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What can I do with my brother (22M) who recently went blind? (self.Blind)
submitted by TheGirlWhoLived6
Hi guys! So just to give some background, my dad got remarried and now I have a stepbrother who is 22 and recently went blind a few years ago due to a medication which became toxic and caused irreversible damage to his optic nerve. It happened 4 years ago i think and we've actually gotten pretty close. During one of our talks he said he's really upset that this happened to him and I think he still has not fully accepted the fact that he's blind and there is no treatment for it. I am in the medical field so i asked him as many questions as possible and he said he can see 30% of the thing through his peripheral vision. So my quesiton is, what activities can we do together so he doesn't feel as lonely. What about games? we tried playing monopoly, Uno, some computer games but he couldnt play it. I definitely dont want to enable him by any means but i just wanted to ask what i can do with him and if i can help him in some way? Thank you!
Vicorin 13 points 3y ago
I’m completely blind, and half my siblings can see, the other half can’t. We play a lot of games together.
Video Games: obviously you can’t play call of duty together, but I’ve found that turn based strategy games are great to play. Some games, like Civilizations, Age of Wonders, etc, can be played in hot seat multiplayer. On your turn, you do everything you’d normally do, then on his turn, you control the game, read menus, describe what places would have good resources for settling, etc and just let him make the choices and tell you what he wants to do. We play some similar games without hot seat this way, like Total War and Stellarus, where we run the empire together and both collaborate on decision and strategy.
We also play other kind of turn based games, like XCOM. Instead of one player controlling the entire squad, we each pick a main soldier to control, and any leftover we just collaborate on. Again, requires you to describe and control things. We’ve even done some real time with pause games, like Faster Than Light, with some of the same principles as XCOM and frequent pauses.
Tabletop Games: if the video games don’t work out, you guys might try tabletop RPG’s like D&D, Pathfinder, etc. there’s tons of different genres and game systems, and they’re just a hell of a lot of fun. They require no sight. You can find most things online or in digital format, character sheets are online, you can roll dice online, and that’s all you need. I can’t see anything, and I run games all the times for my sighted friends without a problem. It’s most fun with a group of three or four, but my little brother and I played tons of D&D with just the two of us.
Board games: board and card games are a little more tricky, especially when hidden cards start coming into lay. If he knows Braille, a company called 64oz games makes Braille kits for different board games that come with card sleeves and Braille labels and stuff. If there’s not a bunch of super secret stuff, you can just read cards to him. If there is, there’s apps like Seeing AI, that can quickly read bits of short text like that would be on a card. This is how I play Cards Against Humanity.
There’s way to do things, it just requires you guys to work together, and maybe find some creative solutions.
Video Games: obviously you can’t play call of duty together, but I’ve found that turn based strategy games are great to play. Some games, like Civilizations, Age of Wonders, etc, can be played in hot seat multiplayer. On your turn, you do everything you’d normally do, then on his turn, you control the game, read menus, describe what places would have good resources for settling, etc and just let him make the choices and tell you what he wants to do. We play some similar games without hot seat this way, like Total War and Stellarus, where we run the empire together and both collaborate on decision and strategy.
We also play other kind of turn based games, like XCOM. Instead of one player controlling the entire squad, we each pick a main soldier to control, and any leftover we just collaborate on. Again, requires you to describe and control things. We’ve even done some real time with pause games, like Faster Than Light, with some of the same principles as XCOM and frequent pauses.
Tabletop Games: if the video games don’t work out, you guys might try tabletop RPG’s like D&D, Pathfinder, etc. there’s tons of different genres and game systems, and they’re just a hell of a lot of fun. They require no sight. You can find most things online or in digital format, character sheets are online, you can roll dice online, and that’s all you need. I can’t see anything, and I run games all the times for my sighted friends without a problem. It’s most fun with a group of three or four, but my little brother and I played tons of D&D with just the two of us.
