013 Personal Perspectives on Vision Loss with JP Patterson
Joining us today is JP Patterson, a software developer with a fascinating career in aerospace testing and rocket science. Diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa at age 14, JP spent years using his "engineering mind" to solve all the logistical hurdles of vision loss while navigating the high-stakes world of desert racing and space technology. We dive into his recent, profound shift from solitary problem-solving to finding community and the "freedom" that comes with vulnerability. This conversation is a masterclass in how technical ingenuity can meet emotional introspection to build a truly independent life.
Swimming Toward the Big Island
In my work as a psychotherapist, I often encounter high achievers who have mastered the art of "logistical survival". These are individuals who, when faced with a diagnosis like Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), immediately activate their problem-solving minds to ensure their lives remain as "normal" as possible. My recent guest, JP Patterson, is the embodiment of this spirit. A software developer who "speed ran" his degree and works in aerospace testing, JP views the world through a lens of probability and engineering.
During our conversation, I found myself deeply resonating with his description of the "engineering mind". For JP, a failure isn't a personal indictment; it’s a data point. This mindset allowed him to navigate a career in a high-stakes field and even find ways to continue his passion for desert racing despite significant vision loss. But as we talked, we uncovered a truth that many in the low-vision community know all too well: you can be a world-class problem solver and still be "laughable at best" when it comes to the simple, human tasks of being a "blind guy".
JP spoke candidly about a "trap" he fell into—the belief that technical independence is the same as emotional well-being. He described himself as being on an island of his own making, perfectly capable of building the tools he needed to survive there, but completely isolated from the "Honolulu" of community just past the horizon. This metaphor is a powerful one for our audience. So many of us spend our energy faking eye contact or avoiding the "awkwardness" of a cane, convinced that our solitary island is the only way to maintain our dignity.
The most moving part of our interview was hearing about JP’s recent "root cause corrective analysis" of his own life. After recognizing a period of deep depression, he turned his analytical skills inward. He realized that the effort-to-fun ratio of his hyper-independence was no longer sustainable. In the last few weeks, JP has made the courageous decision to "start swimming". He’s started O&M training, sought out a blind therapist, and begun connecting with other visually impaired professionals—doubling the number of low-vision people he knows in a matter of days.
As a therapist, I want to emphasize JP's point about "freedom". He found that by being radically open about his vision with colleagues and strangers alike, he no longer had to carry the weight of "who knows and who doesn't". He stopped faking and started living. This shift from "faking it" to "training others" is where true independence lies.
JP’s journey reminds us that vision loss is not a death sentence, but it is a condition that requires us to build "villages". Whether you are a "punk rock kid" or a rocket scientist, the path to living well with low vision isn't just about the latest assistive technology—it's about the courage to leave your island and join the rest of us in the water.
If you are feeling isolated today, I hope you take JP’s message to heart: The big island is there. You just need to start swimming.
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How does a "rocket scientist adjacent" software developer navigate the world with Retinitis Pigmentosa? In this episode of Insight Out, host Matthew Reeves sits down with JP Patterson to explore the intersection of high-level engineering and the daily realities of low vision. JP shares his unique journey from being a 14-year-old racing dirt bikes in Baja to managing engineering teams in the aerospace industry, all while progressively losing his sight. He offers a refreshing, emotionally honest perspective on using an "engineering mindset" to view failures as mere data points rather than personal shortcomings.
The conversation moves beyond technical workarounds to the heart of the emotional journey. JP opens up about the "trap" of being hyper-independent and how he recently recognized a deep sense of depression that his engineering tools couldn't fix. Listeners will hear about JP's profound recent shift: his decision to finally seek Orientation and Mobility (O&M) training, start therapy, and "burn the boats" to leave his solitary island for the wider visually impaired community.
Whether you are a "tech nerd" or someone struggling with the exhaustion of "playing three-dimensional chess" every day, this episode provides a roadmap for turning inward to find peace. JP discusses his latest project, Gaming Vision, an application designed to make video games more accessible through computer vision, proving that our community's problem-solving skills are a marketable and vital asset. Join us for an inspiring look at how to stop faking it and start swimming toward a more connected, authentic life.
Topics Covered: Retinitis Pigmentosa diagnosis and progression, engineering mindset in disability adjustment, desert racing and Baja 1000, aerospace testing career, the "island" metaphor for isolation, parenting with vision loss, mental exhaustion of low vision, O&M training and therapy, Gaming Vision accessibility project, the value of community connection.
You can reach JP Patterson by email at jpdoesdev@gmail.com and you can visit his website at https://jpdoes.dev/.
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.
Please be sure to subscribe to catch every episode. And remember to share the show with others in the blind and low-vision community!
CONNECT WITH US
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©Integral Mental Health Services, LLC
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The following transcript is AI generated and likely contains errors.
[00:00:00]
COLD OPEN
Alex: This is placeholder for generic voiceover.
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
Alex: This is placeholder for generic voiceover.
Matthew Reeves: Welcome to, uh, inside Out. Thanks for joining us. Uh, and I'm, uh, you, you have rp as I understand it, red Knight is pigmentosa, uh, and you're a software developer. And you, I know you're working on an exciting project, uh, related to accessibility for gaming and that's, that's a pretty cool career path for somebody with Low Vision.
But you've also got a lot of other neat things to talk about, so I'm eager to get into it. Why don't you start by giving us a sense of who you are and what your story of Low Vision is.
JP Patterson: So first of all, thanks for having me. This is awesome. I really, really enjoy what you're doing here and I've been a big fan of, uh, of the podcast. Long time listener, first time caller for sure. Um, so my vision and my, uh, my journey with RP will say started about 14. I think a [00:02:00] lot of people kind of have a similar story with rps.
You go in for a doctor visit, maybe you think you need glasses, whatever's going on. Um, and they look at your eyes and, Hey, we think you have something called retinitis pigmentosa. Um, at 14, it's not real, right? You're, you're still invincible and just about to get that driver's license in a year or two and experience freedom.
So none of it's real and really hits. Um, that experience for me definitely happened. It was very, very eye-opening, seeing my mom's reaction when that happened. And I think that's one of the things as we go through this, that'll be a, a driving force I'll keep pointing back to is just seeing, seeing how she responded to it and her fear, and knowing that I had to figure out a way to live with this. Um, and, and try to show that this, this isn't a, a death sentence. As you know, some people in the community kind of it's this, this is not a terminal illness. Right? Um, so fast forward, I got to do the normal teenage things and drive. I got into cars, uh, very big into desert racing, riding dirt bikes. Uh, we raced going [00:03:00] down to Mexico, racing in the Baja 1000 and all that fun stuff.
Um, it didn't really, I wanna say, hit me hard until probably, uh, 10 or so years ago, maybe a little bit longer, um, where I definitely noticed the vision loss and it was coming and I was always quote the blind guy. And I always struggled with seeing certain things, but I could, I could do everything mostly normal, I'll say. Um, and the few
Matthew Reeves: Mm-hmm.
JP Patterson: like a little bit of a struggle, you know, I couldn't see in the dark. I, I don't have night vision. I can't see in shadows. Um, so I just kind of avoided those situations or carried flashlights with me, or, you know, I put really good off-road lights on my truck and I could still drive. and then somewhere around. I'll say about 10 years ago is probably about when I hit the legally blind Mark and got that 2200, uh, test that happened. Um,
Matthew Reeves: Right.
JP Patterson: obviously stopped driving somewhere probably right before that. Um, and that was when it, uh, it really stopped becoming a thing that was gonna happen and a thing that has happened.
