Blindness in everyday life

It is not possible to completely compensate for the loss of vision with the other senses. Vision plays a too big role in our world for that. In addition, our entire environment is designed for sighted people. However, when the other senses are exhausted, a unique world of perception arises that is just as complex and diverse as the visual.

Body Resonance

All blind people use their entire body to interact with the environment. And that's not meant literally. Engineers like to brag about race cars packed with thousands of sensors. Human sensors are not as precise, but are much better at processing information in an integrated manner. There is still no computer that can see, hear or even feel, smell and taste. And if such computers do exist, they will not be able to integrate all of these sensory stimuli into an overall picture.

The blind person feels real and artificial heat, smells, the condition of the ground and much more. While sighted people process these stimuli more subconsciously, for blind people they form the entire world of perception.

Environmental stimuli play a smaller role than many people believe. On the one hand, the brain filters out a lot of information that seems superfluous and, on the other hand, enriches perception with information from memory.

The integrated processing of information enables blind people to do many things that sighted people do not trust them to do. Make-up, choosing clothes, orientation, cooking. Every person has an inner image of their body, which enables them to, for example, shave blindly without constantly cutting themselves. A good musician can play his instrument even in complete darkness; you'll never be able to type well if you're constantly looking at the keyboard.

Let's do a little experiment: close your eyes and try to touch the tip of your nose with your index finger. Unless you're drunk, you should be able to do this without any problem. You owe this to your body map in your brain.

Shaving is actually a complex task. You place the blade at a certain angle and guide it downwards with a certain amount of pressure. If you hold the razor incorrectly, press too lightly or too hard, either nothing will happen or you will cut yourself. Vision plays a minor role here; my eyes don't tell me how much pressure I need to apply or which angle is the right one. Body awareness and fine motor skills are crucial. The fact that this is usually easy for us is not because it is easy, but rather because of years of practice.

That little bit of housekeeping

As a blind person, I can surprise those around me every day with a simple trick. I count my change with my fingers. If you feel like it, just join in for a moment and reach into your wallet. You may have noticed that every Euro coin feels a little different, but have you ever consciously paid attention to it? The edges of the larger coins are grooved differently. This means that blind people don't even have to dig their change out of their wallets; they count by feeling, in the truest sense of the word. These and other skills that are important for everyday life are called “life skills” (LPF) in rehabilitation.

There are some simple tricks that make life extremely easier for a blind person. For example, the splashing noise when pouring reveals how full the cup is. If you always put the items in the same place, you can usually find them again quickly. I have a fixed place everywhere for my cell phone, my keys and other things that I need every day. Things only get difficult when someone takes these items away and places them somewhere else, which is a good option if you want to cause trouble for blind people. I've spent hours looking for things that were just half a meter away from their usual place.

It is extremely useful for a blind person to be a neat freak. Messy closets, tangled cables and dirty surfaces take up a lot of time and energy. It saves time when you don't have to spend minutes looking for a specific piece of clothing or changing your sweater because you accidentally polished the stained table top with your sleeve.

A blind person will never intentionally place a glass near the edge of a table or in an area where he makes involuntary movements. He will never intentionally leave fragile or delicate items on the floor because, according to Murphy's Law, anything bad that could happen is guaranteed to happen. I can't count how many things I've broken or destroyed because of my blindness - or clumsiness.

Cooking is also not as difficult as it seems at first glance. When I stir a pot, I can easily tell whether the rice or noodles are already cooked. If I pierce a potato with a fork, I can tell whether it has the right consistency. Professional chefs also often use their sense of smell to check whether they need to add seasoning or not.

Personal hygiene is also relatively simple. Shaving, brushing your teeth or washing your hair as a blind person is not art. It's so banal that many blind people don't like to talk about it. Nobody asks you how you, as a sighted person, wash your back even though you can't see it.

This applies to most everyday activities. There are a few exceptions like cleaning. For example, blind people cannot see the dust on the top of the shelf or the layer of dirt that settles in gaps in the kitchen, for example. The surfaces that they can touch regularly and easily reach are usually clean, everything else is often forgotten in everyday life.

The supermarket in my head

I know the structure of my discount store by heart and could find what I'm looking for relatively quickly in every branch because the stores in this chain are structured very similarly everywhere. I often even know the position of a product relatively precisely, so that I can get the right thing the first time I grab it.

Another advantage of the discounter is that you usually don't have to worry about the prices. In a typical supermarket it can quickly happen that you get luxury noodles for 10 euros a pack. I often have the impression that the most expensive product from the discount store is still cheaper than the cheapest product from the supermarket. Last but not least, the discounter has a manageable range of products. There are two types of strawberry jam and not a dozen, the differences between which are not obvious even to those who can see. The discounters also seem to be more concerned about ensuring that food does not exceed its shelf life. They rely heavily on their reputation and therefore do not risk leaving expired products on the shelves. This is not always the case in conventional supermarkets. Reading the expiry date is a horror for visually impaired and blind people alike because it is often stamped somewhere on the packaging in thin writing.

