What's It Like To Go Blind?

so I sat down with Beth finy we're doing a week about census and there's cars that are they're they're happy that we're doing a week about senses apparently yeah represent Beth finy happens to be an author so I an author I have two books I have a memoir published and a children's book published she's also published many articles in the Chicago Tribune various magazines and recorded stories for NPR oh and one more thing in 1985 at the age of 26 she became completely blind for me I see the color black some people see white some people see gray some people it's like a jigsaw puzzle so they see little bits of things through can you can you detect changes in light I can sense it with my face like there's light coming through over there and I can feel the Sunshine I have a disease called retinopathy among the smallest blood vessels in your body that are the ones in your eyes and so in my case they were breaking the Little Dot of blood would go and then it would spread out and so I would get these spider webs in my eyes so they took all that solution out of my eye and they replaced it with salent solution and that does work for people in 80% of the cases of people that have written apathy but what I learned from that was somebody's in the 20% and it was me for all I know I might have just stayed in my apartment and curled up in the corner it wasn't a happy time a social worker suggested I keep a journal and every day I would on cassette I would say what was going on in my head or what I was thinking about and that was the start of my Memoir which is long time no see college kid said if you could see again would you I say there's no such thing as a dumb question but that was a really dumb question yeah why would you ask that and she said well if you could see you would have never had these books published and I thought yeah that's that it was really a nice thing in the end cuz it made me kind of happy that that all happened cuz I really like having these published books and I like writing but my computer talks as I type so if I were typing an email to you d e a r space c r a i g comma space but I actually type pretty fast so it would really go press a button and it goes dear Craig K it was great talking to you today period hope to see you again soon exclamation point it kind of goes up or I'll say are you okay it it kind of does that as you're typing I used to when I played the piano back in the days when I could see I thought boy I wish I was one of those people that could play by ear but I'm not I could have been then too but I didn't have to and now I have to and so I kind of like that that I can play by ear I really like walking arm in- arm with people touching people and then it's easier to talk to them and Americans don't do that they don't walk arm and arm down the street or especially same-sex people might not walk arm and arm oh and dogs I didn't I was kind of afraid of dogs my first dog Dora Pandora was her name but we called her Dora jumped up on me and I was afraid not crying but just screaming like oh my God she's jumping on me she's jumping and one of the trainers came by and said she likes you it's okay you take your dog out to go to the bathroom yes by yourself yes how do you know how do I know it's time or how do you know they go oh well maybe I'll have to show you but I can try to explain once you get home with your dog you establish certain places where they usually go I take her harness off and that's her clue to her that okay now I can go and she kind of smells around and I can feel the leash moving around when the leash stops I feel her back and if her back is in a slant that means she's going number one and if it's at a curve I know she's going number two put your foot near her butt and take a plastic bag put it on your hand and then fill through until you feel warm lumps using your sense of touch um stop me in the in the corner sometimes they're just curious how does the dog know when to cross the street and the dog doesn't know dogs are color blind so all these cars are go in front of us back and forth back and forth back and forth and then I wait till I hear them stop on my parallel that traffic starts to go and then I guess the light is green and so I say to my dog Whitney forward and then she looks both ways and if she thinks it's safe then we go across and the wind is helpful is more helpful than I would have imagine it's especially helpful in the city the windy city when you're walking by a big building you don't sense anything and then when you get to the intersection all of a sudden it's windy you you feel a different sort of wind and you know that you're in the intersection I mean you're hopefully not in the intersection you're on the sidewalk about to cross yeah the things that you remember seeing how do you visualize them do they deteriorate over time no they're not vivid but they don't deteriorate either I can remember the Hancock building and I can remember the Sear's Tower a person who was born blind they could touch the wall of the Sears Tower but could never have an appreciation for how big tall it is if you were born blind you could feel the bark of the tree and you could feel the leave on the tree but you wouldn't get this idea of what a tree is do you know what I'm saying I still remember colors there are new colors that I have a hard time teal I just can't get teal in my head because some people say it's blue green some people say it's like the red violet crayon in the Crayola box people describe that color differently cuz I think they see that color I yeah I would say blue green blue green but is it more green or more blue seriously people yeah yeah I would say more blue I think but I don't really know yeah I'm not very good with colors well yeah so so there's the um do you see when you dream yes usually I'm just watching what's going on and everything's in color but sometimes I'm in the dream and I'm watching myself being blind I'm picturing what people how they're looking at me because I can't see do you have an image of me right now not really no you're a good-looking guy but I can't I can't not the details I it looks a lot like bread pit oh good and I don't know what that looks like so I can to you as young people with energy and and people who smile always look better and if people and you guys have been smiling a lot I mean how do you know been smiling I hear you laughing sometimes but I can you can hear it in a voice when someone's talking was your perception of beauty changed definitely I think people are good looking if they're naturally just being themselves they're not doing themselves up so much beautiful people are people who listen to other people rather than talk about themselves all the time if I'm in a party I'm in a party or I'm in a a group and there's somebody who's really boring or very tedious but everybody's listening to them I'll say my husband can see and I'll say to him as is he good-looking and he'll say yeah yeah and and people tend to still listen to that you know if they're goodl looking um there's some people you could be with them and they kind of suck energy from you and those are not Beautiful People The Beautiful People are people that give you that get you walk away from being with that person and you had a good time and you feel good you know that that is a beautiful person and that's a person who doesn't have to put on a bunch of makeup or get the perfect haircut or spend 3 hours before they go out in public they're just they just feel good and it and it shows it's not much I like about being blind but that is number one the thing I like the most that I can't judge people by what they look [Music] like thanks Beth and Whitney and sorry we forgot to plug your phone in before we left up next we talk about extra senses with a man with a phantom [Music] limb

Channel: The Good Stuff

Views: 54,209

Keywords: the good stuff, the good stuff show, What's it like to go blind, Beth Finke, Author, Blind, Whitney, Guide dog, Craig Benzine, Wheezy Waiter, Subbable, playlist, waiter, wheezywaiter, wheezynews, wheezy, Blindness, thegoodstuff, senses, Health, opener, good stuff, craig

Id: 8FiWKuV0svI

Length: 7min 21sec (441 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 26 2013