[00:04:00] Uh, this is the current state of being. Um, so that's, that's a lot of the logistics I think, of the progression of the, the disease. For me, right now, I'm at about 2,400 in my better eye with all the other fun RP stuff. Reduced visual field, uh, no ni blindness not being able to see in shadows, um, and dark.
And, um, uh, I have a, a macular pucker as well, which kind makes things look like a fun house mirror when I look through certain things.
Matthew Reeves: that's a term I've never heard before that you, you've, you hit me with something new there. What, what is, IM macular pucker,
JP Patterson: way it was described to me when I first got, uh, told this was like, you, you have a layer of retinal cells and somewhere in there mine kind of looks like saran wrap, you know, in saran wrap when you like crinkle it, you can't ever really pull it straight again. There's a part
Matthew Reeves: right? Yeah.
JP Patterson: like, that wrinkle through it, so the, it, it gets this fun house mirror effect, which I definitely have like more predominantly one eye than the other. But, it's one of those things that if you,
Matthew Reeves: That's a, uh,
JP Patterson: what's different than normal, is normal situation.
Matthew Reeves: right, right. That's an, uh, a macular. Pucker is an adorable, cute name for an incredibly frustrating thing. [00:05:00] Saran Wrap is very annoying. Um, so you mentioned I wanted to return because you, you kind of bookmarked it. Um, your mother's reaction played a big role for you. Tell me more about that.
JP Patterson: Yeah. Um, I can, I can, this is one of those like core memories you have where like I could take you back to the building and tell you exactly where I was standing, where she was standing, where the person behind the counter was standing and you know, what the whole world looked like in that moment. Um. We got told it by the doctor and I go, yeah, okay, red, nice.
Posa, that's a thing. Yeah, my vision's not so great, whatever. and my mom was fine sitting in front of the doctor in the office, but then we got out to the lobby where we had to like sign paperwork like, I'll never forget that scene of her just breaking down and losing it. And like, even right now just thinking about, it's gonna make me super emotional. And it was like, oh
Matthew Reeves: I can hear.
JP Patterson: I gotta, gotta figure this out. I gotta figure this out. This, this can't be a thing that causes me to stop. Um, and like conflict this pain continuously on her, if that makes [00:06:00] sense. Right?
Matthew Reeves: So you felt that your, your finding solutions was a way to alleviate her pain.
JP Patterson: absolutely. Absolutely. If I can show her that I'm out doing my thing, living my life. Um. She's definitely in a much better mental state about it. I just talked to her yesterday. I mean, obviously Christmas was yesterday. Um, and going through the, some of the projects I've been working on, I can just, like, I hear how happy she is every time I talk about like, I'm doing this and I'm doing this and I'm doing that. Um, so I try to, you know, my mom's a, a huge part of motivation for that.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah. Did you, I'm curious, you were, you were 14 and that's, you know, you're figuring out how to be independent, how to be kind of go from being a child to being an adult. You're in that adolescent phase and, and then this hits like a, a ton of bricks. Um, and it's, or go ahead.
JP Patterson: I think it didn't, and that's like the weird part is, you know, when we were 17, we [00:07:00] were all invincible, right? It's nothing's real. Uh, it's all fine. I, I go out and do risky, risky stuff and go hit jumps on my dirt pike and none of it's ever gonna affect me. So that's the part where like, that didn't hit me as real, mom's reaction was real.
That was very real and in
Matthew Reeves: Right. So the what was real was somebody else's experience, not your own. Gotcha. How did, I mean, that's, that's an interesting place to be emotionally. How did you navigate that? How did you, uh, kind of, you, you felt an ownership of it, you know, that's just what happened. No, not right or wrong. Um, did you talk to her about it or was that the, the elephant in the room?
You don't talk about? Like how did, what was the relationship like as you were feeling that, that sense of ownership? I.
JP Patterson: it definitely wasn't the elephant in the room. You don't talk about my, my mom and I have a very, um, to put it nicely, a very blunt relationship. Um, most people who meet me and know me [00:08:00] for a while, then meet my mom and go, I see exactly where all every bit of you comes from. we're very, I don't wanna say clinical isn't the right word.
We're, we are very caring. I very, very much do care about those around me. Uh, but we're very like engineer, like in our approach to solving problems. A failure isn't a failure. Like it's not, I don't own failures, like I failed. To me, it's a data point on a graph of we failed in this situation, let's adapt Correct and do better, if that makes sense.
So that's like, in my mind, that's what it was, was like, okay. can't, these are failures I need to look out for. And like, again, I wanna stress, I was just talking to my friend about this the other day, um, and he kept trying to defend my honor and saying, oh no, you didn't fail. I'm like, no, no, you don't get it.
Failure in my head isn't failure. It's, it's a data point. It's a test that failed. There's a bug in the code. It's, it's okay, we just gotta find the bug so we can fix it or decide we're gonna live with the bug, however you wanna look at it. Um, and that's, I think, in that moment, even at that age, I was very much in that like technical problem solving mode of like, okay,
Matthew Reeves: Right.
JP Patterson: out how to do this along the way.
I'll figure out how [00:09:00] to do it. It's cool. We'll hit it with speed and we'll buff out the scratches later.
Matthew Reeves: So the, the failure. To, to use that word. And you're right, that that's problematic 'cause it can mean so many different things to different people. But for you, failure was awareness of a problem to be solved, not so much a, a personal failing. Um, how did, and then in your mind at that point, like what kind of awareness of a problem to be solved?
Did her tears represent? What was that a logistical, I need to make sure I can figure out how to live my life and have a career and, and that sort of thing? Or was it, I need to alleviate her suffering?
JP Patterson: at 14 it was
Matthew Reeves: I.
JP Patterson: awareness of I don't want my mom to feel pain. It's much more simple, right? As I've gotten older and wiser, I was young and dumb. So I can be old and wise at this point. Um, it, it's much more on the logistical side of it, and I can show through actions what I'm doing to make my life livable as well as help others and solve [00:10:00] problems and, and do all the things like everybody wants to make their mom proud, right?
Like there's no difference there. It's just, I think it's turned up to 11 for me a little bit sometimes.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah. Wow. So that kind of segues into what I think is the obvious next chapter is how did you go about solving that problem? How did you, how'd you respond?
JP Patterson: Again, I think, I think my brain, it's been warped from working for over a decade and a half, two decades now, working in engineering fields. Um, and especially in testing specifically, and, we'll, we'll get into that. I've worked for the last decade in aerospace, specifically space, um, testing. Um, and it's, I found my calling every once in a while.
People find their calling and love at first sight and I, I found it pretty hard and this is, this is my life from here on out type deal. Um, yeah, I think even early on young, I've always been a very, let's solve the technical problems. Um. One of the things I try to explain to people throughout my career and like [00:11:00] leading and building teams, being a manager of engineers and all that, is like people like to look at hard technical problems.
Like let's go to the moon. Okay? The cool thing about let's go to the moon is that as a technical problem, and technical problems have technical solutions, and my technical solution today will work tomorrow for this same problem, right? Given the same inputs, I can get you the same outputs Hard. can come at the
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
JP Patterson: tomorrow with the exact same thing we came at with them today, and today we were their best friend and tomorrow we completely insulted them. Um, so I, I tried to negotiate that as best I can, including myself, right? This, this year. I'm a different person than I was last year and how I, how I solve problems. So, um, I, or very early on, I think I recognized that and was able to solve technical problems really well and figure out the logistics of like, how do I get to work.
