In the past few years, Franny Chapman, 18, has spent nine days whitewater rafting down the Colorado River. She’s gone indoor skydiving—twice­—and traveled across the country on her own. That’s a lot for any teen. What makes these adventures even more impressive is the fact that Franny has impaired vision. Franny was born with a condition called optic nerve hypoplasia, meaning her optic nerve didn’t fully develop before she was born. She’s legally blind. But Franny prefers to say she has a visual impairment. She can make out the general shape of things. Still, she can’t see details, even with glasses. But with the help of her guide dog, Yolanda, Franny can do most things teens with full vision do. In fact, Franny thinks her disability has forced her to step outside her comfort zone. “I believe that whatever makes me or you or anyone different enlarges our world in some way,” she says. Read on to learn what it’s like growing up with impaired vision and what Franny wishes you knew about her condition.

Having a vision disability has been tough at times. There have been classmates who’ve made fun of Franny. She gets annoyed when people try to test her vision by asking her how many fingers they’re holding up. “The hardest part of having a visual impairment might not be the diagnosis itself but how the world responds to people with vision loss,” she says. 

Franny wishes schools offered students and teachers classes on how to interact with people with disabilities and how to accommodate their needs while also respecting their independence. She doesn’t love it when someone assumes she needs help doing something like crossing the street, which she can do by herself. She appreciates it when people ask her about her disability before making assumptions. “If you come up to me and ask me about my experiences, that will make me want to be friends with you,” she says. “It really means a lot to me if someone cares enough to ask me about my vision loss.”

Franny plans to go to college and to graduate school. She hopes to become a psychologist. She also dreams of opening a facility where people with disabilities can work with horses. “The experience of riding a horse when you have a disability is so freeing, I’d love to be able to share that,” she says.

No matter what she does, she wants to keep sharing her story so that others get a better understanding of what life is like for people like her. “I believe that if we learn more about the people around us, we can become a better society,” she says.