Board games: board and card games are a little more tricky, especially when hidden cards start coming into lay. If he knows Braille, a company called 64oz games makes Braille kits for different board games that come with card sleeves and Braille labels and stuff. If there’s not a bunch of super secret stuff, you can just read cards to him. If there is, there’s apps like Seeing AI, that can quickly read bits of short text like that would be on a card. This is how I play Cards Against Humanity.
There’s way to do things, it just requires you guys to work together, and maybe find some creative solutions.
Hellsacomin94 8 points 3y ago
If he’s interested in computer programming he should definitely learn Braille. He could use a refreshable Braille display and read that way.
DrillInstructorJan 5 points 3y ago
If a bit of solidarity helps, I lost my sight very suddenly at 19 and four years in I was saying more or less the same things. So give him a high five from me. Better you than me, anyway. Two blind people trying to high five one another is sort of grimly hilarious.
For me that was a long time ago and if he's anything like me, the reality is you're never going to like it but there are different levels of not liking it. The issue is the process you go through on the way to realising that. For me it took years and that was completely unnecessary. You have to go out and do things and demonstrate to yourself that you can do that, so your approach of doing stuff together is a really good one. Just make sure you don't do everything, let the guy figure stuff out. It takes time and it is not a huge pile of fun but it is necessary and you can help. Nobody helped me because I was too stubborn and it made me nasty, and you can make that part of it easier by expecting it.
Just know that you're in for a hell of a time if he's anything like me.
For me that was a long time ago and if he's anything like me, the reality is you're never going to like it but there are different levels of not liking it. The issue is the process you go through on the way to realising that. For me it took years and that was completely unnecessary. You have to go out and do things and demonstrate to yourself that you can do that, so your approach of doing stuff together is a really good one. Just make sure you don't do everything, let the guy figure stuff out. It takes time and it is not a huge pile of fun but it is necessary and you can help. Nobody helped me because I was too stubborn and it made me nasty, and you can make that part of it easier by expecting it.
Just know that you're in for a hell of a time if he's anything like me.
cultfamous 3 points 3y ago
My dad has less sight than me so we do crosswords together. I read out the clues using the same format as blind crosswords and he visualises it in his mind. He’s really good at them and usually gets more answers than I do. Or maybe a pub trivia podcast? If you’re old enough, you could have a beer together while doing the quiz... for pub trivia authenticity’s sake
TheGirlWhoLived6 [OP] 3 points 3y ago
OOhhh i think trivia would be amazing! and yes haha we both are old enough! im going to try it out tonight! Are there any particular podcasts you recommend? I found "Pub Trivia Experience" in the podcast app.
[deleted] 3 points 3y ago
[deleted]
TheGirlWhoLived6 [OP] 5 points 3y ago
Aw thank you! that means a lot! And no he has not because he thinks he can get by without it (I still think it's partly denial). He is in the phase where he isn't sure what he wants to do with his life anymore. He had all these goals before of wanting to become a game developer but now he cant see the computer screen too well so he can't do it anymore. Hes exploring voice acting, producing some music stuff like that.
Duriello 8 points 3y ago
As /u/Cowener said it's still possible to produce video-games with this condition, as I wrote a $1 with 3D graphics all by myself not long ago just to prove that I could, and it's also possible to code without a Braille display, as again I do it and despite having learned it I can't read Braille to save my life. It may take some time to accept the situation and move on though; in my case I spent 5 years self-sabotaging and wanting to die before pulling my head out of my ass and start coding again. My stance on blind programming went from thinking it was impossible back when I had sight to thinking it was too hard for me when I went blind to finally ending up doing it myself.
liamjh27 2 points 3y ago
Any chance you could suggest where to start? I’d be interested in this for myself but always kind of convinced myself it would be pointless and unachievable to a high enough a standard. Looking for something new to do so could be really helpful if you don’t mind sharing.