For instance, I was working, uh, for an engineering company for a long time where we made x-ray equipment for, uh, border stuff, like [00:12:00] scanning semi-truck with X-rays. Think that, um, and I lost my license because I went for a motorcycle test and failed the vision test. Uh, I was not expecting that. That kind of came outta nowhere. Um, I showed back up at work and have to explain like, Hey, I know we're traveling Texas every week. I'm out on the road somewhere, but I can't rent a car anymore and I can't drive anymore. But don't worry about it. This was a, this was a fluke. I'm gonna get it fixed. I'll get my license back. Um, fast forward, I figured out how to go and be a traveling tech without a rental car, without driving.
This is before Uber. I think maybe now it'd be a little bit easier. Um, but I, I figured out that I could work the system where I could always plan to get a hotel that was, had a shuttle to and from the airport. And at the time I was working Air Airport X-ray scanner. Right. Leads to all like technical problems I could solve, overcome, and continue living.
Matthew Reeves: That's, that was a big problem to solve.
JP Patterson: Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: Right? You that, that fundamental aspect of the job
JP Patterson: [00:13:00] a,
Matthew Reeves: came from Yeah.
JP Patterson: one.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah. So your, your engineering mind really served you well there, how you, you talked about how people are hard and you, you couched it in terms of how people are often unpredictable and they change dramatically from day to day.
And that's, as a therapist, I can attest to that. That's certainly true. It's true for all of us, myself included. How did you, I mean, a lot of what you, it sound like, sounds like you were. Addressing worthy non-people side of things. Um, what was going on? You know, you changed too. You're a person. So what was going on for you, um, that maybe your engineering mind was not the right tool to address?
Like how does that, does that question make sense?
JP Patterson: think it's gonna segue into a lot of the reason why I'm even here talking to you. Uh, to be blunt, um, think I fell into a trap for a very long time and that the answer to, to freedom was solving all these technical problems. And I thought I [00:14:00] was very independent 'cause I could solve all these technical problems.
And what I've, I realized over the years is I've, I'm not, I think from a visual person's perspective. I'm doing really well. I'm very independent. Everyone likes to say, look what all the things jps doing, right? He can figure out all these things. It's crazy. I think from a visually impaired community, if you followed me around in my life, I'm, I'm laughable at best, right?
Um, want to go to the moon, I can build you a test team that'll test that rocket, and we will get to the moon and we will accomplish that mission. I have absolutely no doubt in it. The question is whether or not you're willing to pay for it and you're willing to wait for it, right? Because it takes
Matthew Reeves: Right.
JP Patterson: and time. However, tell me, Hey, you need to go to the grocery store in order and buy a week's worth of groceries on your own. That is crippling anxiety. I have no idea how to do it. I struggle with every bit of that. Um, and that's like, that's the people side of it. That's hard that I'm trying to figure out, like I'm still here fighting that battle, trying to figure that out.
Matthew Reeves: What do you think it is about one problem [00:15:00] that is obviously an, an indicator of like these massive, huge challenges going to the moon, right? That, that felt, feels, felt and feels accomplishable and a challenge of going to the grocery store. Got your emotional system and gets your emotional system activated and, and, and really gets concerned.
What, what do you think the differences between those two challenges?
JP Patterson: A lot to unpack there. Uh, there's at least two years worth of therapy in that whole question right there. Um, you know, I don't, I don't know. It's something I am legitimately struggling with right now as we speak. This is a, a thing I'm trying to figure out, and I'll say that listening to your podcast and like specifically a couple of your previous guests, um, you know, Meredith brought it up talking about visually impaired people just eating popcorn for dinner every night. I fell into that trap I think two years ago. I really realized that problem specifically and was like, oh, I need to learn how to cook. I have, I think I'm independent. I think [00:16:00] I figured all these things out, but I don't know how to cook food for myself. I'm extremely codependent on my wife who's a phenomenal cook, right?
I fell into that trap because she's a phenomenal cook. Why would I ever cook? But that's not independence, that's not self-reliance, right? Um, so that's. There's a lot to do there, and I think I fall into the trap of solving all these big technical problems that I never took the time to solve or just learn how to be a blind guy, as I tell people.
Um, I left to tell a story, tell a story here. Back up. of the places I was working at that was just a, one of my favorite employers today. I worked there with them on and off for about 10 years. I left at one point. Uh, I was a technician and I because my vision got to the point that I was struggling to convince myself I could safely operate on the test floor and look out for others.
It wasn't ever a concern of like, I may get hurt, but. My buddy next to me may get hurt 'cause I [00:17:00] don't catch something. and I took two years off of work and luckily a family was able to kind of put me in that position to just go figure out how to be a blind guy. How, what do I do? How do I use a computer?
How do I do all this stuff? Now I've been a computer nerd since I was as long as I remember, eight, 10 years old and building computers, playing with Linux, windows, all that fun stuff. Um, but like I didn't know how to use a computer as a blind person. I had no idea how to use a screen magnifier or a narrator, uh, and all this stuff.
I had to go and like really sit down and try to figure out, uh, a life with less vision or without vision. Um, and that was eye-opening of how much was struggling and didn't realize I was struggling and needed to figure that out. But I again, fell into the trap. Uh, you're gonna, there's a theme here we're gonna keep repeating, um, of solving the technical problems that were like the big, the bigger picture problems without figuring out how to just like live life.
Matthew Reeves: How to be human.
JP Patterson: right? All these simple things I think we take for granted.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
JP Patterson: of what I, I tell a lot of people and they're like, what's it like [00:18:00] being blind? I'm like, man, the big stuff isn't what I worry about. The awkward social situations. That's, that's a struggle, And that I like breakdown of, um, I forget which one of your guests talks about like the mental exhaustion of trying to be always prepared as a blind person.
If go and meet someone in passing, Hey, my name's Matt, blah blah. Shake hands, move on with your life. No big deal. as I walk up to someone to meet 'em, I'm already thinking in my head, how can I get ahead of them to get my hand out first so I don't have the awkward, I don't know where your hand is.
'cause if I put my hand out first, you have to meet my hand for a handshake and so on and so forth, right? Like there's a million of these probability calculations that are going through my head just to say hello and that that can be exhausting. what I, I think a lot of
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
JP Patterson: on when I'm like, oh, let's go to the grocery store by myself and I'm gonna harp on that.
'cause that's like the easy thing that everyone understands, right? yeah. There's like, how do I use the point of sale system and a credit card machine at the grocery store?
Matthew Reeves: Yeah, Ty, I, the prevalence of [00:19:00] touchscreens these days is driving me crazy.
JP Patterson: and I've, uh, I've told people it's like if there was one crusade I could go onto my life and change one thing in the western world. Right now it would be the standardization of point of sale systems and requiring some sort of
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
JP Patterson: that they all work the same. So I know how to use the dang thing,
Matthew Reeves: Yeah. That's, that's, I, I, yeah, please go on that crusade. I'd appreciate it very much. But yeah, I'm glad you said what you did. I like to describe it as, um, that life with low vision is. Essentially a, a life where you are playing three dimensional chess nearly every moment of every day. And you're right, it is exhausting.
And I'm so glad you mentioned that. 'cause I think a lot of, I think it, it bears repeating and, and that's gonna be a theme throughout this podcast. And that's, I think it's important for, for everybody in this community to know that they are not alone in that. And that exhaustion they feel is, that's not weird.
That's a [00:20:00] normal reaction to the problem. You're, that we're all, you know, addressing. Uh, and, and it makes sense 'cause we are solving hundreds if not thousands of problems every day. Uh, that for most people, they're trivial. They're not even, they're less than trivial. They're not even noticed. Um, so yeah, that, I'm so glad you mentioned that.
