Category: Let's talk
do any of yall ever get a sighted person say something like
"Oh you pour child, it must be hard being blind" or "it must suck being blind" or even "I would love to be blind"
or some people trying to help you with the most basic things?
I would like to hear yalls experiences.
my shoe laces keep coming untied, guess I need to get new ones, but I get a tun of people trying to stop me and tie them for me. It usually happens when walking from one class to another, or threw the store and I can't stop right at that moment to tie them with out feeling like I am getting in others ways.
wow, they'le actually ask to tie them for you?
I get it a lot, or people marveling at me because i'm catching the train all by myself.
I always just turn the tide if i'm good natured enough and not in a bad mood. I act all amazed that they are doing stuff on their own and they leave me be.
Ooh, I'll have to try that one! I usually go straight for the sarcasm and insults, unless I see that the person is honestly interested and wants to learn. i don't mind questions etc. so long as I don't get pitty, which I don't tolerate, or the amazed crap. most people stop doing that after awhile. another thing that I'd never tolerate is a person grabbbing me without saying anything. This would actually make me get downright violent.
another one that seems to work is asking them how they would feel if I came up to them and did whatever it was they did, or if a sighted person had the same problem, would they help them?
I've had people either suggest or say right out that they felt I was worse off because I was blind than they were. Thing is, how can a person, especially a total stranger who knows nothing about you, compare their life with yours? What total silliness! I've tried telling people I live a happy life and it seems they either don't believe it or choose not to hear it.
what really anoys me is when a person asks "how many fingers am I holding up"
most of my friends are sighted and they occasionally have questions but thats totally natural.
I walk to school and to local places and will come across people who will be walking down the road and will come up to me and ask me if I need help across the road, or they will tell me that they are so amazed that I can to all I do all by myself. I also have a couple of ladies come up to me and told me that they were proud of me for getting out and about all by myself. They said it as if they were talking to a child. I am 21, yes I am young, but I am also short, so I appear to be younger than I really am, but is no need to treat me like a child. It took me a while to understand that I wasn't doing anything to make people on accation to talk to me as if I am a child, but its their own lack of knolege of the capabilities of a blind person that makes them treat me in this manner. Most of the time I say thanks, or no thanks, and go on, trying to be as polite as I can be: but alot of times I find my self wanting to use the same tone and jump up and down clapping my hands and saying, "Oh wow! I am Sooo proud that your getting out and about on this fine fine day as well!!!" Take note of the exclamation marks.
guys, please remember that honey draws flies better than does vinegar Many times, people say things like how amazed they are out of k indness. They do onot have an ulterior motive. I always thank them and say "you imagine that it would be dificult tod o whatever, but remember, I've been this way all my life. If you were suddenly dropped in to this situationit would be challenging for you but I bet you could figure things out too."
Yeah some sighted people feel sorry for me because I'm blind, some are amazed at what I can do, and others offer to help me when I don't require their assistance. However, it doesn't anger or annoy me.
I would rather be offered help when I don't need it than not be offered help when I do need it. An offer to help is an expression of kindness, and kindness is good.
If people feel sorry for me because I'm blind, that is proof that they are caring. There is no need for them to feel sorry for me, and if I think they need reassuring I'll tell them that being blind isn't that bad, and that though what I can do is limited, there are still things I can do and some things I have to do differently.
If people are amazed at what I can do, they obviously didn't think blind people could do as much as they can. That doesn't mean they had a bad attitude towards blind people, it just means they didn't know what blind people could do. There are many things I don't know about blind people and sighted people, so I have that in common with them. Amazing people by doing things they didn't think I do is good, because they will know more after meeting me than they did before meeting me.
As for the shoelaces thing in post 2, I've had that too. When people offer to tie my laces, I let them. It is kind for them to offer, and people should be encouraged to be helpful and thanked for the help they offer, even if you choose to reject their help.
Eh,I get it a lot on different levels.
The important thing is to try and distinguish sympathy from empathy. Sympathy would be the "You poor thing, it must be so difficult!" kind of phrase, whereas empathy would be closer to "I can't imagine being able to catch the train if I couldn't see!"
One deals with worry and pity, the other deals with curiosity and admiration.
I've had people hold doors for me and tell me the street's safe to cross and whatnot, which can sometimes be irksome. Still, I'm glad they take the time; it shows that they're at least attentive to those around them and not self-absorbed.
