Why do people who are blind wear dark glasses?
by 
Sheriff Raff -Answerhag
ANSWERS: 18
-
Cause they don't like people to stare at their eyes. or so i've been told.
-
It's probably a matter of appearance, because some cases of blindness coincide with physical maladies, etc. I'm not really sure though. Why don't you ask some of our blind AB members? ;)
-
I am not being funny here. I think they wear them so other people can't see their eyes. They certainly don't need them for protection from the sun...
-
People with severe visual impairment, such as the blind, often wear sunglasses in order to avoid making others uncomfortable — not seeing eyes may be better than seeing eyes which seem to look in the wrong direction. Those whose eyes have an abnormal appearance (for example due to cataract).
-
They could also have cataracts that may make others uncomfortable.
-
Quite often, their eyes, or whatever is left of them, are distractingly disfigured. I worked for a short while with a young woman who had no eyes - skin right over where the eyes should be. She had some stick-on pseudo-eyes, but they didn't work. For me, dark glasses would have been better.
-
Sometimes it is easier than trying to control the muscle movements in their eyes which can be disconcerting for people. Perhaps it is because they are uncomfortable with the way their eyes look to others. It may also be necessary to filter out some of the light that can still be processed, but not distinguished. That is just my guess.
-
In the event their sight was miraculously restored, the sudden glare would most likely re-blind them!
-
Sometimes because they still have some vision left, and it hurts their eyes, literally, to have bright lights. More often because their eyes don't look right, move oddly, or have been removed entirely, and other people find them distracting or disgusting to look at. Appearances still matter to them, even if they can't themselves see them, specially if they used to be sighted, and they still remember what it looked like.
-
For them may be the world looks dark.
-
if a person is blind due to glaucoma, bright lights or the glaring sun causes unimaginable pain in the eyes so they need to wear dark glasses to block out the glare.
-
sometimes although they are blind they can still see 'light' and it may hurt their eyes.. i have some clients i visit who athough are registered 'blind' they can still see light and shapes.. they wear dark glasses to help with the glare.
-
So you can't see that their eyes aren't looking at the right thing.
-
As someone who is blind, I find it interesting that the vast majority of people assume dark glasses are used by blind people to hide our shameful and freakish eyes from the disapproving gaze of the "normal" people! :-) That may be true for some individuals, but is not for myself or any of the blind people I know or have contact with. My disabiity is a part of who I am, and if you can't cope with that then I wouldn't really want to get to know you anyway; me self-esteen is higher because I am happy to live as who I am, than it would be if I felt I had to hide my eyes away from society. Some sighted people don't like their natual eye-color; would you expect them to wear dark glasses to hide it? As has been said already, dark glasses are fantastically helpful at reducing the pain and inconvenience of damaged but light-sensitive parts of the eye; that's why they're worn. I hope this isn't too much of a "rant" answer, and clearly the decision of whether to "hide" oneself or not is a very personal one; I just wanted to share my own experiences as a blind person, and those of my blind friends. Thanks!
-
They don't know if the glasses are dark or not.
-
My coworker was walking by and saw this Q and said she knew the answer. Her Mom was born blind. She said some blind people can still perceive light and that it can be painful.
-
As with some who posted the answer that they don't want others to focus on their eyes. I knew a man who could not see even light or dark but had lights on in his house. He could feel the lights when on or off without touching them. A lot of times I forgot he was blind. I knew another blind person who could tell you the color of you car by rubbing his hand on the surface. So many think blind people cannot when some of them can. 😎
-
Being "blind" does not always mean they are totally devoid of seeing light. If you close your eyes in a brightly lit place you will still see a little light. Put your hands over your closed eyes and you'll see less of it.
Hidden80 is Wonderful 
Beaker Five-O 
Iron Mask 
Rick Myres RELATED QUESTIONS
Copyright 2023, Wired Ivy, LLC