sure.
Matthew Reeves: what, what I came to over time, and this was a long process, um, with a lot of, a lot of work, was getting to a place in my life where their opinion of like, if somebody were to paint me with that single colored brush that that was their problem, not mine, right? And so it, I, I kind of, I worked really hard to reclaim that power [00:19:00] that I didn't care. And, and now it's the exact opposite. Now it's like, well, I want them to understand that if I'm not making eye contact, it's not because I'm being rude or weird. I want them to understand that if I'm using a magnifier, they don't have to be wigged out about it, or they don't have to be confused. You know, I, I want them in my story, like I want to invite them in. So now I go, instead of going out of my way to delay them knowing, I go out of my way to invite them in, make it really casual and nonchalant about like, yeah, “I've got a vision impairment. What do you want for lunch?” Right? It's like a very, I just throw it in there and, and I kind of say like, this isn't, I don't define myself this way, so you don't have to either. Um, and it, it completely, that really felt liberating to get to a place where I could do that. It really solved a lot of logistical problems 'cause I didn't have to keep hiding. Um, but
Dave Leach: Yeah. Yeah,
Matthew Reeves: liberating to get to that place where I had that power. [00:20:00] So that, that's kind of,
Dave Leach: I bet.
Matthew Reeves: it feels more connected too. It feels more honest and transparent, and I'm not afraid of who I am, which,
Dave Leach: Yeah. And, and you get to be seen and understood by people in a way that that resonates better for you.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah, exactly.
Dave Leach: yeah. And talking about invisible uh, conditions. Uh, I was, last summer I was in, uh, Europe, in Scotland, and I was surprised how frequently I would see signs on restrooms in particular talking about not everybody, not everything everyone is dealing with is visible.
Specifically if you see someone coming out of a handicap accessible bathroom stall, don't give them a hard time if it looks like there's no reason for them to be in there. That people are dealing with all kinds of things, some visible, some not. And I, I was curious with that becoming more visible to me on [00:21:00] that trip, is that something that you feel like has become more visible in general?
Is there more of an awareness of that sort of social interaction?
Matthew Reeves: The short answer is, I don't know. Um, I think the world I inhabit, yes.
Dave Leach: Mm-hmm.
Matthew Reeves: but I'm a mental health therapist, so I'm around people whose job it is to have empathy. so that's, that's, that's my world. Um, so I, I think it would be a mistake for me to assume that that is more global or a change that's, that's happening at a societal level. I
Dave Leach: Yeah. That's fair.
Matthew Reeves: I really hope so. I mean, I do hear.
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: From time to time, I'll hear people kind of talk about what you're talking about, but in regard to a parking space, like just because they're
Dave Leach: Ooh.
Matthew Reeves: crutches or a wheelchair doesn't mean that they don't have a reason to be parking in that space. So,[00:22:00]
Dave Leach: Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: the best in people.
Um, assume that they're good and if they're, if they are a jerk and they're taking up the space from somebody who needs it, that's, that's for them to deal with. That's the, you know, we, we don't
Dave Leach: Yeah,
Matthew Reeves: need to be the morality police on that. Um, you know, the, they'll the, whether they can sleep at night is their business, uh, is kind of my approach.
I'm just gonna assume that. It makes me happier. I'm happier to assume that they have a reason to be using that space, that bathroom, that parking space, whatever it may be. I hope that's extending as we mature as a society, uh, to become
Dave Leach: sure.
Matthew Reeves: more global.
Dave Leach: Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: Nice to, it’s nice to hear that. I've never seen that sign.
So it's nice to see that Europe has, has embraced that. That's great.
Dave Leach: But yeah.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
Dave Leach: And, and I maybe had seen it on a college campus here in, in Seattle where I live. Um, so it, it's starting to creep in. But yeah, I thought exactly the same thing. What a cool, uh, thing to [00:23:00] have up. And also just the way that they presented it felt very sad. It, it wasn't so much you are doing the wrong thing.
It was, take a moment and think about this.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah,
Dave Leach: Uh, I, I love what you were just describing about a world with more empathy, where fewer people are jerks. How wonderful would that be? Just overall, much less how, what people are dealing with on a day-to-day basis.
Matthew Reeves: Absolutely. And I think the more we acknowledge that we're all going through our own challenges and we're empathetic for the people we care about that are going through their challenges and just. Using that as a lens for everybody is going through something. Um,
Dave Leach: Yeah, for sure.
Matthew Reeves: will, you know, it's, and so it just, I find it just takes a lot less energy than being angry. So,
Dave Leach: I got, yeah, fair enough.
Matthew Reeves: so, yeah.
Dave Leach: Um, something that I asked badly a moment ago, I'm gonna try and reword this one. Um, [00:24:00] and I think it's a good segue into the next part of the conversation, talking about your career, um, for something like blindness that does tend to affect people's lives at such a fundamental level.
Um, you mentioned a little bit about dealing both with, you know, things like accommodations, getting around the world, that sort of thing, but also the mental aspect of it, the emotional aspect of it. You know, those days that you do feel resentful, you do feel down on yourself that this is something you have to deal with.
