Becoming my mother’s eyes

Abstract

Linking the person and the society, psychosocial studies is a discipline that can link psychoanalysis with research to study ways in which psychic experience and social life are fundamentally entangled with each other. Through this article I explore the parallel process of how I became the mother of my mother as my mother struggled to adjust to sight loss. I became blind to myself in order to be able to see her and for her. I will discuss how that process was enhanced, if not created, through social components that surrounded our specific situation. Starting from my natal Mexican context and the way my country understands disability from a charity model, I reflect on my journey to move internationally to find different ways to understand and work with blindness, at last arriving at the social model of disability. That journey led me to find my mentors, who, through a pedagogical process, provided me with the gaze I lacked from my mother, thus reformulating my identity to inform the person I am today.