Post 11 was very thought-prevoking and well-written. alot of good points there. Personally, my mobility is really bad, so I would be very appreciative if someone offered to help me cross a street or told me that it was safe to cross. I have no problem with people wanting to help me in general. The problem comes in when, aftr I've told them once or twice that I'm okay and don't need any assistance, they continue to push the issue, sometimes doing things regardless of what I say. That brings out my bad side. But if someone simply offers to help and I politely say that I'm okay and they understand, I'm totally fine with it, and as I said, it's wonderful when people help me when I actually need it.
I really do try to be patient with sighted people when they're asking questions, and genuinely wanting information. I am a curious person myself, and understand that asking questions is the best way to learn. i'd rather have someone ask than be uncomfortable around me.
but I absolutely hate pity. I overheard my Mom being told once that it was such a shame I was blind, because I would have been such a pretty child otherwise. Holy crap, was I pissed! So was my Mom. I've gotten that comment from sighted people as an adult: that I'd be pretty if I were not blind. Ugh.
I can't stand the, "You're so amazing," nonsense either. Like Loui said, if i'm in a good mood, I can turn it back on them somehow with light humor, that doesn't offend, but does show them what an idiot they just made of themselves. Classic example being when a guy asked me if I was a Brailler, cuz I read Braille. I asked him if he was a printer. It took him a bit to get it, but when he did, he laughed, and understood my point. When I'm not in such a good mood, I can get snappy, even though I try to avoid that.
Like others have said, being grabbed is totally unacceptable.
Wow! I've never, in all my life, heard anything about not being pretty because you're blind. Personally, I get many compliments on my appearance. I'm not even sure that I could come up with a cruel enough response for that right off the bat. I'd probably be too shocked and speechless. That takes alot to do! I still can't think of one, even now that I have the time to think. Perhaps, "well, it seems that gene modification is alive and well. I just wonder how they managed to make a human that walks and talks without a brain" might do nicely.
haha, Sister, that was halairous!
the post in post 9 sounds like something I would do if They were really anoying about it.
actually something I have a problem with is people holding doors, I mean I won't ask people not to do that and I'll thank them if they do but I can't really walk in a perfectly straight line and the target I'm aiming for (in this case the dorrway) I'll end up a few enches off and sometimes run into the person thats holding the door and it can get pretty awkward.
In my earlier post, the example I gave about the ladies saying that they are so proud of me for getting out and about...
They said this as if I was mentually chalenged or a two year old. It is when people acts like I have no common since when it bugs me. I don't mind them asking if they can help me and stuff, just show a little respect and don't talk down to me. I am blind, not retarded.
I don't like when anyone holds the door for me, unless I have something in my hands. I can tolerate it when women do it but when men do it, it drives me crazy cause I see it as a sexist and a blind thing at once. Granted, most aren't doing it for that reason and most believe in the whole gentleman nonsense, but the fact that most wouldn't do it for other men or that they'd only do it for handicapped/elderly men frustrates me and makes me feel uncomfortable. I'd feel better if it was a universal thing. Btw, I'm not the type to use the word sexist very often, so it's not any kind of feministic stuff.
sometimes if you use the skills you learned in mobility the help others offer can cause problems but considering i've been in a large city when i was not borne in one i usually accepted the help of others crossing rather busy streets unless i knew the interssection really well. Yes i have had a few people whot say poor you for being blind but most times i do something or tell them otherwise. Those that try grabbing me will get a polite refusal if they try harder i'll push them away gently. luckily that's the most i've had to do, when i had the time too that is.
Yeah, generally I get told I am pretty, or attractive, as well. believe me, there are plenty of people in my life who would have no hesitation telling me if they thought there was something not right in my appearance. So, that's why I get so annoyed with people when they make comments about being pretty associate with blindness. Granted, it's very rare, but I have heard it.
I don't mind either men or women holding the door for me, if they're already at it first. What I do mind is when a sighted person sees me walking toward a door, and literally runs ahead of, and/or pushes past me to get to it first so they can hold it for me. Now you know darn good and well they wouldn't do that for a fellow sighted person. Sometimes I'll just stand there and make them go through the door first, cuz I'm annoyed, sometimes I'll just feel the annoyance internally and not do or say anything about it.