Um. You've talked about the trap, you mentioned that was a theme, various traps. And so far those, well, the traps you've been able to solve have been those logistical things, the ones that your engineering mind is really well suited for. That's your strength. Um, what have you been doing to address the traps that are in the other category and, and the, the anxiety and, and anything else you've been feeling?
'cause that's, that's really the heart of, of what I do is, is trying to help people in that world. There are other people that do the, the logistical things, uh, that do do it better than I do. But I'm really interested in the emotional side.
JP Patterson: Um, I [00:21:00] think there's, in the last, I'll say six months especially, right? 'cause timing is everything. Whenever you go and try to make a sweeping, broad sweeping life changes, um. Six months ago, I realized something, something wasn't right. I didn't know what it was, but I knew something wasn't right and I need to figure it out.
And I was extremely depressed, almost outta nowhere. Um, and I think any one of us, any human being, not just visually impaired, has experienced depression, uh, on some level, right? We would experience sadness. We've experienced something of that level, and we understand what that's like and to not know exactly why, but to have those feelings and like, how do I battle those? Um, and this became a, a thing that was a trend every day at work. I was sitting there at work, very quiet by myself, just insanely depressed. I, I can't describe it any other way, just, and I, I didn't have any other to put to it. I couldn't explain why. I've, I've got a job right now that I just absolutely love.
It's the best job I've ever had. Um, you know, I [00:22:00] gotta create wife. I've got a, a daughter. I think from the outside in, everyone's looking at it like, holy crap, this dude's figuring it out. Uh, but I was just every day and I was like, okay, something's, something's gotta break here. Something's gotta give. I gotta break the cycle.
I gotta get outta this. I don't know what it is. Whatever it is, we gotta start somewhere. Um, and I started by really looking at what I'm doing in my life, whether it's hobbies, work, family life, whatever it is, can I change? What variables can I start changing in the test? if I get results out of it. Um, one of the things I, I did immediate immediately is I started altering how I responded to my daughter. I recognized that I was being short with her, and not, you know, necessarily like screaming and being verbally abusive or anything like that, but I was, I could have been a better dad. I definitely could have responded better in situations, in hindsight. Um, so I started making a concerted effort to do that and be more understanding of the fact that she's eight, she's not 18, she doesn't know everything, and we've gotta take time. They're learning just, [00:23:00] just like everyone. Um, and the, I'll say the dramatic change in her attitude was amazing. And it was absolutely life changing of like, oh, been messing this up for eight years.
I haven't been doing this. Right. I think I was a good dad, but I could have been a great dad. There was a bug in the code. we fixed that. And then you sit and look at that and be like, if for eight years, something that I, my daughter who I care about more than anything in the world, I was messing this up. What else am I doing wrong here? Okay, let's sit down. Let's start being in more introspective about this and figuring it out. I started looking at things in my life that were what is causing me stress and not enjoyment and not stress because stress needs to happen sometimes, right? You know, we, we work and get payoffs and all that fun stuff, uh, but what's giving me stress that I'm not getting a payoff from or someone else I care about iss not getting a pay off from.
And I started trying to recenter things in my life that were important to me. so one of the things we do desert racing. We go do the desert hole, dirt bikes and off road trucks [00:24:00] and all that fun stuff. and I grew up doing it and I love doing it, but I realized the stress of trying to prepare vehicles to go to the desert was like killing me because a simple oil change takes me three quarters of a day now to make sure it gets done right instead of a a 20 minute job. so just the thought of like, oh gosh, it's desert season. I gotta prep bikes was like crushing. It was like, okay, we're gonna take a break from this for a minute. we'll figure out a better logistical way to solve this, but we're gonna take a break. We're just gonna offload this right now to gimme some more bandwidth mentally. So we started doing that, and then what I started realizing is, what did I like about desert stuff? And it's the community of it. It's everyone going out with friends. We all get to hang out and we get to be together. Cool. So how do I make that more inclusive of not just me, but everyone? Well, we started again.
We're back to, you can see where my brain falls into these traps as I try to, like clinically explain everything. Um, long story short, I developed a, a system put together where we could live [00:25:00] stream our entire desert race, um, our entire desert race with all of our friends in our race car, and we could all talk together. Um, so this is really fun because it got a way for me to still participate, and not only me, but the entire team to participate in almost like an old school party line, phone call chat. But we're doing it live in a race car in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere with starlink going and we're streaming out video to YouTube and people on YouTube chat anywhere in the world or participating and talking back and forth. Um, it became this great thing, and I like totally reshifted my, my experience with the desert. Um, and I solved a technical problem that actually helped solve the mental problem there of reducing anxiety and stress. So then that put me in the state of, uh, I think being more open to like, I'm not addressing things correctly. Then
Matthew Reeves: Uh,
JP Patterson: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: I.
JP Patterson: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: The story of the parenting and the story of the desert raising, both, both of them required you to pause and say, [00:26:00] you know, maybe, maybe it's me and what do I value? Like it, both of them required you to look inward. Uh, and that's, that's when, when your path to that point had largely been navigating life by looking outward, like looking at the problems, looking at the challenges, looking at the test bed, right?
And saying how, right. You're looking at the, the world and this, this was a moment where you had to turn inward and say, I am the experiment
JP Patterson: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: and I, I am the thing that I need to modify. That must have been scary. Uh, or maybe not, I don't know. You tell me. What was that hard or did did that come easily for you?
JP Patterson: extremely difficult. I'm not gonna sit, it's easy for me to sit here now clinically. Explain it in hindsight, right. But, uh, your, your previous guys, Brian talked about a personal story of him walking home on the bus, uh, because they wouldn't let him take the, the [00:27:00] bike on the bus and him just having to walk home in tears and like, yeah. had many of those days. That's that whole story. He said,
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
JP Patterson: me in the chest so hard because I'm like, yeah, I've had day after day, I've had weeks of that, of just sitting in silence, breaking down in tears. 'cause I'm like, I can't figure out how to get past this. But then we do and, and we keep going on, right?
Like, that's, that's how we figure this out. Um, and uh, I, I think in the end it makes us better. It makes us better at introspection, um, like you said, a lot of this was, I can't go and control the world, but I can control me. I can change how I act, how I respond. Um, and there are certain things that I'm just, the effort to fund ratio isn't there for me anymore. A perfect example of this, I, I, I used to go, when I was younger, I, I would go shooting. I like target shooting. Um, and before I lost vision, any of this was shooting. It was fun. then ammo got really expensive. And I couldn't justify anymore. And in my head, the money to fund ratio wasn't there anymore. It had nothing to [00:28:00] do with vision.
It was just the money to fund ratio wasn't there. So I stopped doing it. And I look at a lot of things. I, I think nowadays that of like, is the effort to fund ratio there because gimme enough time and resources, I can figure out how to go do anything. Do I really want to involve my entire life and everyone around me so I can do this one task just to say, no, look, I can do it. That's, that's not healthy. Like, that's eventually just gonna be a battle. I don't wanna fight.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah, I have a friend that likes to say that certain tasks might be over the trouble line,
JP Patterson: No,
Matthew Reeves: and it's like, it's like, yeah, it's just not worth it, so I'm not gonna do it. So, but yeah, you've had to kind of reevaluate where your trouble line is in certain ways.
JP Patterson: to basically jump back in it and continue on there. I think those,
Matthew Reeves: Please.
