We typically hear about men being colorblind, but 1/200 women are also color blind. So, it's not really that uncommon. For me, it's a very mild case of color blindness — technically a form of red-green — but that isn't really my problem. I can't distinguish between shades of green, tan, and grey. Mind you, not all shades of these colors, but if the tan or grey has a green base, all I see is green.
I went through most of my life not even knowing about my color blindness. In fact, I have yet to get it diagnosed because it affects me so little. To my recollection, I never remember telling the my eye doctor about the issue. Rather, the first time it ever became relevant was when I was 15.
My dad bought these hideous green couches for our lime green living room. For the life of me, I could not understand why he wanted a green room with green furniture and a rug that was predominantly green. I argued with him about the couches so often that he asked me why I hated them so much. One day, I told him, "Isn't the room green enough?" My comment confused him to no end because we were talking about tan couches.
I decided my dad was crazy and eventually forgot about this green/tan debate until I took a colorblind test for a class during my senior year of high school...only to find that I couldn't even tell there was a number in the circle. Baffled, the couch debate came back to me, and suddenly, everything was clear.
Now, my color blindness is basically just a party trick where I try to guess car colors on drives and the people with me are baffled about how I could get the color wrong. It's a little inconvenient when I find clothes, cars, and home décor ugly because they look like a pale version of that weird 70s green color, but. However, for the most, being color blind isn't so bad. For me and my extremely mild case, it's honestly just a funny little story.