And so it, it seems to me really interesting that your career is at that particular intersection between those two things that are more related to each other than I think I generally think,
Matthew Reeves: It's a niche for sure. Um, it there, you know, when I was first considering going to get my master's to do this job, uh, one of the [00:25:00] professors I met said that—I asked what the, he was a researcher. Uh, and so I was asking, okay, what do you research? And he said, intersectionality of, uh, mental health disorders and disability. I'm like, what? Like. What do you mean? Like, yeah, there's a higher level of diagnosable mental health conditions among the disabled, and that was news to me. Like I was just starting in this area. Now I know it for sure. Um, but
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: an extra, um, I think if you were to read the literature, it'd probably be called a stress model, um, to describe the, the lifetime burden, the emo, the emotional and mental health burden of anything.
It could be being a minority in, in any sense, including
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: Um, and, and that has that, that has the potential to take a toll. I think for, in a lot of cases, if, [00:26:00] if your childhood resources were such that you are really set up well and, and you had all the resources you needed, you might be able to handle it pretty well on your own or with a small community, with your family, that sort of thing. But most people don't have perfect resources. That's, that's the exception, not the rule. And the result of that is that, you know, this, disability, vision loss, really anything in like that, it can be, it can shift from a process which you need to grieve into something which is healthy. Like we are humans.
We grieve. When we lose something valuable, we grieve, you lose your vision, you're gonna grieve. That's a normal human healthy process. But if you don't have what you need as you're processing a really, really big grief, it can, it can go south [00:27:00] and you can start to be injured by that process. I, I liken it to, um, you know, a, a waterway or a lake, as long as it's moving, it tends to be healthy. When it gets dammed up and blocked, then you get algae and mosquitoes and toxins, and then it becomes very unhealthy and everything has is at risk. Um, so, so working with people with disabilities, it's a real privilege because I think it's an opportunity to help people un-dam that river.
Dave Leach: Yeah,
Matthew Reeves: what that means is the grief flows, which can be very unpleasant, but it's actually a lot safer than having it blocked up. Um, so
Dave Leach: yeah,
Matthew Reeves: to be with somebody and let them feel that movement of the grief, which is very difficult. Um, but it's so much healthier and the good news is it gets better. so
Dave Leach: I was just thinking that it's, it's unpleasant, it's [00:28:00] uncomfortable, but it's done with the promise or the hope that overall it will make things better, but it's, it's a pain worth going through.
Matthew Reeves: it's absolutely a pain worth going through. And it's not just, it's better because easier or less, or less unpleasant. It's also like you end up getting something out of it. Uh, the, the, the slogan, the common word would be resilience. And I think it's a really good word. I think it's a little overused, but, maybe a little trite, but, but it's true. Like, I think, and that's true of any challenge in life for anyone, whether it's a physical disability or any other challenge. Uh, when you, you make your way through, not out of, but through, I think you're, as you process through it, um, the, you, you get something for that. You don't walk away empty-handed.
You discover your own [00:29:00] strength. You discover your own empathy, you get connection with other people. Uh, it, I mean, how, what exactly you get is gonna be your story. It's gonna be very individual. But there are some themes that are really profound and, uh, I'll, I'll tell you what, people who, who face really big challenges and keep standing, uh, they're some of the most beautiful people in the world.
Dave Leach: Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
Dave Leach: I, I, you talk about resilience and connectedness and those just both really struck a chord for me. I think of those as being things that I would like more of in my life and don't always know how to get. Um, so yeah, that's, I I can imagine what a, a difference that would just be in, in your day to day, in the way you feel about yourself, about the world around you, that those feel like.[00:30:00]
fundamental things that that cost a lot of parts of people's lives.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah, absolutely. I think you gain from the first, whatever, the first challenges you decide to face helps you in the next challenge. I mean, we we're, we're constantly growing it. It's a, it's a building block process. Um, and so we, we apply thing A to thing B and we end up at a place we never imagined we could handle.
Uh, and
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: it's remarkable. It really is what we
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: it's remarkable what humans can do.
Dave Leach: I can see the affection that you're speaking about, that kind of work. Um. And it's really cool to see that, that for most of the time I've known you, therapy has not been your career. It's been production, it's been audio, been visual, that sort of thing. Um, and so when I learned that you were going back to school to get your master's to become a therapist, it [00:31:00] was really a surprise.
Like what? That felt just so out of left field from, from my perspective. Um, and so I'm curious, like, how did that come about? Do you, do you have a sense of like where that seed was planted or how long ago?
Matthew Reeves: I know exactly the day it was planted.
Dave Leach: Oh, okay. Bring it yet.
Matthew Reeves: Um, so I was working in stage production. I like to tell people I'm the only legally blind lighting designer you're likely to meet. Um. And I was
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: it. Uh, I, I, I had a knack for it, um, in large part because I was working with a really great team, uh, that, that was able to fill in my gaps. Um, but for reasons that we don't need to get into that, that a, that era of my life came to an end and I didn't know what to do.
I was feeling really lost. so I ended up [00:32:00] going to therapy to get some help. um, we were, we had, we had done a bunch of work, I think it was maybe the fifth or sixth or seventh session, and, uh, my therapist said was at the end of our session, um, she was saying, you know, “you seem to be doing better on the emotional front.