I use to get alot of people trying to do that to me at school, they finally got the point after me having to stand there and wait for them to go first. I didn't like it at first mainly because I wouldn't know as well wear the door was and I would run in to it or something. It is easier for me to open it myself. Then they indup following right behind me all the way to class telling me to step left or right to go around people. This is a real ishue, It destracts me and cause a problem. It also makes me feel stupid.
Yes, some people make a point to open the door for me, and I will purposefully not go through that door if they don't tell me that it's open, but only if it's not on the side of the hall on which I was walking. Which strangely enough, is the door people usually open for me. I also don't like it when people try to instruct me on walking through the halls, and I politely ask them to stop and thank them for their concern.
I often get compliments on my looks as well. The only time I've heard prettiness associated with blindness was through an experience my best friend was telling me she had.
If people do the whole how-many-fingers-am-I-holding-up thing, I'll just put my hand out and say: "let me have your hand." That always makes them feel stupid.
When people tell me that they're sorry I lost my vision, or anything to that effect, I usually come back with, "It's a pity you're sighted." I don't mean it to be rude, just a statement to make them consider what they've said.
It's not wrong but insensitive to say that being blind makes us less attractive. Blind people often have a lot less graceful way of moving or dacial features that may look weird, depending on the cause of the blindness, or damage from radiation etc. That being said, it's not true for everyone and pointing it out is just incredibly rude, just like saying someone would be really pretty if he/she wasn't so fat or had such a big nose etc, at least with the fat thing it's often something of their own choosing (ok, different subject, in some cases may be it isn't).
In general curiosity and compliments are fine and we just have to learn to be polite and take them, however "how many fingers am I holding up" should only be answered with "if you can figure out how many hammers I am sticking up your arse without looking we can talk".
I've gotten that alot "I'm sorry that you're blind." I usually say "why, did you cause it,", "why, you didn't do it", "I've been that way for 26 years now so I'm used to it" that sort of thing.
i haven't had much of a problem with people pittying me because i'm blind, cause when i was little, my parents always insisted that i be treated like my brother and sister, who are sighted. i do get asked what it's like being blind, or do i wish i could see, but it's by people who are genuinly interested. if someone asks me if i need help, and i'm just waiting for my ride, or whoever i'm with to come back, i just say i'm fine, and they leave me alone. i've only been grabbed a few times, and i didn't like that at all. i just pulled my arm from the person's hand, and told them straight out, that i don't need help.
I was brought up as a sighted child. That doesn't mean that my parents didn't help when I needed it but I wasn't treated special just because I was blind. So I know what you mean there. thankfully, I haven't experienced too much real pitty either, just a few idiots.
Like Liz and Tifanitsa, I too was brought up living in a sighted world. Adaptations were made as needed, but I was not treat differently from my two sighted sisters, either. My parents had the same expectations of all three of us in all things. I was not allowed to exhibit the "blindisms," that are common in a lot of blind people, and for that I am grateful to my family and teachers.
unfortunately, that upbringing does not stop the rest of society from pitying us, or from saying/doing inappropriate and rude things.
Wildebrew, nice answer to the "how many fingers am I holding up," thing. I like it.
I do make a big distinction between people who ask if I need help and people who just try and do things without asking.
people have grabbed my cane arm while I'm getting onto a train or something, and I've really gone mental at them because that's thoughtless and dangerous both to them and to me.
and also when you think about it, if I turned around and hit them with the cane it would be their own fault.
if I were sighted there is absolutely no way I'd grab someone without asking them first because if they can't see, they have no idea what intentions I have. am I going to help them or am I going to rob them.
Bravo! Excellent post. totally agreed.
I really like the way Miss Em put it. Empathy is good, while sympathy has good intentions, but usually not a good result. I appreciate the questions. That means people want to learn. I can tollerate the offers for help, even if it is not necessary, because, like some have said, the intentions are good. But I can't stand the pity and the talking down, and if you grab me, well, let's just say you wouldn't be so happy you did that.
thank god I grew up in a sighted wourld.
I am the only blind student at my school and the baby of 6.
I'm with you, Odicy. I've always been grateful I grew up in a sighted world. I see people who grew up in the blind schools, and most have absolutely no idea how to adapt to the real world when they graduate such places. I know blind schools do have their place in some instances, but in others, they do a lot of harm. But that's for another topic. LOL.
