I need to get this off my chest because it's eating me alive. I'm 28 years old, and everyone in my life—my parents, my wife, my coworkers, my friends—believes I'm red-green colorblind. I'm not. I never have been. I see every color perfectly.
It started when I was five. I was running through our living room even though my mom had told me a thousand times not to, and I knocked over this antique vase that had been in her family for generations. When she came in and saw the shattered pieces, I panicked. The vase had been sitting on a shelf with a little red sticker that meant "don't touch." So I blurted out, "I didn't see the red sticker, Mommy. I can't see red."
I don't know why I said it. I was five. But instead of getting in trouble, my mom's face shifted from anger to concern. She hugged me. She apologized for not realizing something was wrong with me. The vase was never mentioned again.
That was the moment I learned that being "broken" meant being forgiven.
My parents took me to an eye doctor who gave me one of those dot tests. I knew immediately what I was supposed to do—pretend I couldn't see the numbers hidden in the circles. It was surprisingly easy. The doctor confirmed I had deuteranomaly, a form of red-green colorblindness. My mom cried in the parking lot and told me I was brave.
After that, the lie just... grew. In elementary school, I got extra time on tests with color-coded sections. In middle school, my art teacher let me skip assignments involving color theory. In high school, I got out of dissecting a frog because I "couldn't distinguish the organs." Every time I should have come clean, there was another benefit to staying quiet.
The worst part came in college. I met Sarah in our sophomore year, and one of the first things she thought was romantic about me was helping me pick out clothes that "matched." She'd lay out my outfits. She'd describe sunsets to me. On our third date, she cried telling me how much she admired my strength in living with a disability.
I proposed to her wearing a tie she picked out because she thought I couldn't tell it was burgundy. I knew. I've always known.
We've been married for four years now. She still labels my clothes with little texture tags she sewed herself. She researched colorblind-friendly wedding decorations for six months. Her vows mentioned how she'd "be my colors" for the rest of our lives. Three hundred people heard her say that while I stood there, seeing every single shade of every single flower in her bouquet.
I've thought about confessing a thousand times. But how do you tell your wife that your entire relationship is built on a lie you told when you were five to avoid getting in trouble for breaking a vase? How do you tell your mom, who has literally donated to colorblindness research charities in your name? How do you tell your boss who specifically approved budget for colorblind-accessible software because of you?
Last week, Sarah told me she's pregnant. She's already worried about whether our child will inherit my "condition." She's been researching genetic testing.
I'm going to have to watch my wife worry about our baby having something I made up in kindergarten.
I don't know who I am without this lie anymore. It's been 23 years. At what point does a lie become the truth of who you are?
I'll never tell anyone in my real life. But I needed to tell someone, even if it's just strangers on the internet. I see every color. I always have. And I hate myself for it every single day.