Duriello 3 points 3y ago
Honestly I don't know, I just know it's possible because I do it, but I learned most of what I know with sight so I just picked up from where I left. However there are blind people out there who never enjoyed coding with sight and still learned. It's also possible to code to high standards, provided that you have people around who can help you test less accessible things such as games, but even if you don't do games there's plenty you can do. I thought, for example, that developing good looking user interfaces was out of my reach, but then Apple released SwiftUI which relies on some advanced Swift features to create a descriptive domain specific language for user interface design that's very intuitive even for someone completely blind like me, and I'm developing a free and complete MIDI sequencer with it.
There are two fundamental differences between myself now and before losing my sight: nowadays I only code what I think I can whereas before I accepted any challenge, and due to the steeper learning curve I'm not even close to being as versatile as I was.
There are two fundamental differences between myself now and before losing my sight: nowadays I only code what I think I can whereas before I accepted any challenge, and due to the steeper learning curve I'm not even close to being as versatile as I was.
Cowener 3 points 3y ago
Programming games is definitely not impossible as a blind person. Even if fully blind. It just requires a ton of effort to learn for everyone who tries, sighted or not sighted. In fact the more hardcore and text based the easier to manage.
Your brother sounds like a creative person, have you considered suggesting him to start writing? Writing stories, or a book or just what's on his mind. That may also help getting over the stage of denial. Or suggest him mastering an instrument, maybe buy him a guitar or a piano or similar ? :)
Your brother sounds like a creative person, have you considered suggesting him to start writing? Writing stories, or a book or just what's on his mind. That may also help getting over the stage of denial. Or suggest him mastering an instrument, maybe buy him a guitar or a piano or similar ? :)
liamjh27 3 points 3y ago
Where would you suggest starting? I’d be interested at looking into this for myself.
Cowener 1 points 3y ago
Also here is a thread by the way with many inputs from blind programmers :) i hope it can help but it's a lot of info
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/118984/how-can-you-program-if-youre-blind
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/118984/how-can-you-program-if-youre-blind
Cowener 1 points 3y ago
I'm not quite sure where to start because there are several languages to learn to program in, but there is a blind game developer and programmer who runs a project called $1 which also has a youtube channel with tons and tons of video tutorials on how to code. Here is a link to the youtube channel: $1
Once you decide which language you want to program in, then find out a program or a compiler, but go really easy and simple, programming can be really really frustrating for everyone and often is. It takes a long time to learn to do the basics but then you might get the hang of it and get caught in the universe. There are tons of stories about legendary non sighted villain hackers, programmers, developers so it's never impossible.
By the way i found this answer from a blind programmer online on what programs he uses, so i copy and pasted it into this thread. It's a bit long but here goes:
Citation starting
"I am a totally blind college student who’s had several programming internships so my answer will be based off these. I use windows xp as my operating system and $1 to read what appears on the screen to me in synthetic speech. For java programming I use eclipse, since it’s a fully featured IDE that is accessible.
In my experience as a general rule java programs that use SWT as the GUI toolkit are more accessible then programs that use Swing which is why I stay away from netbeans. For any .net programming I use visual studio 2005 since it was the standard version used at my internship and is very accessible using Jaws and a set of scripts that were developed to make things such as the form designer more accessible.
For C and C++ programming I use cygwin (spelled c y g w i n ) with g c c as my compiler and emacs or vim as my editor depending on what I need to do. A lot of my internship involved programming for Z/OS. I used an r login session through C y g w i n to access the U S S subsystem on the mainframe and C 3 2 7 0 as my 3270 emulator to access the ISPF portion of the mainframe.
I usually rely on synthetic speech but do have a Braille display. I find I usually work faster with speech but use the Braille display in situations where punctuation matters and gets complicated. Examples of this are if statements with lots of nested parenthesis’s and JCL where punctuation is incredibly important.
## Update
I'm playing with E mac speak under c y g w i n $1 I'm not sure if this will be usable as a programming editor since it appears to be somewhat unresponsive but I haven't looked at any of the configuration options yet."
​
Citation ended.