Perhaps next time we can start talking about what your options are and what your plans are and what you know, how to out the next step of your career.” And, uh, as I was handing her my credit card, like we were done talking, I was making a joke
Dave Leach: Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: uh, and I said, just jokingly, “Why? Are you hiring?” And kind of and looked up at me and said, “You'd be really good at this.”
Dave Leach: Oh wow.
Matthew Reeves: And I said, “You realize that's all I'm gonna be able to think about for the next week, right?” And she looked at me kind of [00:33:00] slyly and said, “Eh, so be it.” You know?
Dave Leach: Oh.
Matthew Reeves: And that's exactly what happened. I, I started reading. Learning. I felt an excitement about learning that I had not felt in quite a few years. Um, and I just couldn't stop reading, which is an experience that I was familiar with from years past doing, learning about acoustics or whatever. Um, and this was the first time in a long time I had felt that passion, um, to just keep sucking in all the information I could. And I, I took that as a really good sign that I was on some sort of right track. So I then decided to call up a friend of mine that was a therapist. It took a week or two before we could get in touch. But when I finally got her on the phone, 'cause she lived on the other side of the country, um, I finally got her on the phone and I told her why I was calling. I was like, I'm considering maybe doing this and I wanted to get your opinion on it.
And she said, [00:34:00] “Matt, I have been waiting for this call for years.”
Dave Leach: No!
Matthew Reeves: I was like, “Why didn't you tell me!?” So that was two, two people who were pros in therapy who were giving me this very, very strong indication that this was something I could be good at. And that paired with some, with the process that I'd been going through, this is one of the reasons I was so upset. you know, when you have a vision impairment, there's a lot of things that either are closed off to you or you believe are closed off to you. And if you think about it, like, uh, a software filter, like an Amazon filter, if you start filtering out, you know, this 50% of options and that 50% of options and then, and then 50% of that and 50% of that, eventually you're down to, I'm sorry, there are no results. There's nothing for you. [00:35:00] And that's where I was at.
I was thinking there was nothing I could do. That I certainly, nothing I could do that I wanted to do. I was really
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: So when I had these two people tell me this, and I, and then I would ask the obvious follow up question, like, do you think a legally blind person can do this job? And they both said, yeah, definitely. They're right. And I mean, there's a, there's a Facebook group of legally blind or visually impaired therapists—like, it, it's,
Dave Leach: Oh, no kidding.
Matthew Reeves: Um, so, and some of them are gonna be guests on this podcast, I'm sure. Um, so, uh, I started, you know, figuring out where to go to school and, uh, I made some big, I moved to make it happen, uh, because I didn't have transportation.
So I'm like, all right, maybe where I'm living isn't serving my needs very well. Maybe I need
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: that. so I moved to where there was public transportation and I could get to school [00:36:00] and. requested the accommodations I needed, and the school I went to was great about that. Um, and I went to backing up a little bit.
I went to, uh, what they called an information session for all the degrees that were being offered in that, um, section of the, of the university.
Dave Leach: Okay.
Matthew Reeves: they were kind of going through, you know, school counseling and, you know, other stuff that, that was not what I was interested in. They talked about the mental health counseling, which is what I thought I was there for. then started talking about clinical rehabilitation counseling, which I had never heard of.
Dave Leach: Okay. What is that?
Matthew Reeves: So clinical rehabilitation counseling is—It contains pretty much all the training of mental health counseling to be a psychotherapist, but with added training for helping people with disability and chronic illness. Um, so we get a little bit more training in the, what, on the emotional side of that, A [00:37:00] little bit more training on the physiological aspects of disability so we can understand what people are going through at a, at a medical level. Um, and when they told me that I could get that degree in the same amount of time for the same amount of tuition and get an extra credential and help people in my community, I was like, well, that seems like a no-brainer.
That's,
Dave Leach: Yeah, for sure.
Matthew Reeves: I, why would I not do that? Um, and it's a, it was a smaller cohort. It's almost always a smaller group of people getting that degree, which I like, I like fewer deeper relationships. Um, and that was really special. Um, so. Still friends with, with a number of people from that program and the professors.
Uh, so, uh, yeah, I ended up getting, in addition to credential to be a therapist, which is a licensed professional counselor, at least in my state of Georgia, the LPC, I'm also a CRC, a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor, [00:38:00] which is a national credential, uh, rather than a state license. It gets a little complicated, but, um, yeah, so I've got both sets of letters after my name and that's one of the, one of the focus areas of my practice, uh, that I feel really passionate about serving.
And I kind of into the training to qualify me to do it. So the, uh, the, I, I got exactly what I needed at the right time. So like, chalk that up to whatever you want.
Dave Leach: Yeah, I was about to say, it seems like there were a whole lot of just like perfect timing interactions there, that that led to that. And
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
Dave Leach: obviously there's a, there's a bit of luck with that, but I had someone describe to me once when I was, um,
if I wanna talk about those, we'll skip that. Um,
boy, I've just [00:39:00] completely derailed my train of thought there.
Matthew Reeves: all right. We can edit.