I agree with Loui: it is very important for us to make distinctions between people just asking if we need help, vs. forcing it on us. Being grabbed, having our canes grabbed, or being yelled at as we're trying to cross streets is totally unacceptable, and I will fight back fairly vehemently about that. If someone asks if I need help, I'll politely say no thank you if I don't, or gratefully take the assistance if I do. As long as a person accepts my refusal of help if I don't need it, then I do at least appreciate that they took the time to offer.
Today, or would that be yesterday now, I had a medical procedure done. I had my sighted friend Kris there, to drive me to and from that appointment, and to help with any paperwork as needed. Scott was also there with me. When I introduced him as my boyfriend, Kris said the nurse just looked at us with this really surprised face like, "Boyfriend?" I'm not surprised, actually. You'd be amazed at the number of sighted folks who are amazed I'm in a relationship, and though they've never come right out and said it, it is clear by their tone and context that they're amazed anyone would date me because I'm blind. Or, what gets even better, is when they assume, one way or the other, about the visual acuity of my partner. I've had people automatically assume that a man I've dated is sighted, so I have someone to take care of me. I've also had others come out and say that they assume he's blind, because then I'd have someone who understood me, whereas a sighted man couldn't. Personally, I've always said that I'll date who I fall in love with, regardless of his vision or lack thereof.
Also today, at the doctor's, the staff often tried to talk to Kris, rather than to me or Scott. As I was coming out of the sedation, it made sense for them to talk to someone else. But given that it was Scott who was going to be with me the rest of the day, not Kris, it was him they needed to be addressing. Oh well, it all worked out.
i born in sighted world, breathed the sighted air, eat the sighted food, having sighted social life, attending sighted education, making sighted friends.
i live as a blind, use a cane as a blind, working a guidedog as a blind, come on zone as a blind person.
but, i educated the sighted about their miss perception about the blind in a sighted/blindy way.
Educating is good, and as long as people are willing to learn, I'm willing to educate, but grabbing, and assuming we can't do anything is just uncalled for.
SisterDawn, I hope that Scott and Kris put those people in their place. They're supposed to be educated and it sounds as if they acted like ignorant simpletons. There's no reason why they should've spoken with him as well. They used to do that when Mom would go with me until she stopped it. "She's an adult and fully capable of speaking for herself," Mom would say.
That's exactly what my mom says every time someone tries to speak to her about me, instead of speaking to me directly. And, if my sighted companion doesn't let them know I can talk, I just automatically answer, which makes some people shocked.
I find that the best way to combat this is by engaging in a no-nonsense talk about blindness, what it is, how it works, etc. At first it is aucward but in the end, it is rewarding because the person is educated and now sees you as an equal.
sometimes, if they say something like "does she like iced cream," I'll say "yes, she does. Why not ask her?"
lol!
I do occasionally get the whole pity thing but I must say most of my experiences have been generally good as far as dealing with sighted folks. Granted relationships have been kinda tricky since i prefer to date fully sighted girls. I mean I'll date a blind girl or a partial if there's a real connection, so I'm not actually limiting myself. But I've had sighted girls tell me rather rudely to find a nice little blind girl to go out with. But as for folks talking to my sighted companions in public that actually hasn't happened in about ten years. Last time it did though I used my favorite tactic. "And what will he have?" the waiter or waitress asked my companion. "Oh I don't know, "I replied lightly, "why don't you ask him?"
when they say somehting to me like hey wonder what it is like to be blind or they wish they was blind... tell them you have a blindfold and a can they can use anytime to find out how it feels.
Except that it's a cane LOL. But I often get questions from strangers about how it must suck to always be in the dark. THey don't understand that having light perception does mean you can see, albeit not with what you can really call usable vision. I tell them they'd have to ask a true total, but even that's not always reliable since some of them have been blind their whole lives and have never seen light. The way I see it is without light there is no dark because there's nothing to compare it to. I tell people this and they still don't get it. But it's like I tell people. Someone who had vision and then lost all of it later in life still remembers what it was like to see, so they can compare the way things were then to the way they are now. Then you have someone who's been blind their whole life and has never seen light as a result. They would have nothing to compare it to. And although I have light perception I've never actually seen (although my mother tells me I used to be able to distinguish colored lights, which I don't remember). But even with me I've got no other memories to compare my current life to. So when people comment on how much it must suck I tell them it's the only thing I've ever known.
I simply have all my sighted friends well trained to always fake deafness then it comes to other people asking them what I want, or they just point and say 'ask her'.
it's always easier just to have your friends understand that in these situations you want them not to answer for you.