So please let me know if you need help with getting started with any of these programs, also let me know if you need any explanations from the youtube videos like things shown in the video which isn't mentioned or that doesn't make sense. I'll help ya and im sighted
Once you decide which language you want to program in, then find out a program or a compiler, but go really easy and simple, programming can be really really frustrating for everyone and often is. It takes a long time to learn to do the basics but then you might get the hang of it and get caught in the universe. There are tons of stories about legendary non sighted villain hackers, programmers, developers so it's never impossible.
By the way i found this answer from a blind programmer online on what programs he uses, so i copy and pasted it into this thread. It's a bit long but here goes:
Citation starting
"I am a totally blind college student who’s had several programming internships so my answer will be based off these. I use windows xp as my operating system and $1 to read what appears on the screen to me in synthetic speech. For java programming I use eclipse, since it’s a fully featured IDE that is accessible.
In my experience as a general rule java programs that use SWT as the GUI toolkit are more accessible then programs that use Swing which is why I stay away from netbeans. For any .net programming I use visual studio 2005 since it was the standard version used at my internship and is very accessible using Jaws and a set of scripts that were developed to make things such as the form designer more accessible.
For C and C++ programming I use cygwin (spelled c y g w i n ) with g c c as my compiler and emacs or vim as my editor depending on what I need to do. A lot of my internship involved programming for Z/OS. I used an r login session through C y g w i n to access the U S S subsystem on the mainframe and C 3 2 7 0 as my 3270 emulator to access the ISPF portion of the mainframe.
I usually rely on synthetic speech but do have a Braille display. I find I usually work faster with speech but use the Braille display in situations where punctuation matters and gets complicated. Examples of this are if statements with lots of nested parenthesis’s and JCL where punctuation is incredibly important.
## Update
I'm playing with E mac speak under c y g w i n $1 I'm not sure if this will be usable as a programming editor since it appears to be somewhat unresponsive but I haven't looked at any of the configuration options yet."
​
Citation ended.
So please let me know if you need help with getting started with any of these programs, also let me know if you need any explanations from the youtube videos like things shown in the video which isn't mentioned or that doesn't make sense. I'll help ya and im sighted
tallulah-belle 2 points 3y ago
He would probably benefit from braille, even if he isn't using it all the time because he's using what vision he does have there are things that maybe easier in the long run. At this time there is no way to fix the optic nerve so his situation isn't likely to change. I can't even begin to understand how he's feeling right now my daughter was born blind so it's all she's ever known. When she was younger she struggled with accepting that she will have to use braille, she has some vision but it's not enough vision to get along without braille. I personally don't know a lot about gaming/game design but there is so much that the visually impaired can do successfully so things gaming related may not be out of the question.
DrillInstructorJan 6 points 3y ago
Braille is really shockingly difficult to do well and I have found it really hard work, to be honest. Nobody likes being reminded of their limitations and learning it as an adult sucks. I'm not saying don't do it, but it is not easy to do even in the best of circumstances.
tallulah-belle 3 points 3y ago
I agree it is definitely difficult to learn, I learned as an adult to help my daughter. But even learning the basics could help.
TheGirlWhoLived6 [OP] 2 points 3y ago
I’m going to slowly test out the idea of him learning Braille and see if he’s more open to it now? And yesss I keep telling him that it’s not the end of his career! There’s so many things still out there for him to do! But right now he just needs to work on accepting that this is how it’s going to be and he needs to make the best of it! I don’t wanna push too hard tho because I don’t want to overstep and accidentally trigger something since I’m still getting to know him!
DrillInstructorJan 2 points 3y ago
Maybe just do labels if he needs them. I can do "coffee" and "sugar" and "red" on clothes or whatever, that's easy enough, then you can feel like you're getting something out of it. You can get braille dymo machines.
tallulah-belle 2 points 3y ago
Has he ever see a counselor/therapist? He may need to talk to a professional. He has had a great loss in his life. Everything changed for him, all his plans, how he thought is life would be changed pretty quickly.
I've already read some awesome suggestions from others. Hope you guys can find something great to do together!