Dave Leach: Yeah. Yeah. Thank goodness. Um, so, okay, so we talked about, um, the, the degrees that you found, how you, uh, got into that, gone through, you've got your degree. Um, okay. So let's talk a little bit about what comes next that, you know, you've gone through that training.
Um, you've discovered, you know, this, this new possibility that you feel like is a really good fit for you. I'll get started with something like that. Like I, I, I don't have, as, as a programmer, I don't really have a sense of how therapists or medical professionals find jobs, find work. So how, what was your next step after you had your degree?
Matthew Reeves: So I got the degree and then, um, that, which included an internship working in a community mental health agency, um, where I did have some intersections with, with folks with disabilities. But that wasn't the focus.
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: [00:40:00] Um, after that, you know, you, before you can be fully licensed, you're associate licensed.
So I was working, um, you know, earning hours towards my license, which was after the degree.
Dave Leach: Okay.
Matthew Reeves: one of the, uh, organizations I approached to say, Hey, can I partner with you? I want to serve this population, was the very same low vision community agency that I went to when I was 12 years old.
Dave Leach: Oh, no kidding.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah. It was the exact same one.
And in fact, they still had, I, apparently they had migrated their databases enough times that they still had my records. So,
Dave Leach: That is remarkable.
Matthew Reeves: yeah, it was, it was really quite something. And so I met with the president of that organization and she said, this is very exciting. We, we've noticed that when we are, because we don't have anybody that does mental health on our staff.
That's not our purpose. That's not why we're here. But we've noticed [00:41:00] that people's—people are dealing with really big emotions while we're trying to teach how to use a cane or how to use a screen reader.
Dave Leach: Oh yeah.
Matthew Reeves: it's really challenging. Like that's getting in the way of the work we're actually trying to do here.
So we're really excited. Let's partner with you. We established a pilot program and so I started working a lot with the low vision community there. Um, once I was fully licensed, you know, they're, that'll change for grant reasons, money reasons, whatever. Um, I established my private practice after I was fully licensed and started basically just advertising.
Um, but the reason that, that working, you know, working with that group for a couple of years got me a lot of experience with the low vision community 'cause and, and it helps me learn, kinda like what I was saying earlier, it helped me be humble that my experience is not everybody's [00:42:00] experience. so just because I have low vision doesn't mean I know everything about low vision or blind or total blindness or any other disability.
So, um, but I did pick up on a lot of common themes, a lot of struggles that I noticed were just showing up again and again and again and again in our sessions. And we were making progress. Like we just, the, the therapy was helping. and that was really encouraging and they were, they were saying thank you, which means we were doing a good job. and so I started to think like, it is challenging to find this, like I said, this is a relatively small group of people. It's challenging to run a private practice and fill it with this, you know, community, this population. How can I reach these people nationwide or even internationally? And I started looking around and thinking, I, I can't find [00:43:00] any other podcasts.
And podcasts are sort of the du jour. They're, they're the fad right now. Um,
Dave Leach: sure.
Matthew Reeves: everybody wants to have a podcast. But I started looking around and realizing that I'm not seeing this group being served in this way. Um, and so I was like, you know what, why not if I can, if I can reach out, talk about what I'm passionate about anyway, and it reaches a larger audience, maybe that audience doesn't have the opportunity to get one-on-one therapy.
Maybe they do, they can reach out. But, but this is free, this is available. Um,
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: and that just makes me feel really good. Uh, so that's why I wanted to start this.
Dave Leach: That's fabulous. Um, are people generally surprised to find out that this is such a specific intersection? Like for, for patients that you've had who have that combination of, of dealing with low vision and also [00:44:00] the mental health struggles that can, that can go along with that. Are, are your clients surprised to find out that there's something so, so niche as you mentioned, as you called it earlier?
Matthew Reeves: Um, I think in some cases, yes, um, very often before, if there are act, you know, I, I, I hate the word disorder 'cause I think it's very stigmatizing. I don't like it. But, uh, if there is something like depression or anxiety or something along those lines
Dave Leach: Mm-hmm.
Matthew Reeves: to be addressing, uh. 95 times out of a hundred if you're dealing with a recent vision loss diagnosis, dealing with that grief is just front, is the front burner. Um, and so we're not really at that point dealing with the intersectionality. at least not at the beginning. we might be, we might be, if the depression is stopping, sometimes it's cyclical and the depression or whatever the anxiety may be stopping [00:45:00] the grieving process. And we, we gotta kind of approach it from all sides. Um, but very often it's, it's shorter term work just to help the grieving process be a healthy one. Um, and that, that may reveal in doing that work that may reveal opportunities for other areas of healing that are unrelated to the vision. That shows up quite a bit. but it's, it's by no means, you know, baked in.
It's not, it's not for sure, uh, but if it's there. We do the work, uh, we, we take whatever, whatever comes forward and, and work on the healing again, because almost everything can be healed. It's that resilience again. It just, Almost everything is healable.
Dave Leach: Yeah, it's, it's, it's nice to, that that's, that it feels nice to hear.
Matthew Reeves: yeah.