JP Patterson: put me back into a mental state to be more hyper aware of like, okay. not tackling this correctly, not necessarily you need to solve all the technical problems. Like you're clearly not thinking about all these things correctly.
What else aren't you thinking about? and then I, I've often [00:29:00] said to people and argued with people, it's like one of the biggest challenges I see in the visually impaired community is the lack of discussion around mental health. I really, I really dislike that our community exists in social media circles where they're stratified just like every other social media platform out there. and every other community in social media platform. And we tend to see only people who are, you know, superman or suicidally depressed, because those are the voices that are gonna make it to the front page or onto your Facebook feed or whatever that is. Um, and that's not where the majority of people are, are, are living.
I think there's a very silent majority of people that are making it and living happy, fulfilled lives, and it's all good. And then I saw your, your podcast, honestly, and I started listening to it and I, full b listened to it straight through. and so many of the stories resonated with me and I went, this is, this is where I messed up.
Now I see it. Okay, now I see what's going on here. Um, and through stories of like, I, I could point to multiple of your guests, and the reason why I know 'em by [00:30:00] name is 'cause like they're very, uh, personally influential. Um, Dawn for instance, talks about walking with a cane and her friend saying, oh, people are looking at me and she's saying, let 'em, right? Um, I grew up going to punk
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
JP Patterson: shows, so to me, I'm still a punk rock kid. And I heard that was just like, hell yeah, that's punk rock. Let 'em don't care. Um, and then I turned around and went, wait, I'm messing this up. I see the problem here. So I turned around and contacted, uh, the local chapter, you know, center for the Blind got signed up for OM training.
So here, after the first of the year, I'll be going to OM training for the beginning, for the first time, and getting that because I was avoiding that and off putting that forever. And I should have had a cane a long time ago if we're honest, but I wasn't being introspective and trying to understand what's going on and unpacking all of that. Um, and I'm gonna go do that now. Right. And then listening to the rest of what you've said and other people podcast said, I turned around and went, okay, you've never gone to therapy. There's some stuff to unpack here. I went outta my way and I [00:31:00] found someone who not only specializes in visual para as a therapist that's local and specialize in visual impairment, but she's also blind. And that was, that was a crazy experience for me. Right. I think I was discussing with you, before three weeks ago, I talked to five visually impaired people in my life, my life. And the last three weeks I've doubled that and.
Matthew Reeves: How does the, I I, I'm not even sure how to ask this question, but the, the punk rocker, the punk rocker had an opinion about canes and mobility and training and all of that six months ago, and the punk rocker has an opinion about that now. And it sounds like there was a big shift. How does, how does the, how does that, that attitude of Let em Right, that sort of defiant, I'm gonna be who I want to be.
Sort of like, how does that part of you shift from, [00:32:00] I, I don't wanna deal with this and I'm not gonna deal with this to the courage of saying, I actually am gonna deal with this. Like, that's, that seems like a, just such a 180 flip.
JP Patterson: Yeah. Um, this is something I think especially in the last three weeks, I've. Really tried to sit down and understand and unpack myself. Um, and I don't, I don't have all the answers. I'm still figuring this out, but one of the things I keep coming back to, um, tell a story, to tell a story, I'm a very simple man, and I like to break down concepts into like one sentence or less, um, summaries, so that way I can at least understand them.
So I've got a lot of GPMs as my friends like to say, um, where I've just got like little sayings and stuff that just kind of, I, I like how they package things up and put 'em on a bow.
Matthew Reeves: Share 'em.
JP Patterson: I I try to not, not, not, uh, just assault people with them because it, it seems like I'm speaking in riddles half the time, but I, I realized. That I am, put myself on an island. And I [00:33:00] convinced myself that the island was fine because I was able to make all this technology and save and, uh, solve all the technical problems on the island. And every once in a while, a boat would come by and I'd scream at the boat, and the boat would scream back and I'd be like, yeah, there's other people and they're going to their island.
But there's, that's it. There's, you know, these three people out there. I didn't realize was just past the horizon. There was Honolulu, there was a huge island, and I wasn't swimming to that island. And that's the part that I think at the, the core of all of this, that's where I failed. That's the actual bug in the code.
And that's, that's the, to use my aerospace testing term, the RCCA root cause corrective analysis, uh, would be that I need to start swimming. And that's, that's what I've been doing the last three weeks. I've been swimming hard, man. I'm out in the Pacific right now screaming and yelling and there's people come to find out that are, are trying to pull me into that big island and I just needed to start swimming.
Matthew Reeves: And you're swimming in a direction. It's not. Aimlessly floundering. Like you, you've spotted, you spotted the horizon and you're saying, I want to go there.
JP Patterson: one of the [00:34:00] things mentally I did by putting myself on that island is you start putting yourself in these niche groups and thinking like, this group is so niche. There's three of us in the world. I'm never gonna be able to find these three people in the giant Pacific Ocean. Right? Um, how many visually impaired people are there in the world?
That's, that's a fairly small group of those visually impaired people. How many of 'em are Linux nerds? How many of 'em are video people like to play video games? Like we're stacking niches on top of niches at this point. I'm never gonna find those people. How many of 'em, how many visually impaired people are into racing in Baja?
Right? Like, there's probably not that many of us. Uh, but through contacting the, the local Center for the Blind, the very first conversation I had out of all of this was explaining to the, the very, very nice woman I spoke to, um, was like, this is my struggles. This is what I'm looking for. I need o and m training, but I also don't know what I don't know. So treat me like I'm a 14-year-old child again in high school, even though I'm almost 40 now. Um. And like, what's out there? I don't know what's out there. And are the things I'm into and this is a struggle. Like I'm a niche of a [00:35:00] niche and I'm never gonna be able to like, find any connection in this group. And she immediately heart corrects me and is like, no. What are you talking about? I, I've got a 26-year-old guy I, I talk to weekly almost, who's a video game developer and is all about making accessible video games. And I'm like, wait, not only do these people exist, they're in my backyard. That's the Honolulu just passed the horizon that I needed to start swimming to.
Matthew Reeves: Wow. And you're, and you're still there. This is still new. We're in, we're in the, this is fresh and this is three weeks old as we, as we talk. So that's a unique opportunity for me to like, ask you and, and I hope this isn't, I hope this is okay to ask in a public setting that like, how you doing? Like that's, it is a fresh thing.
JP Patterson: a lot of emotions right now. Um, but all of it's good. All of it. Like, there's a lot that I look at and I'm like, you, you could have had this the whole time. But you were blind to it. only are you physically blind, you were mentally blind here. Like you could have had this whole time you knew that Center for the Blind was here.
In fact, you've [00:36:00] talked to him before. You just never did anything with it. Like you, you know, you know many people that go to therapy, you just didn't do it. And that this was me. Right? This isn't anything I could blame on anyone else. These are all things that I did or didn't do. so like that part's a little frustrating, a little bit.
Just, and I think it's, uh, it's frustrating just because of how good the experience has been. If I went through and did all this and there was like, you know, this other guy who's a video game developer doesn't exist, um, and none of these, there is no island on the other end of it, like, it'd almost be less frustrating 'cause it'd be like, yeah, no, this is kind of what I expect is status quo.
It's fine. Uh, but like the fact that it's all been there, been here the whole time crazy to me. And I, I'm probably going a little ham on it now, just trying to contact anyone and everyone and, uh, I'm sure we'll get into like the, the other projects I'm working on, but. I, I, I told you I've spoken to less than five people who are visually impaired three weeks ago, and since then I've doubled that.