Shopping in foreign supermarkets is a little more difficult. I make do by navigating the product categories. Let's say I'm looking for oatmeal. They are usually found with muesli. Muesli is often found at the beginning of a supermarket and can be easily recognized by its packaging. Oat flakes are usually packed in a 500 gram bag and can therefore be distinguished relatively easily from muesli in cardboard packaging or plastic bags. It's just stupid when there are oatmeal among the baked goods.

Recognizing products is not as difficult as you think. Most product categories can be easily distinguished by the size or shape of the packaging. Cream cheese is packaged differently than semi-hard cheese or low-fat quark. It becomes difficult with products that have a relatively similar design. Finding a specific type or brand of chocolate is not easy. Shampoo, conditioner and shower gel cannot be distinguished by the shape of the packaging or by shaking. That's why blind people particularly like it when packaging has their own design. This applies, for example, to the shower gel from AX. With such products you can quickly and unobtrusively open the bottle to “smell” whether it is the right variety.

Many blind people use special devices or apps to scan the barcode of a product and find out what it is. With countless products, this is of course quite time-consuming.

Health food stores and similar exotic shops are a real nightmare for me. Since I don't know many of the products, it's not even possible to identify them. The powder, which is in a plastic bag that is in a cardboard box, could actually contain anything from soy flour to a laxative.

I only ever buy clothes with a sighted person. The average shoe store contains 95 percent women's shoes, 4 percent children's shoes and 1 percent men's shoes; the situation is not much different for other clothing stores. It can be quite embarrassing for a man to spend minutes rummaging through women's clothing. Apart from that, I can't judge whether a piece of clothing suits me or not.

Many of you will ask why we don't just ask a fellow shopper or supermarket employee for help. This works in theory, but it turns out to be a game of patience. Supermarkets are not a place you like to be. The first customer doesn't have time, the next doesn't feel like it and the third simply says "Yes, that's marzipan" even though it's nougat. You can't beat him up anymore if you notice the mistake. But jokes aside: I can understand it if people don't have the time or desire to spend minutes looking for products. Individual products are usually not a problem, but a shopping list like this can be quite long.

Although I don't think it makes sense for many reasons, I, like many blind people, have resorted to ordering exotic products on the Internet. It is very comfortable. But there are also solid financial reasons. It's not that easy to compare prices, but if you're blind you often can't find the cheapest product. The rude awakening then comes at the checkout.

This is particularly extreme with medications. The prices of mail order pharmacies are often 50 percent or more lower than those of retail stores. Medicines are already among the most expensive products and many blind people do not have a high income. Ordering groceries online now also seems to be gaining momentum. This is ecologically harmless because delivery takes place via the local supermarket.

Blind people and sports

Disabled sports have had a shadowy existence for many years. It is just as diverse as sighted sports.

Blind people can often practice the same sports as sighted people. There are some successful blind martial artists, especially in judo and karate. In addition, many sports are easily possible where you don't have to see directly, for example sailing, rowing or paddling. Climbing and mountaineering are also popular. The blind mountaineer Eric Weihenmayer has developed his own technique to be able to climb high mountains independently. The Austrian mountaineer Andy Holzer, who has summarized his experiences in a book, is better known in Germany. There are a number of special sports for the blind. In blind football, the ball rings so the players can hear it. So that the athletes don't constantly bump into each other, they call out "Hoy," which is Spanish for "I'm coming." Blind football is probably one of the few sports in which spectators are not allowed to cheer on their favorites, because the players have to use their hearing above all and the shouting would only be annoyin

g. Of course, sighted and visually impaired people are also allowed to play, they just have to wear a blindfold, fairness is a must.

There are also a number of modified sports. For example, table ball, a form of table tennis suitable for blind people, is currently popular.

How independent can blind people live?

The abilities of blind people vary greatly. There are blind people who travel alone to distant regions and make their way through foreign cities, the desert or the jungle. These include the mountaineer Eric Weihenmeier and Sabriye Tenberken, who set up a school for the blind in Tibet and also developed Tibetan Braille. The blind Frenchman Jacques Lusseyran built a resistance group against the Nazis in occupied France. Zoltán Törey became internationally known as the man who blinded his roof.

There are also blind people who only leave their homes when they have to. These are often - but not always - people who only became blind in old age; they never learned to find their way around outside their home. Many blind people are not supported by their parents to live independently. They don't learn to shop, orientate themselves, cook or clean. Of course, sighted people are often coddled, but they can get by without these skills or learn to do so if they have to. Blind people, on the other hand, often need help from others to learn these basic tasks and are often reluctant to seek this help. Or they simply don't get them because no one wants to cover the costs.

Incidentally, blind adventurers are more the exception than the rule. When I read about a sighted person circling the world in a hot air balloon or a sailboat, I don't assume that all other sighted people do the same. There are also some blind adventurers and extreme athletes, but they are the exception and not the rule. So it depends more on people's mentality than on their physical condition whether they seek such adventures. Self-confidence is also crucial for how independently blind people travel. If they have the confidence to get through critical situations or to get help if necessary, they will be much more independent than if they don't.

