Alienating a blind character

Ok, please hear me out on this one. I want to write a story. One of the characters is a girl that went blind after an accident and has now returned back to her old school. at first everything seems to be fine but soon her disability alienates her more and more from her former "friends" (a bunch of snobbish kids that only care about their own entertainment).

Sadly i don't really have an idea how to do this. the idea is that her blindness disables her in such a way that her friends dumb her out of their own convince (for example, she isn't able to watch movies or tv, ect). Sadly i have to admit that i don't know enough about blindness to have an realistic grasp on how it would affect someone's life. can anyone help me with that?

Blindness may mess up her life in many ways, although it depends on her character. If she has OCD she might be distraught about now being able to organize anything. Mabye she is annoyed that she has to have people helping her all the time and she could have possibly lost all sense of independence.

I'm blind, so perhaps I can help.

In terms of isolation, being depressed over not being able to share things like video games, comics, etc can be a downer. A lot of people that lose their sight in the middle of young adulthood spend a period mourning what they can't do anymore. Most of it is shrugged off after some months, but that sadness never really goes away.

Independence is also an issue. Many sighted people new to interacting with the visually impaired feel extremely awkward, and tend to want to help by trying to protect them from almost anything they think they'll be hurt by, cane or no. As you can imagine this is very demeaning and can cause more trouble as they can get in the way of you just trying get where you need to go without them tripping over themselves.

And some people just don't know what to do or say, so being ignored isn't uncommon. Crowds will walk past you, everyone apologizes for being in your way, and you tend to be treated in general by most of the public as a delicate doll that needs extra safety.

So yes, it's an intensely isolating experience, disregarding your own coping with the blindness itself, which is a whole other story.

Pardon me if this sounds like an insensitive question (if so, I will shut up and won't ask you again), but I'm just too curious:

If you are blind, how are you reading and posting here? Is there some kind of tool that can assist you with that?

Again, I'm simply curious.

Screen readers and dictation software; it's pretty cool stuff.

Also the term "blind" can encompass folks who are legally blind, but can see to a certain extent. And might be able to see like a really really badly visioned person with the right prescription.

, Ah.

I was going to reply, but it seems you got your answer. Even so, questions are perfectly fine, I've pretty much heard everything at this point, so not much will bother me. If anything it's those that don't ask I have a harder time with.

Let's see... snobbish and immature brats are covered. Being robbed of independency is also covered, in both aspects - the blind character either has their self-esteem hurt because he/she continuously has to ask others for help, or that non-blind people keep trying to help and make things worse.
All of them are related to someone's will and intention. So how about unintended alienation? Friends and people around the blind character may truly be non-biased towards him/her, and hang out with him/her accordingly. They talk and chat normally... in terms that only people with sight can understand. "Oh, did you see that?" "Hey, that looks nice." "Rain? Nah, the sky is fine today."
... Less of an alienation and more of a frustration, really, but still the blind may feel lonely. Especially if such comments keep reminding of his/her loss.

From what I've read, people who are blind don't care about words like "see". If anything, changing your language unnaturally is worse because it emphasizes the problem.

edited 17th Jul '14 9:21:57 PM by storyyeller

OP, you should check out Tommy Edison, a blind YouTuber whose videos offer some insight in living blind. (Although he's been blind since birth.) He specifically mentions words referencing sight in the video below (~1:20 mark), stating that they're just words. "'Did you ever hear Twilight?' I mean, who talks like that?"

Although since your character is newly blind, I could see her taking words like 'see', 'watch', and 'look' badly and perceive it as a reminder of what she can't do anymore, especially if she hasn't really come to terms with it yet.

edited 17th Jul '14 9:39:12 PM by CrystalGlacia

Yeah if anything trying to be so politically correct about replacing commonplace words casually used like see, watch, saw, just isolates you and puts a barrier between you and friends.