Dave Leach: Um, I remember you were talking earlier in the conversation, the, the metaphor of getting the water flowing.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah,
Dave Leach: Um, that so [00:46:00] frequently if, if I am faced with a problem of frustration, as long as I see a way to have some effect on it, to see if I can like just move the needle.
It feels so much less frustrating. I feel that that feeling of being stuck is, is something I personally find very frustrating and, and demoralizing. So yeah, anything that like gets the ball rolling. Just I, I, I know from personal experience, what a big deal, like
Matthew Reeves: Right. And you can imagine. If been, if your body has turned on you for whatever reason, that can, you can feel incredibly stuck. You have, you feel like you have, that's something you just have no capacity to change.
Dave Leach: Yeah,
Matthew Reeves: no matter how much I want my eyes to heal, I can't make them heal. Um,
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: so with this, with a diagnosis like mine or countless others, it's so easy to find yourself in a place of [00:47:00] hopelessness because you feel like you have no autonomy and no control and no ability to affect change. And that's when you find yourself in that place. That's a really good time to get some help. 'cause there's perspectives other than the one you're living inside of, that can, that can help identify like there is a possibility for change. It, it may not be in the healing of your, in my case, like my retinas, um, but that my retinas don't define me and my retinas don't define my entire life. Uh, but
Dave Leach: Yeah,
Matthew Reeves: easy to not be able to see that, no pun intended. Um, so
Dave Leach: it's something I was just, uh, thinking there is, I'm fairly recently diagnosed with A DHD just within the past few years, and as it happens, the therapist that I worked with for that also has ADHD.
Matthew Reeves: Mm-hmm.
Dave Leach: And so I find as her patient that,[00:48:00] to me, that's comforting. To me, it feels like there's some, uh, shortcuts just to having the, the similar experience, the similar vocabulary, not having to lay a bunch of that groundwork.
Um, I feel like she's someone who, who understands what I'm going through, probably better than, than someone who doesn't. Um, and for this in particular, I think that's a, a, a big part of your story is this is something I'm familiar with and I want to help other people out with that. The, the original question I was thinking was, do you find that your therapist, that your patients respond well to that?
But the thing I think I'm really interested in is the other way around. I've never really thought about it from my therapist's perspective. What is it like for her to work with ADHD patients as someone who has it [00:49:00] herself? So for you, what is it like to work with people that have low vision and, and having that common experience?
As you said, everyone's different, everyone's experience is different, but I imagine there's sort of that foundation that's there that, that makes things easier.
Matthew Reeves: You know, they, they tell you in therapist school that one of the jobs of the therapist is to instill hope. And when you've, when you've gone from an initial diagnosis to later and you've seen your own story evolve, you know it's possible. So it's really, I, when I'm, when I'm trying to instill hope, like I have no, no shortage of confidence, it's, I, I can, I can really [00:50:00] say without it being an empty platitude or just a, a condescending pat on the head,
“No, you can get through this I know you can. Because I did, and I'm not special like, like you're human. I'm human. This is something that humans can do. You can do…”
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: Um, and
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: it gives me confidence in that, in that part of the work. Uh, that's an interesting question.
Dave Leach: Well, thank you. I, like I said, I'd never really considered it from the other side.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah, yeah.
Dave Leach: Um, and something that just came to mind there, you were talking earlier about that time when you were considering this as the career and getting people's advice and part of pursuing that was moving, was going, that moving to a place that had, you know, better public transit, it was gonna be easier for me to get around.
I remember when I heard that you had moved just thinking, this is gonna be so good [00:51:00] for me. This, it, it felt like you were getting to blossom in a way that I've not gotten to see you, see you experience. And that reinvention energy is what I tend to call it whenever I meet someone who is at one of those big life change points, gonna be going back to school, whether, uh, a new career, uh, a life change such as like a divorce or a new, uh, a new relationship.
There's that reinvention energy that feels just really cool to be around. So I've never thought about that being a possible, something that you get to see on, on a more frequent basis. You get to be a little element of people's reinvention and helping get that going, and I can imagine that's very satisfying.
Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: very satisfying. Uh, yeah, it, it, [00:52:00] there's a I'll describe this from my perspective, but I think it's true for others as well. When I made that, when I did that reinvention, which took, which was scary, very scary. It was a big,
Dave Leach: that,
Matthew Reeves: basically everything in my life was changing all at once.
Dave Leach: yeah.
Matthew Reeves: but when I did it, was a paradigm shift from, uh, decades of, from that point in my life prior, the, the challenge every day was to adapt myself, to fit the world. After that, I started saying, “I am who I am…the world can change.” Maybe I needed to be, to be in a different world. Maybe I need to be in a world that is more interested in adapting to me and saying, oh, and everybody else, like, just a more flexible [00:53:00] place.
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: instead of me trying to conform into whatever cookie cutter I was trying to squeeze myself into for a long time, so yeah, that reinvention was also, it was reinvention in that I was reinventing myself, but it was also reinvention in how I was going about solving the problems and saying
Dave Leach: Okay.