My goal by the end of the year is to put a zero on the end of that number. Right? Like we're, we are [00:37:00] hard swimming off that island. We are burning the boats once we get to the big island type deal.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah. So you're gonna do a logarithmic
JP Patterson: Yep.
Matthew Reeves: and, yeah. Yeah. Um, you know what, as you described that, that sense of, wow, I could have done this a long time ago and I didn't. Um, two things crossed my mind. One is that's, that's grief. That's, uh, the grief of loss of potential. Um, and grief is not dangerous, and grief is not unhealthy.
Grief is normal. We've, we're humans. We grieve like, and we're good at grieving. Um, so I think a lot of people, um, I, I say this. To the audience broadly, not to you specifically. I say it to everybody that, you know, grief is painful. Grief is unpleasant, but it's not dangerous and we don't have to avoid it. It in fact, avoiding it is the one time when grief actually becomes dangerous.
So, um, the emotions you're [00:38:00] experiencing, I just, I wanna commend you for facing them and touching them and, and being with them. Uh, I think that's really healthy. Um, and I forgot the other thing I was gonna say.
JP Patterson: That's
Matthew Reeves: So,
JP Patterson: No, but that's, I mean, that's beautifully,
Matthew Reeves: uh,
JP Patterson: right? I think, um, like I said, the, the good side of it, frustrated with it because how good my experience has been. Um, and I'm, I'm very grateful for that.
Matthew Reeves: yeah, yeah, I'm too. What's, how has that impacted, I mean, again, this is fresh, this is new. Any, any, uh, surprises or, um, surprising ways that this shift has. Affected you in terms of your depressive symptoms or your relationships or anything like that that we, that we should put a pin in?
JP Patterson: absolutely. I think, um, being alone on the island is depressing. I found out getting off the island not so depressing. Even if all the people I'm trying to contact don't get back to me, I get it. People have lives. all that fun stuff, it's incredibly lightening [00:39:00] now. feels lighter. The depression's gone. and knowing like there's a path, like I know the route to get to that island now. I just need now need to go execute. Just go execute. And I may be oversimplifying it. And a lot of people are like, it's harder than that. And it is, and I get it. Again, I've had lots of those long walk homes from the bus in tears, just like Brian said, right?
I've had lots of those days. mine are typically at 4:00 AM sitting in my office by myself. But, you know, it's, it's same, same. It's the, the same, same exact story. but now that there's a route and I can go execute and I can, I've seen the payoff given the previous two things I talked about with my daughter and the racing stuff. Um, and I see that those were in comparison, minor changes and these major changes I'm making and how good the experience has been. Like, that's cool. Do we need to run a marathon? Then we'll run a marathon.
Matthew Reeves: Find a problem, solve a problem. Yeah. Well, it takes a lot of courage to do that. Uh, so good for you. Um, you had, you talked, you [00:40:00] mentioned some of the projects you're doing. I find that, I find them interesting, kind. I'm a bit of a technical nerd myself. Um, what, tell me about how you've taken your career and your passions and your engineering mind and all those strengths.
And, uh, I know because we talked previously, uh, that you're applying some of those to your identity as a, as a visually impaired person and a community that you're, you're striving to be a greater part of. Tell me about that. In an intersection.
JP Patterson: So I worked, um, I've worked for quite a bit of time in the aerospace testing world. So, uh, companies build spaceships. We like to say we broke spaceships to get data. and not many people get to say that, right? Um,
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
JP Patterson: loved it. I loved it. There's something that, back to the punk rock thing, there's something very punk rock about.
Like, Hey, we're gonna go break this thing and it's okay and we're gonna get data out of it, but we're gonna go rip this thing's head off, right? Like, we're gonna go break some structure today. And I just. loved it. I worked in a [00:41:00] startup doing this for 10 years. I started as a technician. Um, I then became the manager of the engineering department. uh, that was a fun, a whole other fun sidetracked story where I did that without an engineering degree. 'cause I was just, I, I, I crushed it. I'm really, really good at planning. I'm really good at building teams. That is one of my strengths. I think that is directly from being visually impaired and that we all naturally build villages because of how we have to live our lives. Uh, so I'm really dang good at building villages. Um, and I, I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. But I also got told a bunch that, Hey, you need to have a degree in order to do this type of stuff. Um, so I, I left of two years ago and I've spent a year and I speed ran a college degree. 'cause I just do not have the patience to sit in a classroom for four years. And I finished up a, did a bachelor's in a year so I could get my computer science bachelor's in, uh, computer science. I had, you know, I kind of cheated. I've been programming. Most of my life as, as just a general computer nerd. So most of the technical side of it, I was able to just breeze through. and now I work, uh, [00:42:00] for, actually I work for the Air Force via a contracting house like most people do.
Um. Testing rockets. And that's, I, I like to tell people I'm rocket scientist adjacent. Um, not quite the rocket scientist, but you know, I write software that helps, helps test rockets, and I absolutely love every bit of it. There's something about it that just hits every nerd nerve in my brain. Um, and with that, I've really, now that I'm not so much in startup culture, but in more like, let's say regular job kind of pace, I've got bandwidth to do other stuff.
And one of the projects I'm working on right now that I'm, I'm very proud of, uh, especially in the last couple weeks and how much progress we've made on it, is, uh, what I'm calling gaming vision. And it's a, a application that's Windows based, that uses computer vision model to basically bring a screen reader into video games that don't have. That accessibility, those accessibility features. And what I'm really focusing on with the project is, uh, straying away from the hyper focusing on one game, which I'd done previously. I had made these models that [00:43:00] were just like assistive tools for me to play like a single game. we're really working on building out the like infrastructure to do it more at scale and so people can do it themselves. And I'm not gonna lie to everyone. It's tedious work, right? I've gotta annotate hundreds of images for a single game to just kind of work. but it is really cool. Last night, uh, playing. There's, there's a new video game out that's very popular right now called ARC Raiders. Um, and it's got some accessibility options a lot of games do nowadays, and there's specifically some accessibility options with like cross hairs that make it so I can actually see a cross hair for the first time in a game in 10 years, which is awesome. Um, and the sound design in the game is phenomenal and it has this great spatial 3D sound. So it's like for a blind person, like we're so used to being tuned into sound that it's, it's cre it's, it's almost overwhelming being in a game and having that, 'cause I haven't had that in a game before. but I can't read the menu systems.
I'm like, man, if I could just read the menu system of this thing, I could, I could really move. Um, and now we've got that. We we're released. You can go up on, on my GitHub and pull, pull the release. [00:44:00] It's, I tried to make it as accessible as possible. You download a zip folder, you un extract it, and you double click EXE, click start. That's it. And it goes, it's pre-configured, the model's done. You just click start, um, and, and start playing with it. And then, um, future state. I, I think I'm about 50% there, really making it so anyone can take it and go build their own models for their own games and hopefully share them backwards into the
Matthew Reeves: Wow.
JP Patterson: So we start developing more of a repository of all these models,
Matthew Reeves: That's great.
JP Patterson: it, make it work. And it's been, it's been super fun.
Matthew Reeves: I will put your, uh, your website in the show notes. So if people want to access it, I'm assuming that website will be a, a way to get there. Is that accurate? Okay, great.
JP Patterson: Super simple website. You go there. I've made the gi the website as simple as possible. So it all works with all the screen readers, um, has all the alt texts in the images that you need to do and to take you right to GitHub and how to do all these things.
Matthew Reeves: That's wonderful. Can I rewind for a second? 'cause you mentioned, [00:45:00] um, how your vision impairment throughout your career has prompted or made you really good at building teams. I wanna unpack that a little bit more. What, tell me more about that part of it.
