Category: Daily Living
Hi all,
So I'll get right to the point by saying that my step father remarked to me that my nails needed to be cut. Unfortunately, my mom has done them my entire life, and the same could be said for other things. Anyway, I said today that I really need to know how to learn this stuff, wondering how blind people do it because she said that I had to see to know what I was doing. Than again, my family keeps saying that about shaving with a regular raser too, since currently I use those ones where it's pretty much impossible to cut yourself.
Anyway, was just curious on how blind people do nails and the like. My mom thinks that we'd go to the salon, and I guess that'd be an option. Ultimately that'd cost though and if I could learn to do it myself... free is free. I hope this doesn't turn into a ridicule thread like the boiling water thread seemed to have turned into on the rave board.
You might start by using a nail file to shape them. Using nail clippers would be another slightly more advanced option. You should be able to do it by feel. Just be careful not to clip too close to the nail bed. Just experiment a bit, starting by clipping a little as it's always easier to clip more if need be.
Good luck to you and good for you for wanting to be more independent.
Bite them! You'll feel if you are biting to close. You can use a nail clipper too, but biting is natural, safe, and works. Lol
Its easy, you take a pair of nail clippers, slip them onto your nail and squeeze a little. If it hurts, pull back a little, keep clipping until they're as short as you want them to be. When you think you're done, run each fingernail over a sensative area of skin, I use my cheeks. If you feel any sharp edges, clip it off. Then file them down with a nail file until they are all pretty and you're satisfied. Nothing to it.
As for shaving, that's easy too. Though it kinda depends on where you want to shave. I can only give advice on shaving your face. If that ain't what you're after, better to ask someone else.
The best advice I can give you is to not be afraid of being cut. No one ever bled to death from a razor cut. It stings, yes, but it heals quickly. You can also get stiptic powder or stiptic pencils which seal the cut almost instantly. It burns, but it stops the bleeding.
Another little tidbit is that razors only cut in one direction, if you avoid going in that direction, you won't get cut. I use an open razor, you can do serious damage if you don't know what you're doing, and I hardly ever cut myself. You just have to know how a blade works.
Also the sharper the blade the less chance of cutting yourself. Run it gently over the area with some soap or cream and the blade does the work.
Don't bite them! Nail biting is a bad habit and a little discusting . Unless you use a nail brush after every hand wash there are a lot of germs under the nails. Get a nice pair of nail clippers and like the others said trim a little bit at a time be sure to use an emery board after the cut to soften any ruff edges. practice and you will get the hang of it.
I certainly agree that biting is not a good idea. I know my nails usually ended up a little sensitive at first until I got the hang of how short to cut them, but you will with practice. and, as cody said, squeeze the clippers slightly before you cut all the way. That way, you'll only experience a tiny bit of pain if the clippers are too close to the nail bed, and it won't cause any lasting damage. I still do that, to this day, just to be safe. Toenails are even easier, because you can use your other hand as a guide while you're cutting. I've never hurt myself cutting my toenails.
By the way, huge props for wanting to venture out and do these things yourself, instead of assuming your parents are correct in saying you can't do it without sight.
Mom always said I could never use disposable razors. So as soon as I was out on my own, I bought a bag of them. Just go slow and if you do feel pain, stop and see how short whatever hair is you are shaving. I really had trouble with electric razors; they cut me more than any disposable razor did. Good for your motivation of wanting to be more independent. It pays off.
Ah, good for you for stepping up and taking control of your personal needs yourself. Good start. Seems like you've led a pretty sheltered life; Not your fault really. Seems like your mom is a bit overprotective, and a bit ignorant of what blind people can and can't do. Understatement of the year. Anyways, No surprise really. Tons of sighted people feel that way. I guess you and your family haven't had much education where blindness is concerned. I can't contribute much more than what everyone else has said, but yes, definitely don't bite the nails. That looks gross and further makes the sighted ones feel we're incompetent.
The only thing I'll tell you is, your moms wrong on both counts. You can shave and clip your nails just fine with some practice. You certainly don't need eyes to do it. So apply that to a ton of other things she probably said you can't do without sight, because I'm betting there's more, and you'll be the better for it. Great way to get to know the methods is to ask us, which you've done. Keep it going.
You got it bro.
Mad props for taking matters into your own hands.
Use a good pair of clippers, just trim the tiniest amount off from each nail. Ideally, they should be no shorter than the top of the curve of your finger. if you trim them and you feel skin from the top of your finger, where your nail was, then you overclipped. No big deal, they'll grow back. I've always found that using an emory board, a nonmetal nail file works great. start at one edge of your fingernail, then slowly twist your nail, so that the emory board is following the curve of your nail. Think of making a print letter C. Be sure to smooth out any rough edges, and Voile. This shouldn't take long to learn. Don't make a sawing motion with the emory board across your nail. You only want to file in one direction. This will keep your nails from weakening. HTH.
