Yes, people can understand total blindness much easier although you can sometimes have the reverse problem of people helping wheras no help is really needed or even wanted. To give a good example I got a bit lost the other day. I tried and tried to explain to the people around that once they took me back to the pelicon crossing between sheldon country park and the other cycle path, I would know where I was but they insisted on calling the police and I ended up going back home in a police car. How humiliating is that!
On the other hand fluctuating vision, functional blindness and partial sight can be harder for people to understand. My ex flat mates just never could understand my functional blindness and kept accusing me of faking it. Functional blindness (or what they used to term hysterical conversion) is NOT the same as faking it.
There is also seems bad feeling among certain blind people towards those with more sight. When I was training with Jilli there was a woman with a lot of useful vision but problem with severe light sensitivity. She was good with her dog and the guide dog association considered her 'blind' enough to need a dog so that was good enough for me, but you would be amazed at the backstabbing that was going on about her. It really bothered me that did and wondered what they were saying behind my back.