Well, very true, but it's still better if you jump in when you can. In fact, my sighted companion answering for me annoys me more than the people asking them, instead of me.
Agreed, OceanDream. I've had to very firmly tell several sighted friends not to answer for me. On one hand, they get annoyed when people talk to them, not me, and yet they perpetuate it by answering for me. You're right, that's more annoying than the ignorant person who tries to talk to our sighted companion.
If someone talks to who I am with instead of me, then I make a point to answer as if they said it to me , so not to give who I am with a chance to talk for me, and the people get the point quickly.
to BryanP22, that is a very good point. I once visited a fourth grade class where I discussed blindness. I was asked by a student what it was like to be blind. I replied, and this was out of honesty and certainly in no way to be rude, "I really don't know. What is it like to be sighted?" I then proceeded to give a simple version of what you just said. Everyone loved it. I also suprised the students and the teacher by mailing them all alphabet papers with their names all braille out by me. In return, I got some truly beautiful and touching letters. One made me cry and still does. The student said something like "if I ever become blind I hope to be just like you one day." I think we can all learn alot from children. they don't make assumptions, and while their questions may seem silly, they're heartfelt and honest. Some adults never have the guts to ask things like that, or if they do, it's with an attitude.
Totally agree, Tifanitsa. I, too, have done many presentations for school children, and I love it. Kids aren't afraid to ask questions, and they're too young to be politically correct about it, either. In some ways, they're smarter about blindness and other disabilities than most adults are. Like the time a parent tried to bring her child over to pet my guide dog when I had him, and the child, who was maybe seven at most, told her Mom that they couldn't pet my dog, because he was working. Way to go, little kid. It's education like that which makes me hope that maybe as these kids grow up, they won't be as ignorant as a lot of adults are now.
I make a point to offer my time to do little i guess you could call them visits to explain my blindness and the technology and stuff i have when anyone asks me too, it's a way for me to show that we as blind people aren't all that different from others. Now for people answering for me, sometimes i'm forced to rely on a second person as i have a hearing disability as a well as being blind so that makes things rather hard sometimes. I use a person basically to help me catch what someone else said, but i'll answer questions and stuff if i know the answer.
Yes, as I said, it educates them.
I'll answer anyone except if they anoy me.
like, I don't like to tell how I became blind and I'll tell someone that but they keep asking.
that really anoys me.
It's probably because they can't understand why there's a need for secrecy. to e honest, neither do I. That said, if requested not to ask, I probably wouldn't. I'd just think you had some kind of traumatic experience or have other assumptions that would most likely be wrong.
Agreed. I have no problem explaining how I was blinded, but that's just me. I don't mind people asking the question. I guess it could be argued that such personal questions would not be asked of a sighted person, and there's truth to that. But we are different, and people are curious about those who are different. Heck, even I am. Even though I am blind, I will sometimes ask other blind people what caused them to lose their vision, simply because I am curious, not because I am trying to be intrusive. But it's a personal thing, so if someone does not respect your wish not to talk about it, Odicy, then they are being rude.
I can certainly see how some people would not want to be asked but I personally have no problem with that. I was born blind so not much of a story.
The same is true for me, but some people don't want to talk about it, and that is a wish that should be respected.
ditto to the last two posters; I like the fact that people are curious and unafraid to ask questions.
My brother and I go to the same school and ride the same bus home. Whenever someone asks him a question about me, whether I'm with him or not, he will tell them to ask me and that it's up to me if I want to tell them. I greatly appreciate him doing that because it lets people know that it's okay to approach and talk to me.
i had an experience today which pisses me off, a sighted friend and i went into town, and i went to purchase some clothes, as i needed a t shirt or two. Now i've purchased clothes before, but the asistant kept looking at my friend for confirmation of things. In the end he walked out of the shop and i followed him out after making my purchases. it angers me when sighted ppl default to asking a sighted friend of a blind person what he or she would like. i can tell they are doing it too, and though i'm confident usually, i become even more assertive *smile*
You mean, even though you told them what you wanted, they still looked to your sighted friend for confirmation? If that is the case, that's really annoying. That would really piss me off, especially if they were really quiet about it.
And I must say it is prejudice.
It really is.
I have had all of the above experiences, especially since I am blind and a single parent to a 2 year old.