Good for you for standing up for yourself! I am blind and live on my own..I just learned how to do things and you will as well! Good luck and you can do it!
Good on ya for this question.
1) File them to your desired length, or use the clipper suggestions posted (I prefer to file).
2) I suggest an electric razor, preferably one targeted for males because the female designs suck. Main head piece is great for legs, there's usually a small "mustache clipper" attachment that's good for more sensitive areas like under-arms.
can't believe this is even a question! I mean! just put the clipper up to your nails and logically snip them. shall you be so incapable you can't do that too?
Well, Rachel, you seem to be incapable of giving a response that doesn't involve narrow-mindedly judging someone, and I didn't think that was possible. At least this guy had the guts to come out and admit that he didn't know what to do here, unlike most people in similar situations I've seen who try to justify it with their lack of site. How now, may I ask, do you justify these angry outbursts on the boards when there once was a time in your life when you weren't capable of such things? Unless, of course, you're just that much of a super human that you've been able to clip your nails since infancy. These skills are not instincts; they're learned.
Ocean's right: skills we take for granted, parenting instructs us they are not, you have to show your kids how to clip the nails, tie the shoes, and a zillion other things. Up to and including keep track of a budget. With one who nears leaving the nest, I can attest as a parent how much people have to be shown, both blind and sighted. The problem for the blind comes in that it can take more explanation and time.
That is not only true for the blind, but kids that are flighty, what you all call drama, that is quite a challenge for a more stallwart individual.
At some point in life, you will be confronted with something you don't know how to do, that others will assume you do know how. And, the better you are at compensating in this manner, the more glaring it becomes when it shows up. Just the irony of the situation. Your eyesight may not even be the real reason you ddon't know how, perhaps just exposure, but it will still be presumed to be your lack of sight. Can you, fir instance, measure and cut a length of wood? You may need to to make a curtain rod fit someday. If you can, good: my daughter couldn't until a couple years ago. Not because of being blind: she is fully sighted. She couldn't, because honestly she's not very interested in sharp tools or things mechanical. She was taught by me, a blind man. And, unlike what some women I know thought, it was not a matter of feminism or women can do anything a man can: I'm a rudimentary handiman at best, so there are plenty of women who can do better than I. It was a matter of practicality.
Can you sharpen your knives? Lots of people can't, and it's not because of their sight or lack thereof. Another one of those things the daughter will have at least gotten exposure to before leaving home.
If you are really good at compensation, as some on here brag about: "I get compliments on how others say I don't look blind," let me tell you something, with 20 more years' life experience than at least some of you.
The better you are at this, the worse it can be when you fail to compensate correctly when you don't know. Your better option is an exercise in personal restraint and prudence when it comes to passing judgment on other people. Life will be full of things that you don't know, and often feel you should have known.
But for someone who can see, if they aren't directly doing the activity, they've watched others do it. We don't have that advantage, and can't possibly learn every single thing. You, or some of you at least, might consider it easy at Christmas time to thread things on strings and tie the knots, all of that. For you, and for my sighted daughter, this is easy. And so, when she wanted to do it a couple years ago, and include me in it, I jumped at the chance: she was at the age where including dad in things other than payment was not real common, and I thought surely I should be able to figure this out. I'll be honest: I struggled a lot with it. To her that was news: this is dad, who cuts and trims the tree / puts it up, then after the holidays, takes it all down, cuts it all up and puts it in the recycler, among a ton of other things like that. I don't know how much better I would be at the threading thing if I had eyes that worked. I do know I would have been able to just sit and watch her go at it for awhile, and probably would have seen other people do it.
You'll find in life there are tons of things you might surprise even yourself in not knowing. This business of full integration, while important, I have found needs to be tempered with a bit of understanding, for oneself and other people.
The older I get, the more firmly convinced that all these tales of terrible blind monster incompetents of my childhood are largely a work of fiction, like those who portray the gays as pedophiles, the Asians as unfeeling, or us whites as haters.
been cutting my nails since like 9 or 10. and, I do it three times a day, yeah, I know it's kind of the other way around I kind of have a obssessive thing with it. I try to lose my nail clippers so I don't cut things with it like extra skin or nails. it's unhealthy, but I do it all the time! been doing it since 10. bit my nails before, but when I look at something I usually get it or with a few guidances. I am a fairly quick learner and stuff. picked up the computer not by computer lessons, I refused those, but I learnt by crashing it. I am much more of a doer. my main problem, iz laziness and a lack of effort mostly.
well, Rachel, not everyone in the world has your skill level. I sure don't, and there's no shame in that.