Matthew Reeves: this isn't, this isn't just about my adaptation, this is about believing that I deserve, like everybody else does—
I don't think I'm specia—lI think everybody deserves the world around them to say, “you are who you are. You are valuable. We appreciate you. We want to be connected to you, and here's where the puzzle pieces fit together. Here's where you belong.” Um, and that, that's a profoundly better place to be for me. So
Dave Leach: I, I can see you smiling as you're [00:54:00] describing this, that that still resonates with you.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah, it really does. Yeah.
Dave Leach: I have the sense that particularly for people who are a little younger than that, getting help with mental health, dealing with the sorts of things that people our age or older might have come at with that original attitude that you were describing is, how do I make this as invisible as possible?
How do I keep this from defining me? It really does feel like people who are younger than us are more okay with saying, this is what I'm dealing with. And it feels like there's both a more willingness to share and willingness to empathize. And is that something that you see from, from where you sit in your career?
Matthew Reeves: Yes, I think it's similar to what we were talking about before. I, I think I see it in [00:55:00] my corner of the world. Um.
Dave Leach: Yeah,
Matthew Reeves: I hear it talked about a lot, but I hear it talked about again, in my corner of the world. I also know that there are corners of the world where that's not happening.
Dave Leach: I should.
Matthew Reeves: there, uh, so I, I'm reluctant try and paint an overly rosy picture. Um, I think there's a lot, lot of folks that are still stigmatized and facing even ridicule, um, for asking for help, and they, that makes it feel impossible to ask for help. so I, I really empathize with that. Um, I, I guess my message to those people would be, just because the people around you are limited in their experience does not mean you have to be, um,
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: you deserve better than that. Uh, you deserve the help that helps you to, to blossom and, and be exactly who you are and proudly. So I think, I think there are [00:56:00] sections of the world that are getting better at that, but I don't think it's
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: sadly. Uh
Dave Leach: Yeah. And I, when you said painting a rosy picture, I realized that when I, when I say that, when I feel that it does feel hopeful, like I say that, hoping that it's going to be easier for people who are younger than us, that the, the world is moving more in that direction and yeah, it's there, there's something sort of rosy and, and comforting about that thought.
Um, you want it to be true.
Matthew Reeves: Definitely. I absolutely want it to be true and I'm, I'm really, really grateful for the people that are taking the stigma away. I think it is true that more people know somebody who has benefited from therapy now than 20 years ago. I think that's
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: I, I, I don't have the statistics, but I would be shocked if that wasn't
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: Um, so that is, that's undoubtedly a good thing. Uh, yeah.
Dave Leach: Right about 20 years ago was the first time I was in therapy, so
Matthew Reeves: Hmm.
Dave Leach: that just [00:57:00] happens to line up with my own personal experience as it happens.
Matthew Reeves: Congratulations. 20 years!
Dave Leach: I'm trendy. Who knew?
Let's see. Okay, pause just a moment. I'm gonna have a drink of something.
Matthew Reeves: Yep, me too.
Dave Leach: All right. So something that came up briefly just a moment ago was the podcast, um, ostensibly the reason we're having this conversation. Uh, so talk to me some about that. Like the, the, the joke is everybody's got a podcast right now, so what, what makes you want to do one yourself? What do you think it, it's bringing that is maybe missing?
Or what is something you hope to create with this podcast?[00:58:00]
Matthew Reeves: One of the things I noticed when I started to work with a lot of people with vision impairments, um, was the really profound sense of being afloat, um, kind of in the middle of the ocean without a buoy or an anchor or a boat or a horizon or a north star or a beach or anything. You just
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: like the number of times I've heard somebody say that their eye doctor gave them a diagnosis, said, “this is permanent...You're gonna be blind to one degree or another…See me in a year.” That's like all you get. And like what do you do with that? What the hell do you do with that? Where are you supposed to turn? And so I want this podcast to be a resource. Um, I was having a conversation, [00:59:00] um, with, with another low vision person who I hope will be a guest on, on our podcast one day. Um, and she was describing how everything, when you're, especially early in the process, takes so much energy, physical energy, time energy, money energy, and mental health energy, emotional energy, everything. I mean, her example at the time was you just want to go get a gallon of milk—it's a thousand questions you have to answer.
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: how do I get to the store? How do I find the milk? Which, which milk am I getting? How much does the milk cost? Is it on sale? Is there a coupon I can, how do I scan it? How do I use the touchscreen to pay for it? How do I, it's over and over and over and over. It's problem and problem and problem, problem.
So even the mundane things, I say that to point out that even the mundane things take a mental health toll.[01:00:00]
Dave Leach: yep.
Matthew Reeves: there's the sort of macro mental health aspect, like the grieving and all of that. That's incredibly important. If we start talking about the logistics, the practical side of vision loss and how to navigate it, everything connects to mental health, everything.
Dave Leach: Mm.
Matthew Reeves: So that is the sort of, that I want this podcast to, to latch onto. I want to have episodes and we will have episodes about the practical stuff, the education, the learning about, you know, career stuff or technology or anything, anything that's useful. But connects to the emotional energy that it requires. So that's kind of how I want, that's the angle I want this podcast to take in terms of how it's helping. Uh, so I hope that, I [01:01:00] hope that answers that clearly.
