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DISABILITIES
How to Behave Around Blind People
Because Miss Manners hasn’t gotten around to explaining it yet.
Blind people are just like everyone else.
I selected the image above for a reason.
The image shows a guy who looks to be about 18 or 20 years old, having a good laugh. The only thing in the image to suggest that he might be blind is that his eyes are closed. Aside from that he looks like a perfectly normal, rather good-looking guy, having a perfectly normal good time, his head thrown back, laughing at someone’s joke. He is not holding a white cane. He is not accompanied by a guide dog. He is not reading braille. He is not holding the elbow of a human guide.
This blind guy is just a guy out in the woods with friends, enjoying life.
This is the first thing you need to understand if you meet a blind person. In most ways that matter, blind people are just like you. They were taught the same table manners that you were — or they should have been. They are just as capable of doing most activities in life that you can do, but in different ways.
You don’t need to walk on eggshells around them for fear of hurting their feelings. You don’t need to exclaim, “God bless you!” to them unless they sneeze. It is not a tremendous miracle for them to dress themselves, prepare a meal, brush their teeth, or walk across a room. You don’t need to lower your expectations of them just because they can’t see. You will offend them if you do.
If they fall down they will get up just like you and be embarrassed at it, just like you. There is no need to fuss all over them any more than you would fuss all over yourself and your scraped knee.
So if you meet a blind person, don’t get all flustered and alarmed that the person is blind or that you might say the wrong thing. Be mellow about it; the blind person will be mellow, too.
People blind from birth function better than adults who go blind.
The younger a person was when he or she first lost eyesight, the better able that person is to function without sight as an adult. This is because the brain adapts itself during the first years of life…