JP Patterson: Yeah. Um. I'm gonna, I'm gonna relate this back to racing in Baja. 'cause I think this is where I started to become much more self-aware of it. We, we took a team and we were gonna go race down in Baja for the Baja 1001st time as a team, like, as this group of people was gonna go do it. I hadn't been to Mexico I was like 10.
I know I was a child the last time I was in Mexico and we were gonna take a group of, I think we had 12 people, total writers and chase support team to Mexico. And I think there were like three of us that had ever been there ever before. And I became hyper paranoid that people were going to not be safe, either get hurt, whether that's via racing, via some sort of criminal thing, or somebody was gonna get stupid in a bar to end [00:46:00] up in a prison or in a hospital or whatever.
It's Mexico there, there's still a lot of Mexico. It's the wild West, especially once you get South Enc Sonata and you get down in what they, uh, we in the community called endeavor nevers. 'cause you never have cell phone service, you never see people, you never have gas. All this fun stuff, right? and I started planning for that race for our group of people. Well then I realized when I started making all my plans, of the things I was doing that no one else was thinking about. And that was like the, oh, oh, this isn't a normal thought process. This is a me thing. Not other people think, why is this? And like, oh, 'cause this is how you live your life every day.
It's just here in Mexico, you're verbalizing it and making a formal plan and putting it down in a document for everyone. Like you're sharing your inner monologue with everyone so that everyone's prepared. Um, and that was kind of the start of like, oh, okay, this is a thing. This is a marketable skill outside of. down to Mexico with your friends. and there's that whole, I try to explain to people, like when I think of situations, I don't think of a linear line of first this then that, then that it's a spiderweb of probability, right? Like I start from a single thing and then [00:47:00] splinters out. And the spiderweb sometimes can jump paths back and forth, but it's all like probability calculations. And I think modern AI tech has actually explained this even better when they start talking about like, AI works basically off a lot of probability calculations. And it's just like, what is the most probable next word that people would say is correct? Um, and that's kind of like how every situation just plays out in my head. And I assume a lot of visually impaired people kind of plan that way of just like. Have a first, second, third, fourth order cut set of situations that could happen. Um, and because that I was able to take that and take it into the aerospace testing world because we, by nature operate like a rapid prototype lab.
Everything that can go wrong will go wrong. There is no time to formalize designs and try out four designs and pick the one that builds the no. We are building this once we were building it, today we're doing the test and then the whole thing's done and get thrown away. We do not have time for like super iterative design process. Um, and so because of that, I, I've just, I think I've been very good at building villages and preparing [00:48:00] people to make those kind of plans and prepare for the worst and how to be flexible and adjust and go forth and conquer.
Matthew Reeves: That really resonates with me because you're taking what we talked about before, whether you call it three dimensional chess or you call it going to get a gallon of milk, right? It's solving all those problems becomes an intuitive process after you've done it for a while. Um, and. It, it becomes kind of part of, part of one's nature.
Um, and so it gives you the, the capacity to see a landscape of, of challenges and probabilities and solutions almost in an instant, um, that, that comes with navigating vision impairment. Uh, and, and I love how you're talking about that as a marketable skill, that that is a skill that comes with vision impairment, that people without vision impairment simply don't have.
Um, they might have other [00:49:00] types of problem solving skills, but this is a very particular flavor. Of problem solving that I, that I've noticed in my own life. And years ago as you described it, I'm like, oh, I resonate with that a lot. 'cause in my, in my former career doing stage production, it was the same thing.
It's like, what, what are the chances that that thing's gonna break? And then how do we respond? There's an audience. We gotta, we like, we, we have to be thinking and proactively about everything that might happen. Um, and that's not something that is super common out there in the world that, that, that kind of lens or mindset.
So I think it's really cool to hear that.
JP Patterson: those productions right? I like, I already think about a stage production. I've never worked stage production. I did the livestream a little bit, so maybe there's lots of overlap in those Venn diagrams, but Right. If I look at a stage production, I'm immediately going, okay, what are the top three things are most probable to fail?
Do we have backups for those? Do those backups need backups? Right? Like, my brain instantly spiderwebs
Matthew Reeves: Mm-hmm.
JP Patterson: those iterations, and I, I would be venture to guess if you took a hundred of us visually impaired people and set us in a room, we'd all have similar experiences. Just like if you grabbed a hundred visually [00:50:00] impaired people and asked them to rate how good their memory is, I bet you the majority of us say it's pretty good.
Matthew Reeves: Pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. So that I feel like is a, is an incredible message to folks who are recently diagnosed. Uh, and they're listening, perhaps listening to this and thinking like, this is maybe even a death sentence for my career. Or maybe that I can't do the things that I wanted to do. Uh, you've really opened the door, or, or put a light on the idea that, you know, the, the skills that come with this, the skills that we build naturally to survive with, with a condition like this, uh, are real asset that the market can reward.
Um, it, it doesn't, it doesn't always, it's not always fair. It's not always just, um, but there is room for being rewarded in the marketplace for, for that kind of skill. That's really exciting.
JP Patterson: brain's
Matthew Reeves: Um.
JP Patterson: adapt is phenomenal. If you actually like really sit back and see how the human brain can adapt and [00:51:00] normalize situations, it is really insane If you spend some time and sit down and think about it.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, you know, you work in a field that is very high pressure, very high risk, very high dollar. Right. Um, how do your teammates, how do your colleagues respond to your vision loss, and how do you relate to them and explain it to them?
JP Patterson: this is an interesting one. I've heard, um, several, multiple people's kind of train of thoughts on how to approach being blind or visually impaired. Everything from like, well, you don't need to tell your employer at all until the day you start, um, to being like open with them from the get-go. And I'll say, I, I don't have enough answers to say what's the right answer, but I will say what my answer is. And my answer is, I do not wanna start a relationship off from a point of what feels like And I'm going to start from the get-go and tell you I'm blind. I'm gonna tell you exactly how I'm blind. And if you have a problem with that [00:52:00] that we don't wanna move forward, then I'm gonna be honest with you, I didn't wanna work for you. From the get go. That's already, that's set me up for failure. that sucks 'cause that may cut us off from employment opportunities. In my personal experience, it has not one time. In fact, I think it's actually been an asset when I'm very honest and can explain exactly what it is and what I need. Um, I think I definitely have stuck out in interviews. Uh, I don't think I've ever sat down in person for an interview and not gotten a job offer from it. So as long as I can get to that sitting across the table from you, I'm getting that job, I'm gonna solve that technical problem. And again, that engineering mindset, I chose my career field, especially for this, uh, it, it lends to that. And then so you get, you get kind of from the get go, you lay that groundwork. And then I'm obviously, I'm here doing a podcast interview. I have no problem being open about my visual impairment I will absolutely tell everyone, um. of also my experience as a manager, I understand the difficulty of navigating HR and what you can and cannot say and all that fun stuff. So I'm normally [00:53:00] quick to jump in front of the manager and alleviate them the liability of saying something wrong and just explain to the team without them, like, don't worry about it.
I got this You can't get in trouble for what I say about me type deal. Um, and I'll, I'll,
Matthew Reeves: Right, right.
JP Patterson: I'll, I'll outwardly just explain it to all to people. And of course people are standoffish at first 'cause they don't know how to respond. It's not 'cause they don't approve, it's not 'cause they don't like you.