Dave Leach: No, I, I, I, I think it goes back to something that's come up in the conversation a few times. It's, it's, it's going at this, this situation from two different directions, um, and how valuable that is. Because if you're just coming at it from one angle, you're missing a completely different part of the experience.
Like I, I, I find I can empathize more with the mental health side of it than the disability side of it. Um, and so, you know, just using that an as an example, even in the way I'm thinking about the podcast, I'm only thinking about it from one side.
Matthew Reeves: And there's countless, um, logistical and practical challenges that clients are, they're overwhelmed and stressed 'cause they don't know how to solve those things either. Um, so to
Dave Leach: Yeah. Damn.
Matthew Reeves: sit there [01:02:00] and spend hour upon hour, upon hour talking about their emotions, I'm not saying that's not useful.—it absolutely is useful, but isolation with if we don't start helping in some of the other areas as well, they don't move forward. No one can. If you're not getting any resources and you're just
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: and you don't know where to turn, we've, we've gotta, it's gotta be both. It has to be both. Neither one, neither one by itself is enough.
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
Dave Leach: funny that you use the metaphor of being out in the middle of the ocean in a moment ago, because I have used the metaphor of treading water in the past
Matthew Reeves: Mm-hmm.
Dave Leach: that when I'm going through more difficult times, it can feel like I'm treading water, which is good. My head's above water. That's a good thing.
But you're also spending all this energy to stay footed, and it's tiring and it's draining. So
Matthew Reeves: And it's not
Dave Leach: that's just right. Yeah. Yeah. So that's definitely something I can empathize with.
Matthew Reeves: [01:03:00] Yeah. So helping people just even notice that, you know, over there is the beach. Like you
Dave Leach: Hmm.
Matthew Reeves: you know, just, just having the hope that there's people walking around over there, and that's, that world is, is available to you. You can get there. It does exist. that is so, I mean, it's, that is a thousand times better than not having a view of the beach,
Dave Leach: It's about being stuck.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah, exactly.
Dave Leach: so much sense.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
Dave Leach: Who are you hoping listens to the podcast? Mm-hmm.
Matthew Reeves: Mostly I think, um, people who are diagnosed, whether it's newly diagnosed or they've been at this for a while, um, if, if you're newly diagnosed, I want you to feel like there's someplace you can turn to on a regular basis to get something you didn't have before, right? If you've [01:04:00] been doing this for a long time and you've moved—to use therapy terms—you've moved, you know, you're no longer in survival mode, you're in thriving mode. then, you know, having a community of people you can thrive with together and perhaps even contribute, come be a guest, right? How did you get there? Um, so that, that sense of connectedness. And then I also think, you know, this conversation I think really shines a light on the value of friends and family and loved ones listening and just, just showing up to, to care enough to try to understand it.
Because I think when, you've got a loved one that's dealing with this fresh, they are likely extraordinarily depleted. And it takes a lot of work to explain what they're dealing with to anyone. They may not have it. They may simply not have it. And that depletion often comes out as. [01:05:00] it often comes out as anger. often comes out in, well, it comes out in a lot of different ways. It can come out in any, any way they need for it to come out. It's, it's almost always fear because they’ve got something to really be afraid of. It's very real. Um, so for loved ones to show up and take the energy to say, I, I want to learn, I want to hear,
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: to be open.
I think they're, that's, that's an audience that I really care about as well.
Dave Leach: That's awesome. And you mentioned community there, and that was something I was thinking earlier when we were talking about how it's easier now to find community. Um, and I don't often think of podcasts as an aspect of that, but I think that's who I like. Even just as simple as anytime you run into someone who also listens to a podcast that you love, there's just that moment of connection there.
So [01:06:00] Much less listening to something that is, is so important to you, important to the way you navigate the role on a day on day basis. Being able to connect with someone else that way. Um, I can see that being really profound.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah. And I'm hoping, uh, as time goes on to, to have some mechanisms for community to, to interact, interactive community to be part of this.
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: Whether that's launched at the time of this publication, uh, is, remains to be seen. But I do have some ideas on that. And I think the podcast is a particularly appropriate format for this topic because it's fundamentally audio. so it, uh, it's, you know, there's a lot of online groups, but online groups are more often than not text-based.
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: so, and that, even if you have the tools to deal with that, and you've been trained in the accessibility software, even, even if that is not the biggest barrier, still more work than it is for [01:07:00] the rest of the world to deal with text-based communications.
So having something
Dave Leach: Yeah,
Matthew Reeves: audible, uh, just, it seems like a good fit to me.
Dave Leach: yeah,
Matthew Reeves: Yeah,
Dave Leach: I hope it's something a lot of people find and find useful and find comforting.
Matthew Reeves: Me too. Me
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: you.
Dave Leach: Um, we maybe danced around this a little bit, but you've mentioned other, uh, professionals that you know of in your network who you'd enjoy having on the show. What are some other ideas you have? What's coming for someone who is, is listening to this now and, and onboard?
Let's, let's, what, what's coming down the way? What are you hoping for?
Matthew Reeves: Yeah. Um. I've got ideas about people who are experts in certain areas. Um,
Dave Leach: Mm-hmm.
