Out of every 10 persons, about 3 persons will have some form of visual impairment or the other, which can either be mild or serious.
To be visually impaired indicates that something is happening with your visual organ – the eye.
Before you can be registered as a blind person, you need to undergo a visual acuity test (which is a test carried out to see how far, how much, and how well you can actually see).
If your test result falls between 0-20 out of 200, then you’re officially termed and known as a blind individual.
This can happen as a result of a number of things, some of which will be mentioned below.
This doesn’t indicate the end of the world for you.
The only thing making you different from the other individual is that you cannot see as they can see. As a matter of fact, your other senses become heightened and sharpened than that of a seeing person.
The severity of the eye condition after becoming blind will determine if a blind person can cry or not.
Table of Contents
- What You Need to Know About the Eye
- Tears and Crying
- Why are Tears Important?
- Types of Tears
- Benefits of Crying
- Can Blind People Cry?
- Why the Eyes Need to Be Lubricated
What You Need to Know About the Eye
The eye is composed of optic nerves and oil glands.
There are approximately 75 oil glands in the eyelids of each eye and they are located behind the eyelash follicles.
These glands function as oil secretors into the tear duct.
Once they stop performing due to a dysfunction, they will automatically affect your tear duct/film, which is also known as the lacrimal glands. And this could result in a number of eye problems.
The lacrimal glands are located above each of your eyeballs and are responsible for the continuous supply of the tears that come out through your eyes.
Related: 3 Ways a Blind Person Knows When They Are Awake
Tears and Crying
Tears are lacrimal secretions/fluids that protect, cleanse, lubricate, and moisten the surface of the eyes. They help to transport oxygen and nutrients to the surface of your eyes.
If the tear ducts become blocked, you’re bound to have a problem producing tears.
Tear duct blockage can happen to anybody – whether blind or seeing.
And it is usually a result of injury, age, infection, cancer and cancer treatment, glaucoma medication, sinus, and many more.
Why are Tears Important?
Tears are important for everyone’s eyes regardless of eye disabilities because it helps to prevent eye problems.
Statistics show that women are liable to cry 60% more than men most likely because:
- The society perceives tears as a form of weakness, hence men are encouraged not to cry
- Men are generally known to have smaller tear ducts
- Men have a lesser amount of hormone producing tears known as prolactin, and a high amount of hormone known as testosterone, which hinders crying
Types of Tears
There are three different categories of tears; emotional tears, basal tears, and reflex tears.
Emotional Tears
Emotional tears are triggered by one’s emotional state of mind.
You can perhaps receive good news, have memories, and the surge of happiness, amongst other factors that can cause you to tear up. The same goes for bad news, gloomy mood, pain, and a surge of sadness.
These emotions can lead to an overflow of tears.
Basal Tears
Basal tears are more or less like the usual secretions of the lacrimal glands. These tears are there to help protect and keep your eyes hydrated, prevent dirt in your eyes, and sharpen your focus.
Reflex Tears
This is also known as irritating tears because what triggers them is irritating to the eyes.
Irritating or reflex tears are triggered by sudden reflexes or anything that irritates the eyes like smoke, onions, dust, dirt, or when you puke.
These tears wash out whatever is irritating the eyes and cleanse out the eyes.
Related: 6 Ways Blind People Know When to Stop Wiping their Butt
Benefits of Crying
Crying can be said to be the action of shedding tears in response to a state of pain or emotion.
It cannot be over-emphasized that crying is a means of releasing stress and emotional pain because bottling up your emotions can result in a number of psychological issues and the nursing of bad habits.
Bad habits like smoking, drinking, emotional withdrawal, drugs, suicidal thoughts, and many others often occur as a result of not allowing yourself to feel emotional and preventing yourself from crying even when you ought to.
Crying also helps in releasing certain chemicals like oxytocin and endogenous opioids (also known as endorphins) that make you feel good afterward.
This is why anytime you cry whenever you feel down, low, or sharing memories (be it sad or happy ones), you feel a little bit better than how you were feeling before crying.
Can Blind People Cry?
Yes, blind people can cry just like every seeing person as long as the tear duct isn’t damaged
beyond repair. Otherwise, no. They can’t. The severity of the eye condition determines if they can cry or not.
When the meibomian glands (oil glands) start to malfunction, a series of eye conditions arise such as Trichiasis, Chalazions, Dry Eye Syndrome, MGD (Blepharitis and Meibomian Gland Dysfunction), Styes, and other eye conditions including the tear duct blockage.
Once the tear ducts are blocked or damaged, it poses a threat to the production of tears.
If a person already has irreversible blindness and the tear ducts are damaged, then that blind person will face difficulty in producing tears and crying.
However, this inability to cry by affected blind people is not a result of not having emotions or feelings. It’s simply because the organ responsible for the production of tears is not functioning.
Thus, blind people should never be perceived as not being able to cry or being cold with their emotions.
Related: Here’s How a Blind Person Knows If It’s Day or Night
Why the Eyes Need to Be Lubricated
The eyes need to be constantly lubricated so that they can be protected from infections that could cause a variety of discomfort.
Some of these include redness, burning in the eye, tenderness of the eyelid, a boil-like structure at the base of the eyelid, and pain.
Many of these eye problems are some of the strings that lead to the major causes of blindness in a person. When the eye is constantly lubricated, then there is no cause for alarm, except if an accident occurs.