I've already read some awesome suggestions from others. Hope you guys can find something great to do together!
Cowener 2 points 3y ago
There are tons of things to do that enable other senses, Take him to concerts (classical) or something else he enjoys which isn't too full of insensible drunks, go to a restaurant or food tastings like streetfood, restaurants. Listen to podcasts together or suggest him soundbooks which by the way is even used mostly by sighted people. Go for walks in nature and go hiking ( not in steep or risky terrains but stay on safe trails). Talk about the world, the universe, history, science or things he enjoys.
I do most of these things with my father, an internal medicine MD PhD who slowly went blind over +10 years from a condition a bit similar to retinitis pigmentosa. We also watch documentaries together, mysterical medical diagnosis cases and other shows which are primarily based on information instead of relying majorly on visual aspects. I can't really help my dad other than being useful when at home because the sight is gone and it's never returning. My dad never wanted to talk about losing his vision because he was ashamed of it and felt like his entire universe was collapsing since he worked in research + clinically in hospitals as well. In the first couple of years he was in denial and pretending everything was fine. And that really broke me growing up. So it's not easy to talk about either. And it hurts to talk about for some people. So maybe talking about other things is mostly better. Keeping focus on the good things instead of the limitations, and finding new opportunities despite of the darkness.
Maybe the best way for him to deal with these things is to talk with others in similar conditions so he doesn't feel alone in this world with all this. And learning to use programs that allows socialising with others in the same situation. maybe r/blind discord or something similar?
I do most of these things with my father, an internal medicine MD PhD who slowly went blind over +10 years from a condition a bit similar to retinitis pigmentosa. We also watch documentaries together, mysterical medical diagnosis cases and other shows which are primarily based on information instead of relying majorly on visual aspects. I can't really help my dad other than being useful when at home because the sight is gone and it's never returning. My dad never wanted to talk about losing his vision because he was ashamed of it and felt like his entire universe was collapsing since he worked in research + clinically in hospitals as well. In the first couple of years he was in denial and pretending everything was fine. And that really broke me growing up. So it's not easy to talk about either. And it hurts to talk about for some people. So maybe talking about other things is mostly better. Keeping focus on the good things instead of the limitations, and finding new opportunities despite of the darkness.
Maybe the best way for him to deal with these things is to talk with others in similar conditions so he doesn't feel alone in this world with all this. And learning to use programs that allows socialising with others in the same situation. maybe r/blind discord or something similar?
TheGirlWhoLived6 [OP] 2 points 3y ago
Wow thank you so much for taking the time to write all this! I def listen to music with him and we try to cook together sometimes where I just tell him to do things that I know he could I can do! And although our situations are kind of different I know my brother is definitely in denial still and he’s really hard on himself and thinks his life has ended and he can’t do anything. I’m trying to get him to see the therapist I go to because it’s helped me so much and I really feel like it could help him too! I’m going to suggest things slowly and see how he responds because he is definitely sensitive about some things when it comes to his blindness.
[deleted] 1 points 3y ago
[removed]
[deleted] 1 points 3y ago
All of these suggestions are wonderful. I would recommend doing something outdoors, like going for walks or even getting a tandem bicycle if you can afford it. Unfortunately, many people who are visually impaired spend a large amount of their time indoors.
blackberrybunny 1 points 3y ago
What can you do with your brother? Everything you two did before. :-)
First thing he should learn after learning how to use a white cane, is Grade 1 Braille. (And you as well. You can learn it visually), so that you can help him mark those UNO cards with Braille dots to indicate which card/color/number it is. It's quite easy actually. You'll need a slate and stylus to do it. And just remember--when you learn to write Braille, everything must be written backwards, so when you flip the paper (or card) over, it will read correctly.
Just keeping watching this subreddit, and you will learn so much. :-)
First thing he should learn after learning how to use a white cane, is Grade 1 Braille. (And you as well. You can learn it visually), so that you can help him mark those UNO cards with Braille dots to indicate which card/color/number it is. It's quite easy actually. You'll need a slate and stylus to do it. And just remember--when you learn to write Braille, everything must be written backwards, so when you flip the paper (or card) over, it will read correctly.