Poster 18, wow you're so perfect. This person had a problem and needed answers and you felt you had to disrespect them with your condecending remark. How about next time add something positive to the conversation instead of making yourself look so rude!
Not just that, but the battery runs down. You're going to find someday that you hit a paywall, and can't pick up things as instantaneously quickly as you could before. And the way you judge other people is only a reflection of how you are looking at yourself. I, for one, had a very difficult time living with myself for awhile when I could no longer just pick up where every room and location was when moving into a new place. Mid 30s when that first happened to me to a minor degree. With these really high levels of expectations, that aren't even all that realistic, not only do they result in judgment against other people but turn out unalterably corrosive later on for yourself internally. You'll run into situations where you don't have time to crash it to learn it, or where no matter how quick a learner you are, it's not nearly as fast as someone who just saw it and learned it. I'm just being realistic, as one who has had to eat facefuls of dirt over this very thing over the years.
But what you're up to is a bit like housing battery acid in a thick wooden jug: it'll wear through after awhile.
my nails are so weak and don't grow much that i don't even have to clip them. and, I bite them anyway which I know isn't good lol. kind of a nervous habit... but I do like to go the nail salon and get a manicure and have them painted once in a while which helps me not to bite them.
I agree with others. Not everybody is as quick a learner as you paint yourself as being. Goodness knows I'm certainly not. If I came onto these boards looking for advice on a daily living issue I certainly would not appreciate the sort of condescending remarks you're so free with. So you're a quick learner. Good for you. How about showing a little understanding to those less fortunate? Not every blind person is a quick learner. And not every blind person's parents are as willing to let them try and learn to do things as others' are. Nor is every parent of a blind child as patient as they should be, so even if they tried to teach the kid and the kid was too slow to catch on for the parent's liking they just said screw it. So it's not surprising that every blind person knows how to clip their nails or shave with a non electric rayzor. Hell, the last time I tried to do that I think my family thought I'd run into something more powerful than a mere razor what with all the blood.
you go brian!
Thanks. It just sets my teethh on edge when someone replies to a perfectly reasonable question about how to do something with such a condescending reply as the one Rachel gave. Like I said not every blind person knows how to do every little task required for daily living. Or maybe they've been doing it but the way they've been doing it isn't very convenient so they're just asking for tips to make it a little less tedious. Whatever the case they want a helpful answer, not a snide remark about just doing it. I got enough of those in school when I had trouble with the more difficult branches of math. I need hardly say that that's my worst subject. But it's the same with daily living. When someone asks for help help is what they expect to get, not snide condescension. And as I recall Aurin phrased his questions very politely and reasonably, making such rudeness even more uncalled for.
I think we all, sighted and blind alike have things that we can't do very well.
For example, I have sighted family members (my aunt for one.) who is always forgetting her cell phone. She always loses stuff. She's just always been like that.
Then you have me and I can't tie my shoes or anything. I never learned how to tie stuff. So, I get slip on shoes or something like that.
I have another family member/s that can't manage there money affectively.
My point is that we all have struggles in life and it is how we deal with said struggles that will help or hinder you. I say bravo to anyone that is looking to expand how they handle life in a positive way!! :)
I just wanted to say that sometimes we have no idea what might be problematic for other people. I was reading one time a long time ago about a blind guy who had trouble putting toothpaste on his toothbrush and it never occurred to me that that could be an issue for anyone, but then I probably have things that are problematic for me that others can do just fine. I like to file my nails rather than clip them because I play guitar and other string instruments and am quite picky about the length, not too short, but not too long, either. If you wnt somethign quick then try clippers. It probably takes a time to get used to it, but if you'd like a more precise cut then try a file. I'm using a glass file right now, but I wish that I could find a large file like the one that comes with my very small Swiss Army knife because that one is the bomb.
I had an older woman ask me once if I'd help her learn to use a screwdriver and drive a nail properly. I had not seen this before, since women of my generation generally knew this stuff: trying to not be pinned down by sex-based stereotypes and all that.
I consider myself a rather rudimentary handiman but driving a nail or managing screws without splitting the wood is generally not a problem. It was brave of her to ask actually. And I wondered if her being older, she might have been afraid of getting some snide remark about girls not doing it, or about her not keeping pace with modern women. Well the last one would have come from her fellow women I guess.
There's plenty of the sighted who cannot cook or change a lightbulb.
Heck, I can't even get the toothpaste to stay on the brush most of the time. And as for tying shoes I was ten or so befoe I finally managed to get the hang of it and even now my shoes don't always stay tied. So most days I don't even bother untying them, especially in view of the fact that my feet are so small I can just slip them in.
BryanP22, Have you ever tried this? First, wash your hands (or don't if that's what floats your boat) :-) If you're right-handed, hold the head of your toothbrush between your thumb and index finger. Now, place the tip of the toothpaste tube near the base of the brush and then squeeze until you feel a little resistance, and as you do just drag the tip of the tube to the top of your toothbrush and you should have a nice little line of paste on the top of your bristles. Good luck.
