Anastasia Pagonis challenges perceptions of blindness with swimming strokes and elaborate make-up routine: “A disability makes you 10 times more badass”
Anastasia Pagonis likes shattering stereotypes. And she uses three main tools to do this: swimming strokes, make-up brushes, and social media.
After losing her vision as a teenager, the USA Para swimmer wants to change how people view her disability and rattle the beauty industry along the way.
“For blindness, they expect us to wear dark sunglasses and look like a mess and walk like a zombie, and that's totally not the case,” Pagonis told Olympics.com. “People try to put me in a box where I have to look a certain way, act a certain way, and be a certain way. And if I'm not in that box that they put me in then I'm a faker, I'm a liar, whatever it may be, which is really sad.
“Now I'm here to break that down and show another little girl out there that no, that's not how it is. We're outside of those boxes now. That's not how it's going to be.”
Pagonis posts hacks on doing make-up as a blind person for her ample social media following along with positive messages about life after vision loss.
When not training and competing in the pool, the two-time Paralympic medallist is also working with beauty companies to make make-up packaging more accessible for people with vision impairments.
From depression to defiance: Anastasia Pagonis' changing mindset
Pagonis uses her social media handles to spread awareness about Para sport and vision impairments – or, as she calls it, “changing the way you ‘see’ the vision impaired”.
In most of her videos, she is bubbly and cheerful, going for walks with her dog Radar, smiling and cracking jokes at mishaps she calls “blind girl moments”. It is hard to believe this is the same person who, not long ago, was in a deep depression, where activities as simple as going for a walk were overwhelming.
Pagonis started to lose her eyesight at age 11 due to Stargardt’s disease. By 14, her vision was almost completely gone.
“It was definitely very hard,” she said. “At my darkest point in my depression, my goal was to just have one smoothie a day and to go for a five minute walk every day. And to me, that seemed like it was literally the end of the world.”
The stereotypes that society held of people with vision impairments – stereotypes that Pagonis believed as she had no other references – did not help. With vision loss, the things Pagonis loved most also seemed lost to her.
“Growing up I never, ever saw a blind or disabled person going to Sephora and getting makeup and going shopping. That was nothing that I ever saw,” she said. “So I was like, ‘Wow, I'm just going to be living this miserable life. I'm going to be a burden to everyone’. And that's how I saw my life to be like. I thought, 'If I was going to be like this, then what was the point of me being here?'”
Pagonis stayed in that mindset for eight months until managing to resurface through a combination of outpatient therapy and the support of her family.
The most critical point in her recovery, however, was finding her own motivation to get better.
“I decided that I wasn't this person,” Pagonis said. “I wasn't sad. I'm not that type of person. I'm a very bubbly, outgoing person, and I knew I could still be that way. And instead of letting it affect me, I decided that I was going to be the [example] that I didn't have and show other little me’s that no, a disability just makes you 10 times more badass. It's not taking anything away from you.”
Guide dog Radar is one of the most featured guests on Anastasia Pagonis' social media handles.
Re-learning how to swim after vision loss
One of the ways that Pagonis got back to her former self is through sport.
She first took up swimming at age 11, but then stopped for a year as her vision deteriorated. Once back in the pool, she had to re-learn how to swim, this time without being able to see what is in front of her.
Para swimmers in Pagonis' S11 classification race in blacked-out goggles. A person at the end of the pool taps the athletes lightly with a piece of pool noodle taped to a stick to let them know when they are approaching the wall.
While now the technique comes naturally to Pagonis, the 20-year-old athlete spent the first months of training fearful of injuring her hands on the wall or swimming into lane dividers. That fear has never fully gone away.
“There will always be discomfort in the water because I am swimming as fast as I can into a concrete wall and hoping that someone taps me correctly," Pagonis said with a laugh. "There's always that mild fear that you have, and I don't think it will ever be perfect. But I'm here because I'm perfectly imperfect.”
Pagonis burst into the Para swimming spotlight in 2021 when she won a gold medal in the women’s 400m freestyle S11 and a bronze medal in the 200m individual medley S11 at the postponed Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. Her joy was contagious as the Paralympic rookie posed with the two medals at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.
A year later she also picked up three gold medals at the world championships.
“I feel so powerful and so amazing,” Pagonis said of what keeps her coming back to the pool. “When I'm racing, I feel like I blackout and I have no idea what's happening. But after the race it’s amazing and super badass.”
Anastasia Pagonis won two medals in her Paralympic debut, at Tokyo 2020.
Changing the beauty industry one QR code at a time
Another thing that makes Pagonis feel powerful and badass is her make-up routine. At least, most of the time.
The Paralympic champion remembers going to a beauty store with her mother when she was losing her vision. While the salespeople were eager to help her, they did not know what to do.
“The world isn't set up for people with disabilities, especially with visual impairments,” Pagonis said. “When I go into Sephora or Ulta, I have no idea what's going on, and that is a whole problem in itself. I don't have independence and then I have to go out of my way to not feel independent and to have that independence taken from me and have to ask for help. People are fine helping, but I deserve to be able to walk into a Sephora or an Ulta and know exactly what I'm trying to get and be able to find it by myself.”
Pagonis faced a similar challenge when she was going through her make-up bag at home, unsure what each of the items was.
“I pick up this tube of mascara and this tube of mascara could be concealer, could be lip gloss. It could be eyebrow gel," she said. "You have no idea what it is."
Her mother, Stacey, came up with a creative solution to the dilemma. She glued QR codes on the make-up packaging so that Pagonis could scan each item with her phone and listen to an audio of her mother’s voice telling her what she was holding. A USA beauty brand loved the idea and reached out to collaborate with Pagonis on the first accessible make-up collection.
The QR codes are about much more than not confusing lip gloss with mascara, however. For Pagonis, they are first and foremost about independence.
“In the actual make-up aisle, being able to just take my phone and scan things and know what they are, that makes you feel so independent. And people with disabilities strive to have any independence that we can because it's something that we don't get very easily," Pagonis said.
“I really hope that it takes off and changes the whole beauty industry because I have a huge passion for beauty and make-up, and I think that anyone that has a disability or visual impairment, their disability should not stop them from doing something that they love."