It's just they don't know how to respond. Um, and I, I'm gonna tell a little GPM side story here that I learned from a guy I worked with that I, I respected deeply and I've been able to apply this to my personal life. And this was the guy who'd been in the Navy for 20 years and he'd sailed around the world twice and seen it three times, as you like to say. And he used to tell me when we were traveling internationally, he's like, you know, gonna go to these places that these people. We'll only ever see maybe 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Americans in their life their entire perspective of what an American is, is gonna be based on this one small interaction I have with them at a restaurant. my job [00:54:00] to not screw this up I'm a representative of all of us and I've really taken that to heart with my visual impairment. I think maybe some people say that's heavy to put on a person, but I, I love it. I, if there's gonna be a person to do that, I'll be that person. I'll be that guy every single time. I, I like. Being that representative of, most of the time, most people who meet me, I'm the only blind person, visually impaired person they ever meet. And I will sit down for hours with you and tell you exactly how I do everything and how everything works and what it's like. And we will go down some rabbit holes.
And I find, um, in my professional career, it's been great. I've, I've made absolutely great relationships. Everyone's extremely supportive of it. And when I do need assistance with anything, I, I face zero friction. Um, in fact, most of the time I gotta tell people to slow their role because I don't need, you know, these 60 different assistive devices and, you know, they're just trying to throw money and tech at me.
And I'm like, no, no, no. I, I got it. I got it. Calm down.
Matthew Reeves: Right. Yeah. You, I've, I've googled this before. I don't need you to do that for me. [00:55:00] Have you always had that approach to disclosure of your vision? Impairment disclosure is a topic that's really, it's a big deal for a lot of people and it's a big journey over a course of decades. Um, this certainly has been for me and I know a lot of other people.
That's true for, have you always been at that place of openness or has that, uh, changed over time?
JP Patterson: I think, I think I've always been there, honestly. Um, I think that one is the old school punk rock in me that's like, oh, you don't like it, that, you know, sucks to suck. I'm moving on type deal. Um, yeah, I've never had a problem with it. That's, you know, there's lots of things that I think emotionally have been very touchy with me that probably have nothing to do with my visual impairment or just tangentially related. so yeah, I, I don't know. I've never had that struggle. I know a lot of people do, and that's why I wanna be careful to say, like, I've heard a lot of answers. I don't know the answer, but this is my answer. 'cause I, I think there's multiple ways to approach this. and I, I get it.
Matthew Reeves: Definitely.
JP Patterson: for me.[00:56:00]
Matthew Reeves: Yeah, that's, uh, I, I, I, I appreciate hearing that because it does illustrate how everybody's journey is different, um, and there's not a right or a wrong way, and you find what works for you. Um, and, and there are pros and cons to every way. Approaching it. Um, so, uh, yeah, you find what you're comfortable with, uh, and for you that has, that, that came early and has been relatively stable.
Uh, but that's not always the case. Uh, so that's cool that you've found that. And, and I think it's, it's neat to hear about, and this is a, a running theme in this podcast, um, for sure. But you talk about that openness and saying, you know, I'm going to be willing to reveal myself to you, whether you're my wife or best friend or colleague, or a stranger.
Um, you're, you're, you're finding a, it sounds like a great deal of gratitude, g Gradi, uh, not gratitude. Maybe it is gratitude, uh, [00:57:00] but satisfaction, um, in, in making yourself available for other people. Uh, and, and it sounds like that that's rewarding for you.
JP Patterson: I think a lot of it, I view it as educating, uh, one of my friends. Uh, I have this bad social reaction where if you are something different I don't know about, I will ask you 10,000 questions. 'cause I need to understand every little technical detail of whatever subgroup you fall in. Um, and it may sometimes not be socially acceptable to ask these questions, but by, you know, whatever brain you want to call it, ask these questions anyways because I just, I have to know. Um, and like I have a friend who's Jewish and there was lots of things about Judaism that I didn't know and I was asking him all these questions and he was laughing. He was like, you know, it's funny 'cause sometimes I feel like a museum tour guide that has a button in front of me that says press here for more information about Judaism.
And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. And he is like, no, no, it's fine. Um, and I feel that way about Visual P except for I'm out front with a sign that says, please come press the button.
Matthew Reeves: What do you get out of it when people press the [00:58:00] button and ask you questions and, and yeah. What, what is your reward for that?
JP Patterson: free. Honestly, freedom. I, I get a light life where I don't have to hide or worry about my visual impairment. Everyone around me knows it. Uh, as a lot of my friends say I like to train people. I'm very good at training people. Um, but if, yeah, really it's, it's freedom. I'm not gonna live a life where I have to sit here and say, who knows, who doesn't know.
Now it's like funny when I know someone for years and they have no idea. 'cause I like a lot of visually impaired people. I'm pretty good at faking it. I'm pretty good at maintaining eye contact, even though I can't see
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
JP Patterson: Um, I'm pretty good
Matthew Reeves: Great.
JP Patterson: without a cane, even though I should have one type deal.
Um, and like, that's fun, but that's more amusing to me. It's, it's more funny than it is my goal. Like it's definitely not my goal.
Matthew Reeves: I love that answer. That really that hit me, that to share yourself gives you freedom. Uh, that's, that's powerful. That's really powerful. Um, thank you for sharing that, that that really, that hit hard. [00:59:00] So before we wrap up, I just, I like to give every guest the chance to, uh, touch on anything we haven't, we haven't hit on, uh, or, or send a message to the listener that, uh, kind of, you want, you wanna make sure people hear.
Is there anything in that category right.
JP Patterson: if you'd let me, I, I got two messages here. Um, one for the audience and maybe one for you. And I've said this metaphor a couple times, but you're on an island right now, get off, find a way to swim, start swimming. The big islands just passed the horizon. You might need help finding directions.
The resources are out there. Google your local area, center for the Blind Foundation, fighting Blindness, these types of groups, it's out there. Please get off your island. Um, that being said, like, like I talked about, I'm trying to increase my communications in the community and learn more about my own community. if you, you need to go out there and find somebody, blow up my email inbox. It's on my website. I don't care. I'll [01:00:00] do what? Do what I can. It's a Gmail. I can blow it up if it gets outta hand. Um, but there's, there's a lot of us out here and I think there's a lot of us out here that actually do wanna be a part of the community.
We just didn't know. We don't know, and we don't know how to get in contact with each other. And maybe social media's a great way for some, but for me, I'm not a fan of social media. So it's, it's not it. So, however, however it works for you, find a way to get off your island. Um, the, the second mess.
Matthew Reeves: Great message.
JP Patterson: The second message is more for you and I think, um, it's important that you hear that how much your podcast is going to improve and touch people's lives. Even if you don't, you know, there's probably a hundred people sitting at home that have a similar experience to me listening to your podcast that'll never reach out to you and never come on your show. So when it gets hard to do this, that for me.
Matthew Reeves: That's incredibly kind. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, as you mentioned yesterday was Christmas, uh, as, as we record this, so it's the holidays. I, I will, uh, wish you a great rest of your day and a happy new year. [01:01:00] Um, and thank you so much for being here. Uh, I, it, it was a real treat to talk to you.
JP Patterson: you, Matt.
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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 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 that offers psychotherapy for adults in Georgia and disability adjustment and chronic illness counseling nationwide. [01:02:00] Visit us at integralmhs.com and you can visit insightoutpod.com to catch up on all the episodes and to find links for subscribing in all the major podcast apps. A video version of this podcast is available on YouTube. Search for the channel, using the handle @inSightOutPod. You can also find us on social media using that same handle. I hope you'll join us for the next episode of inSight Out. Subscribe now in your favorite podcast app to stay connected. Thanks again for listening.