Just keeping watching this subreddit, and you will learn so much. :-)
AtriceMC 1 points 3y ago
I am the only visually impaired person in my family as well. All you need to know is that finding a hobby will get everyone, including him, through tough times. I may not be able to see, but i can play video games, along with my visually impaired husband. Gaming is also a way we bond. For him, if he is totally blind, i highly suggest fighting style games, like Mortal KOMBAT or Injustice. SoulCalibur would be good too but there are areas of the map where you can fall off, and sometimes I fall for the “edge trap.”
Basically, find a hobby you can get into together, whether that be gaming, doing some kind of tactile art like knitting, watching/listening to movies, or even cooking. Find hobbies that he is into and go from there. There are also different types of technology for us blind people that help us see the world in different ways. For me, it’s my iPad and iPhone. I even have a Bluetooth Keyboard that helps me type better and faster because it is a tactile stimulation so i know exactly what i am writing without having to have my screen five inches away from my face. LOL.
Enjoy the new memories.
Basically, find a hobby you can get into together, whether that be gaming, doing some kind of tactile art like knitting, watching/listening to movies, or even cooking. Find hobbies that he is into and go from there. There are also different types of technology for us blind people that help us see the world in different ways. For me, it’s my iPad and iPhone. I even have a Bluetooth Keyboard that helps me type better and faster because it is a tactile stimulation so i know exactly what i am writing without having to have my screen five inches away from my face. LOL.
Enjoy the new memories.
saharacanuck 1 points 3y ago
Did he like sports before going blind? You could look into running with him (you might need some training to guide him). There are a variety of adapted sports.
cultfamous 1 points 3y ago
Maybe try Quiz Quiz Bang Bang
fieryfish42 1 points 3y ago
You also might want to connect him with his local chapter of the Affiliated Blind of America.
kkolb7 1 points 3y ago
You may be able to:
Play chess, checkers (look for blind-accessible pieces), play cards
Take walks
Ride tandem bikes
Ride tandem canoes, kayak, etc.
Go for rides in your car / motorcycle
shopping
go to concerts / dances
watch movies (go to one that has a description headset) at the theatre or at home (describe for him or see if the program has descriptive video audio track)
cook / eat
do ham radio
listen to sports games on the radio (more descriptive than tv)
double date
Just about everything except go to an art museum :) Hey, you can even do that!
Have fun!
(I am a woman married to a totally blind man for more than 30 years)
Play chess, checkers (look for blind-accessible pieces), play cards
Take walks
Ride tandem bikes
Ride tandem canoes, kayak, etc.
Go for rides in your car / motorcycle
shopping
go to concerts / dances
watch movies (go to one that has a description headset) at the theatre or at home (describe for him or see if the program has descriptive video audio track)
cook / eat
do ham radio
listen to sports games on the radio (more descriptive than tv)
double date
Just about everything except go to an art museum :) Hey, you can even do that!
Have fun!
(I am a woman married to a totally blind man for more than 30 years)
aaronespinozaca 1 points 3y ago
I am sure he can still be a game developer. It is going to be hard though. When it comes to playing games try RS Games just be warrant it's addicting . What I really like about RS Games is that they are main stream games people have heard of.
https://rsgames.org/
Also listen to some Kenneth Jernigan speeches for a positive outlook on blindness.
https://www.nfb.org/resources/speeches-and-reports/banquet-speeches
I would tell you that he should attend a residential adjustment to blindness center but they are semi closed because of the epidemic going on right now.
https://rsgames.org/
Also listen to some Kenneth Jernigan speeches for a positive outlook on blindness.
https://www.nfb.org/resources/speeches-and-reports/banquet-speeches
I would tell you that he should attend a residential adjustment to blindness center but they are semi closed because of the epidemic going on right now.
[deleted] 1 points 3y ago
[deleted]
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