[nabs-l] Awkward Situations: What would you do?

Teal Bloodworth tealbloodworth at gmail.com
Mon Sep 21 14:27:35 UTC 2009


you dont show any emotion? I am sorry but that is hard to believe....maybe 
the facial expression you do show is presumibly unfriendly?

As for them not talking to you that is rediculus. The dark shades is alittle 
stereotipical for me but i oddly keep my eyes open....Not sure why and i say 
i am totally blind but i dont just see darkness. This is probably a 
psychological factor in that i see a type of gray scale all the time and in 
department stores it seems to be lighter because of the numerous florescent 
lighting but other times i cannot really tell for sure whether i am in a 
lighted room or not. Have you been blind or visually impaired since birth? I 
have found a slight difference in personality characteristics in people 
blind since birth and those that have become blind in the middle of life. 
And honestly i have heard of people who wear the dark shades but never 
personally met anyone that does. Can i ask you why you choose to do so?

            -Teal
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark J. Cadigan" <kramc11 at gmail.com>
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2009 8:21 PM
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Awkward Situations: What would you do?


> Most sighted people just think I am angry or something based off my facial 
> expression. I am just neutral, neither happy nor mad or any ware else on 
> the emotional spectrum. Some people don't like it when I don't make/keep 
> eye contact. Sometimes people don't talk to me, because they think I am 
> too unreadable at times.
>
> As a side note, how do you think wearing dark sunglasses all the time 
> affects others reaction to you? In my experience my dark glasses and 
> occasionally emotionless body language create a lot of oukword situations.
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Teal Bloodworth" <tealbloodworth at gmail.com>
> To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" 
> <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2009 9:00 PM
> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Awkward Situations: What would you do?
>
>
>> Honestly, yes i have had vision before but my eye movement via TBI isnt 
>> the best however people say through my facial expressions and ability to 
>> look in the direction of the person thanks to depth perception people say 
>> i dont even look blind. I am not sure of what a typical blind person 
>> looks like but i believe all of these reflexes you are describing comes 
>> naturally from your environment and maturation during infancy. We are 
>> actually talking about this in developmental psych. Reflexes like 
>> reaching, grabbing and walking and talking is a distinct developmental 
>> stage according to piaget. Some say we learn these through environment 
>> and social interaction while others say it is a specific cognative change 
>> in our biological being.
>>
>> I agree with yu that it is a very interesting question and this topic is 
>> a personal interest. As for showing the world when you are pissed off or 
>> sad or even happy i dont think you learn from actually seeing other 
>> peoples responses to an action. I believe you learn these emotions 
>> through personality development of what actions give you these feelings, 
>> then these feelings are visually portrayed naturally.
>>
>> Dont quote me on anything, this is my opinion of the answer to your 
>> question...i am a social work/psychology major
>>
>>            -Teal
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Joseph C. Lininger" <jbahm at pcdesk.net>
>> To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" 
>> <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2009 5:29 PM
>> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Awkward Situations: What would you do?
>>
>>
>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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>>>
>>> Teal,
>>> LOL That's funny. Honestly, I've never had much sight and never had
>>> muscle control over my eyes. So I don't know much about looking at other
>>> people, eye contact, that sort of thing. I have been told it's
>>> disconcerting for a person to never make eye contact, and that it's even
>>> more disconcerting for a person to make eye contact constantly and never
>>> break it. I'm afraid I never learned the finer points though.
>>>
>>> This is somewhat related, and I'd be curious to know what the
>>> psychologists and sociologists among you think. I'll need to lay a
>>> little ground work for the more general question, so bare with me. I've
>>> known for some time that my emotions and moods  are communicated
>>> visually, at least sometimes. But I had something happen that actually
>>> got me curious about trying to find out exactly how it happens. We had a
>>> router go down in a data center at a company I had been working for a
>>> few months ago. I'd had a bad day the day before trying to get
>>> everything working, and that router went down at about 4 am and took the
>>> entire company off the Internet. Well, I came out of my hotel room and
>>> one of the first things the guy driving me to the data center said was,
>>> "wow Joe, you look really pissed off. Like maybe you'd like to kill
>>> someone." I hadn't given any hint to being pissed off, though I was. I
>>> wasn't even aware of it being communicated in my looks, I'd tried to
>>> look pleasant and ready for another day despite the promise of yet more
>>> problems.
>>>
>>> After this, I became curious about exactly how expressive or not I was
>>> with body language, facial expressions, etc. I asked people who had
>>> known me for a while, mainly family members about it and they all said I
>>> was in fact expressive visually, at least to a point. My sister even
>>> provided a running commentary one day for a few minutes on what my face
>>> was doing while conversing with people at her house. So, here's my 
>>> question.
>>>
>>> I always thought that at least to a point people learned these
>>> expressions and that mostly by observing those around them and learning
>>> what they meant. I knew basic stuff like a smile or frown didn't work
>>> that way, and I could even understand certain reflexive expressions. For
>>> example, stiffening in response to fear or anger. However, I thought the
>>> more detailed stuff, arching eyebrows, moving of the eyes with certain
>>> expressions, that sort of thing was learned behavior. Well, seeing in
>>> how I can't see others doing these things and never have been able to,
>>> how would I have possibly picked them up? Have any experiments been done
>>> regarding such things? And more interesting... Some stuff, such as
>>> nodding, shaking the head, or shrugging, I had to be specifically taught
>>> those while I didn't other expressions. Does anyone have any ideas on
>>> what governs what visual cues are natural or learned in spite of lack of
>>> vision and which must be picked up visually?
>>> - --
>>> Stress (N): The condition that occurs when ones mind overrides the
>>> body's natural desire to reach out and slap the hell out of someone
>>> who desperately deserves it.
>>> Joseph C. Lininger, <jbahm at pcdesk.net>
>>>
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