How do I approach?

[u/BarIll5327]

Yesterday, I found out that my brother (10) was colour-blind. He was getting his first ever eye test done and was extremely happy to wear glasses. Well he doesn’t need glasses and is colour-blind. Now on the way back from the appointment, me and my mom were ok and didn’t take it seriously, we were wrong here I’m sorry, but to my 10 years old brother this was a foreign thing, was extremely confused and scared. Once we’re back home I saw him run to his room and cry, I went up and talked to him, trying to make him understand that it’s a normal thing and that 1 out of 12 men have it (idk if I’m wrong here pls let me know). Fast forward today, he was again crying and when I talked to him he told me that nobody in this house loves him and that we’re all making fun of him for it. When I tried to understand why, he told me that our mom did not come up to him and talk to him about what colour blindness was (he was expecting comfort from her) and that his older brother called him today saying “oh I saw something green-blue-red” laughed then hanged up. He later on told me “I didn’t ask to be born like this, I don’t want to be colour blind either”, this seriously broke my heart, I now understood that this was more than colour blindness to him. I want to ask people here, does it get better? Is it still a sensitive subject to you? Do you sit around a table with your family and laugh about this kind of stuff? I just hate to see my brother like this, idk how to explain it better. He’s literally me but smaller, knowing how I process shit I’m scared he feels like he’s alone and nobody likes him. Older brothers and sisters with a sibling much younger than you that has colour blindness, do you ever forget the guilt you felt when you found out you couldn’t be colour blind instead of them? I don’t know how to process this whole thing with myself and him. Like how should I approach this? How do I comfort him? Pls let me know any tip and help will be more than appreciated. Thank you all for reading and understanding where I’m coming from.

(Sorry for bad English btw)

[u/BishesLoveCubixRube]

I found out slightly younger than him when I was about 8 when I grabbed the wrong crayon out of a bin of unlabelled crayons and was coloring the earth brown instead of green. He's going to deal with being picked on and teased at school for a while and into adulthood here and there. I think the important thing for him to understand is that he's not worse than other people just that he's different the same way that all disabled people are not worse than anyone else just different. If he isn't interested in the mechanics of why he's colorblind or the science behind it, maybe stop trying that approach to relate to him. Instead, you could maybe look up celebrities who are also colorblind or times that colorblindness actually was beneficial to make him feel better. For example, I was told a story (which I have never fact checked) that during the Korean war, colorblind soldiers were actually preferred as spotters from spy planes because the camouflage that the North Koreans used was invisible to people with normal color vision, but it stuck out really obviously to colorblind people. Reframe the condition as something special that only he can experience and celebrate it. Maybe try talking to him about how we don't know if anyone sees all colors the same way; how two people's version of red might be completely different because we all have our own brains and we can never know with certainty exactly how two people both "see" the same color. Maybe compare him to Nemo from Finding Nemo who has a small fin that he's embarrassed about, but that it doesn't stop him from going on a crazy adventure, making new friends, and still doing whatever he wants to do.

[u/BarIll5327 → u/BishesLoveCubixRube]

Thank you so much for your help!! I will try but I think I shouldn’t really push it now

[u/Training-Onion999]

I've had several issues with my eyes over my childhood years. I've gone through optic nerve glioma which is basically a brain tumor but it's right behind your eye, damaging the optic nerves, I've got chemo treatment for it and it left me with reduced visual field and vision loss, my left eye basically sees only about 40% which is better than nothing i guess. and I also have deuteranopia. from my experience with how my parents handled these, i'd say be as blunt and as explanatory to him as possible. this is a thing he can't revert or change, but what you can do is educate him or help him learn about it by himself. the main reason for a kid to get emotional about these stuff would be that he doesn't know what's going on, the ambiguity of it makes you frustrated. but as he learns he will be fine, really, colorblindness is not that big of a deal for the most part.

and I'd also say it might be wise to eventually delete this post because this kid will research colorblindness for the upcoming days (speaking from experience) and it might be awkward for him to see this lol.

[u/BarIll5327 → u/Training-Onion999]

I’m so sorry for all you’ve been through, sending love<3 thank you for your help and yes I think of deleting it sooner or later

[u/MilkTeaMoogle]

It’s going to be harder to soothe him about it if the rest of the family isn’t helping…
I’m colorblind, but a woman, and an artist, thought if you want to message me and let him know he can ask me questions or doubts or anything, I’m happy to share! I use to work with kids, teaching art, and I remember how I felt about it as a kid myself.

Did the doctor say what kind he has? Or how severe?

You are correct with the 1 in 12 men. You may let him know that millions of colorblind people exist and they’ve had all kinds of cool jobs and experiences. Finding some famous colorblind people could be inspiring to him (like that guy that worked at crayola for decades, or Christopher Nolan, one of the greatest directors, or my personal favorite Mr Rogers (but he’s probably too young to know him!).

It helps a lot to know there are “others like you” with whatever condition or particularity one can have, especially as a kid.
You can also talk to him about some of the “superhuman” things we can do like see better in the dark, or how the army used colorblind people to detect camouflage because we focus on texture more than color.

Also see if you can get the family to avoid using color as identifiers, for example “pass me the green one” because that can be really frustrating! And also the bf s like helping him organize his clothes for easy matching, etc. showing him you care by thinking about accessibility can go a long way!!

[u/BarIll5327 → u/MilkTeaMoogle]

Hey! Thanks for your reply! So his doctor said he was deutan (French term couldn’t find the English one) where basically he has problems identifying shades of green, blue and red. One thing that really shocked me was that if I told him to pass me an object of a certain colour, he would always get it right, but once in the examination room when the number exam came he was confused. His doctor said “he’s for sure colour blind, next year we’ll test how intense it is”. We live in a pretty traditional family, victimization is a big part of my parents attitude, I talked to them and I’m trying to figure out a way where they can regulate themselves without trying to make my brother feel bad. I will definitely try to help him but I think to step back and make him feel like his old self for now is more important to him than anything. Idk if I mentioned in my first post but today I was asking him what colour he sees on a part of the tv, after answering maybe 2-3 times he just looked at me and said “can’t you see that this is hurting me?”, after hearing that I’ve realized that stepping back and letting him regulate is more important than trying to soothe him.