There are special schools and training facilities for the blind. These facilities were once quite progressive, because there was a time when disabled people were considered unable to perform and were housed in homes or workshops for the disabled. Only with special schools and vocational training centers increased their chances of finding a conventional job.

Although the special facilities are intended to help blind people, they often stand in the way of inclusion in society. The vocational training centers are small parallel worlds with a pub, supermarket, hairdresser and fitness studio. If you don't have to leave the premises for weeks, it doesn't promote integration into society.

The small number of disabled employees in such facilities is noteworthy. You should have an interest in employing as many people as possible who are affected, as these employees can also serve as role models for the blind rehabilitators or students. I like to say: the disability sector is the largest job creation measure for non-disabled people.

Many blind people live in Marburg, a city in central Hessen on the Lahn. For a long time, the study center for the blind there offered the only opportunity to complete high school and obtain the right to study at a university. There is probably no other city in Germany that has been so strongly influenced by blind people. There are acoustic traffic lights suitable for blind people on almost every corner. Many businesses and authorities are familiar with dealing with blind people.

It would certainly be desirable for things to look similar in all cities in Germany. Unfortunately, this is not the case. In my hometown of Bonn, there are hardly any acoustic traffic lights or orientation aids for blind people. When I enter a government office or a supermarket, I often have the impression that people are completely overwhelmed by my blindness. But that doesn't matter, I usually leave people with an aha moment that dealing with blind people isn't rocket science. Sometimes I even enjoy being obviously the first blind person people meet.

The disadvantage of the all-round carefree package offered by blind facilities is that people will eventually forget how to find their way around without this help. They then no longer dare to leave Marburg to start a new job. After all, they cannot know whether they will be able to find their way in a foreign city where, for example, there are no acoustic traffic lights or in which they will have to orientate themselves in a completely new way.

Typical problems

Now I've talked a lot about what blind people can do despite their disabilities. But of course poor eyesight does not come without serious effects on everyday life.

Many problems faced by blind people are not limited to blind people. For example, there is the phenomenon of face blindness, which affects many people - often without even knowing it. The causes are not yet fully understood, but it seems to be related to the part of the brain that is also responsible for recognizing complex objects. The psychologist Oliver Sacks reports in “The Inner Eye” about his inability to recognize faces; he even didn't recognize his own wife. But he has similar problems when it comes to recognizing surroundings; he often walked past his own apartment.

I often have problems recognizing environments when the lighting conditions change or it has rained. For example, I often walk through the Rheinaue, a large park in Bonn. When I walk from the tram stop to the office, I have no problem finding my way. However, I haven't managed to find the way back, even though it's the same route. The sun is different, the paths branch out differently on the way there than on the way back. There are no clear landmarks because to me all the greenery and all the trees look the same. If the path is snowy, I take a different route, because once the snow cover reaches a certain density, it is no longer possible for me to distinguish the path from the meadow and therefore to orientate myself on the tarred path. I could walk in circles for hours because I can no longer see the boundaries.

Blind people can't see faces, that's obvious. But voices are also often difficult to distinguish. For example, it is difficult to recognize a voice if you meet the person in a context in which you do not expect it. This means you can easily recognize your work colleague in the company, while at the train station you are wondering who just said “Hello”. It often happens to me that I only realize afterwards that someone spoke to me or that I said hello to the wrong person. When I meet someone in the hallway of my office, I often don't know if I know that person well enough to have a conversation with them.

The problem affects people who are severely visually impaired or who have only recently started seeing worse. They usually don't dare to ask who is standing in front of them. Often you are already in the middle of a conversation and then it is of course doubly embarrassing to ask the other person their name. Most people make do by recognizing the person by a distinctive feature (clothing, glasses, hairstyle) or from the context of the conversation. But this doesn't always work if, for example, you meet the person outside of the usual context or the conversation is so general that nothing can be derived from it. Maybe that's where my aversion to small talk comes from, I know whether the weather is nice or not, but who the hell are you?

In fact, these situations are one of the most challenging consequences of blindness. For example, it's extremely difficult to make friends at university because you don't recognize the nice person you had a lovely chat with in the cafeteria. Blind people cannot make eye contact, making spontaneous acquaintances difficult. It's worse when you don't recognize your partner or children.

Again, those with severe visual impairments are more affected than those who are blind. With their blind cane, blind people basically have an excuse for not recognizing people. Visually impaired people are seen as scatterbrained at best and antisocial or rude at worst. Sometimes they are simply ashamed of their poor eyesight. However, it can also happen that their visual difficulties are confused with dementia or senility. There are some parallels. Visually impaired and senile people often search for lost items such as keys or wallets, although for different reasons. Visually impaired people can no longer see large areas, senile people no longer know where they have put their things. However, the treatment of such diseases varies greatly, which is why incorrect diagnoses can have serious consequences for those affected and their relatives because the patient is treated incorrectly. An unrecognized visual impairment can worsen because the eyes are put under additional strain by strenuous attempts to see.