I've actually tried that. But the paste has very much its own ideas on what it wants to do LOL. Needless to say by the time I get my teeth brushed there's always a bit of a mess in the sink LOL.
BryanP22, sorry to hear that that doesn't work for you. I'm at a loss, then, since this is something that I've never really had an issue with. I suppose you could just forget the trying to put it on your toothbrush and get your own personal tube and squeeze it straight into your mouth. My first thought when I thought about this was "ewww", but I guess you gotta do what you gotta do, and if you brush your teeth in private who the hell is going to care.
It took me a really long time to learn to tie my shoes. In fact, it was only at an independent living center I went to a couple years ago, and a particularly good teacher there, that finally got me to understand it. Everyone else had lost their patience with me when they tried to teach me, and I wasn't exactly proud of that fact, but I'm glad to say that I can do it reasonably well now. With that said, condescending remarks are really not the way to make someone change. My parents took it as a measure of the fact that I was stupid because I couldn't do something as simple as tie my shoes, so needless to say it was pretty satisfying when I could finally prove that I could in fact do it.
That's what I do with putting the toothpaste tube in my mouth and not wasting a bit of paste. But when the tube gets down to a little paste, I have trouble getting it out. I saw a post somewhere where a grandma couldn't get paste on her toothbrush, and the suggestion of putting the tube in her mouth was made. With the price of things, why waste anything and you do what you need to do.
You know what? I know a guy who has full sight but is just absentminded that way and his wife suggested he start doing that since she didn't want to always wipe it up.
Also, being a parent, I can say this: kids learn things at different ages: Some can tie the shoes at 5 some a bit older. Plus many don't learn to tie shoes for awhile now, because of VELCRO and other types of shoes they end up wearing.
I don't have problems with the toothpaste, but that is a great idea. Sometimes when the tube gets low I'll suck it out. Cheap? Yes, but wasting stuff just isn't me. Lol.
You can buy the pumps as well. The paste comes all the way out, but these cost more, and seem to never really be on sale.
as long as you live alone or are the only one that's going to be using that tube of toothpaste, why not do what you gotta do to properly get the job done? hahahahaha.
I agree with tech!
I just squeeze the paste on the brush, never had a problem with it. I hold the brush in my right hand and squeeze the paste on with the left lining up the hole where the paste comes out with the toothbrush. Hope this helps!
Shattered Sanity..I think it's awesome that you can tie your shoes now! My mom just didn't have the indurance lol to help teach me.
I'm glad I'm not alone when it comes to toothpaste. Tieing my shoes did not finally get it until 11 or 12.
I don't have a problem keeping the paste on the brush, that is, until I actually start brushing. it stays in my mouth, just not always where I'm guiding the brush, if that makes any sense. then again, I do use an electric brush, and although they do a better job, they can be quite messy if you're not careful.
To the person that prefers filing their nails instead of cutting, I actually tried that for awhile, and quite liked it. Like you said, you can get the length exactly how you want it without the risk of cutting them too short. I just got impatient after awhile, because it does take longer.
I didn't learn how to tie my shoes, or zip a jacket till the age of 16. I was taught by an occupational therapest in school.
as far as the toothpaste issue, I've never had a problem there.
I'm another one that learned to tie his shoes some years later than most kids do. Still, even though I know how to tie a bow knot, which is the only one I know how to do, I prefer slip-on shoes anymore just because most laced shoes use laces that tend to come undone after a while which is a nuissance.
Yeah Godzilla, I agree!
Ocean i get what you mean..
as for the toothpaste, have you tried putting the toothpaste on your finger first? That's what I do and it usually (usually!!) works. there's always those off days though!!! :d
Just use a normal pair of nail clippers. heh
As for tothpaste that's pretty much what I've found works best for me. And since the tube isn't actually in my mouth just positioned directly ove it there's less germs. And since I use a different kind of toothpaste from my GF I have even less to worry aout. As for tying my shoes I think I was ten or eleven before I finally got the hang of it. But when I did it was in less than a day.
I squeeze the toothpaste directly into my mouth. I buy the kind that comes in the little bottle, with the flat flip up lid, because the toothpaste comes out in a straight line. I find it best to sit the bottle upside down when I'm not using it; it keeps the toothpaste near the top of the bottle.
I have cerebral palsy in addition to my blindness, so pretty much had to be taught to do things one handed. It's not fair to make assumptions about why someone may not know how to do something; you never know what other limitations they're working with.
A completely well-stated view from the last poster.
Agreed. And even if they don't have an additional handicap some people just take longer to find a way to do something that works for them.