Matthew Reeves: are difficult to learn or difficult to navigate, um, so that they can, uh, talk to, speak to those challenges and hopefully give some [01:08:00] useful information, uh, on how to navigate those challenges. Um, I also really want voices from folks that have, uh, figured out how to shift from surviving to thriving. Um, it's that installation of hope. If, if somebody questions whether they can do that, I think there's a lot of value in hearing the voices of other people who have done it. Um, so, so I think hearing from other people who have been affected by vision loss, uh, is really important. Um, and then if, if I'm fortunate enough to be able to recruit some, uh, some of the folks that are creating new solutions, um, whether that's technology or medical research or, um, if, gosh, the sky's the limit. I'm not really entirely sure what that might look like. But, uh, if, if there are folks that are, if true innovators in their [01:09:00] field, um, and, and just creating something new to solve a problem, uh, I, I would love to hear from them and, and learn what drives them.
I don't, I don't know that this is gonna ever become, uh, the, forum for deep dive into highly technical things, but, you know, for people who are spending their careers, their entire lives trying a relatively small population, I think that's an interesting voice and I'd love to hear from them.
Dave Leach: Yeah. Yeah. And, and I hope it ends up being a really good opportunity for them to like, engage more with that
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
Dave Leach: community. Yeah. And, and have a little bit more of that connection to the people that they're helping. I know as, as, as a programmer, very often I'm quite separated from the people who use the software, the websites that I work on.
And I've often wanted there to be a closer connection the few times that I've had it and been able to [01:10:00] see how things that I've created have helped other people grow their business. You know, make, make their day-to-day work even so much easier. I know how satisfying that is. And so, yeah, that would be a really cool thing for, for people to get from that.
Matthew Reeves: yeah. I agree.
Dave Leach: Well, I hope it's off, I hope we're kicking it off, you know, a, a really good start here and I a thought that I've had, and you can tell me if you want to answer this or not, or if you have a good answer for it. Um, I was thinking about this being the first episode and hopefully this is something that, you know, ends up being lots of what you were hoping it would be.
Um, it has some good life and I can imagine, you know, a hundred episodes down the way somebody discovering the podcast for the first time. And maybe going all the way back to episode one, to learn a little bit more about [01:11:00] you or for the completionist to start from the beginning. Is there something that you would like to say to the person who's listening to us now when episode 100 is also available?
What would you hope that person might get from this? Or what would what, what comes to mind when you think about that person?
Matthew Reeves: Wow. What a great question. Um. Thanks for finding episode one, first of all, that that's not always easy.
Dave Leach: For sure.
Matthew Reeves: that's, uh, if somebody is digging that far back into the archive, that tells me that they really not only, uh, are, are thirsty for some help, but they're also like, they're taking a bite out of it. They're taking it into their own hands. Uh, and
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: really, I'm, if I hear that story, that I will be so proud [01:12:00] to, uh, of them and of this podcast and the people who, uh, are gonna make it possible, not me,
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: I mean, this is not gonna be me talking into a mic for an hour every, every episode. This is gonna be a community of people. Um, and, and all of them will be contributing to that moment. Uh, so I would say thank you for, for digging in. Uh, and, enjoy the ride and enjoy a hundred episodes.
Dave Leach: Exactly. Hope it's helpful, hope it's entertaining, enlightening, informative, everything you hope a good podcast is.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah, and, and take what's helpful and leave what's not. You know,
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: that's
Dave Leach: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: You know, whatever, whatever works. Uh,
Dave Leach: Well, don't have to listen to every episode.
Matthew Reeves: have to, if you're not interested, it's not, there's no commitment.
Dave Leach: Well, here's hope and the best for it. It's been such a pleasure helping kick this off, and I [01:13:00] always enjoy our conversations. Like I said, every time we chat about something deeper, I end up learning something I didn't know.
Matthew Reeves: Well,
Dave Leach: So this has really been enjoyable.
Matthew Reeves: Thanks for asking great questions. I appreciate it, and thanks for helping launch, launch this, this machine, whatever it ends up looking like.
Dave Leach: It's my pleasure. Hoping the best for you.
Matthew Reeves: All right. Thanks again. Bye-bye.
Dave Leach: Mm-hmm.
Matthew Reeves: All right. Let me.
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OUTRO
Matthew Reeves: Thanks for joining us for this episode of Insight Out. You are the reason this podcast exists and we'd love to hear from you. You can leave us a voice message at speakpipe.com/insightoutpod. That's speakpipe.com/insightoutpod. There, you can share your thoughts about today's conversation, suggest a topic for a [01:14:00] future episode, or tell us about your experience living with vision loss. Again, that's speakpipe.com/insightoutpod.
Insight Out is produced by Integral Mental Health Services, my private practice in Atlanta, Georgia that offers psychotherapy for adults in Georgia and chronic illness and disability counseling nationwide. Visit us at integralmhs.com and you can visit insightoutpod.com to catch up on all the episodes. You can also find us on social media using the handle @insightoutpod. I hope you'll join me for the next episode of Insight Out. Subscribe now in your favorite podcast app to stay connected. Thanks again for listening.