I have even had a bus driver who I find driving the fixed route buses in my area that sees me on the bus a lot tell me that he could never go out like I do if he was blind like me. He told me that he would just probably stay home and have everyone else do everything for him. I just told him that, since I have been blind all of my life I have learned to do things independently, and sometimes there is not the option of asking a sighted person to do things. I explained that even if there was a sighted person around to always to everything, I would rather do things independently and do them when and where I want rather than always depend on someone else.
I have also had people do things for me without asking me, including correcting my 2 year old daughter without asking, because I guess they are assuming that I can't correct her my self. That is one thing that really pisses me off. This happened at a friend's house where we were having a potluck get-together. Apparently, my daughter accidentally hit another child with a rock and hurt the other child's foot, which happened in the morning. My friend, who is also blind, happened to have my daughter with her at the time as I had gone to a doctor appointment and couldn't stay for the potluck. My friend heard all of the crying and commotion, but no one would tell her what was going on. A few hours later, the mother of the child that got hurt came in the room with another person and told them that her husband was going to be really angry because her son's foot was swollen. My friend kept asking what happened, and they looked at each other and said, "Should we tell her?" and then proceeded to tell her that my daughter had thrown the rock and hurt the other child, and they then told her that, "but you don't have to worry because so-and-so already corrected her for it." This pissed my friend off, and also pissed me off when I found out about it, because they waited 3 or 4 hours before even telling my friend what happened, and instead of letting my friend correct my daughter because I left her with her, they corrected her themselves, thus assuming that my friend couldn't correct her because of her blindness.
I have also had people start whispering and gesturing to each other about how hard it must be for me taking care of a child with my blindness. I can hear what they are saying, but they are talking in both sentence and gesture, as if they don't want me to hear what they are saying, but they are right there and I can't help but notice because maybe they are the only ones in the room or whatever is the case. I have also had people try to put henna, which is like a type of paint or dye that people wear to make them look pretty or whatever, on my daughter without even asking me if they could do it, as she is only 2 and can't really speak for herself in that regard yet.
As far as help, I will take help if the person asks, but if they just do it it is really annoying. Also, random people will stop their cars in the middle of traffic in rush hour just so they can tell me how they are so amazed that I am traveling with a child and by myself like this. I have had lots of people offer me rides when they see me walking toward or waiting at the bus stops, which I don't take because I don't know them, and I only take rides from family or friends that I know well. I was waiting at the bus stop one time, and I had a woman stop for 10 minutes straight in the middle of the road just to go on and on about me traveling by myself and why I didn't have someone else take me out because I could have gotten hit by a car crossing the street, etc., etc. She then proceeded to go on and on about her religion and how Jesus was with her and me and that's why I didn't get hit by a car, and turned it into almost a preaching or something. She claims that she almost hit me herself, but I was already on the curb when I heard her car going past, although I was having trouble getting my cart up the curb because it was loaded with groceries, and she said that she almost hit me when in actuallity she almost hit the cart instead that was behind me, as I use my cane in the front and pull the grocery cart behind me.
Anyway, sorry for the very long-winded post, but those are some experiences I've had.
Misty
I have to wonder if some people are so dependent on eye contact that they will practically ignore a blind person because that person can't make eye contact, so, in that person's estimation, cannot communicate? Reminds me of a time when my fiancee and I who are both blind went out to a restaurant with a sighted friend and the server addressed our sighted friend the whole time she was taking orders from all of us. I think what really bothered my fiancee is the server was a little person like my fiancee is so you'd think such a person would be used to communicating with disabled people. Apparently not.
People are so dependint on only one sense. That, my friends, is a true handicap.
I really think people that think they are more fortunit will pitty anyone that is not. That is a sign of carrying. Sure we also have issues that we have faced due to our blindness, but any act of kindness should be looked on as such. I'm a blind person myself, and if I noticed someones laces untied I'd offer to tie them, so I guess I'm guilty of doing this as well. I open doors, I get up on a crowded train or bus if I notice their is an older person with lots of bbags having to stand up and offer my seat. I have had people ask and do odd things, but I can't bring my heart to rebuff it or fill baddly about it. Senior's post was on target.
I experienced this yet again yesterday. While out to dinner with Scott and some friends, some dude comes up to us and tells us that he'd been observing us for quite awhile, and how we did a really good job, and to keep up the amazing work. My friend ryan and I stayed silent, because we are the two that are apt to react in anger to that type of thing. Ryan's girlfriend takes that kind of thing graciously and just says thanks. Scott, in characteristic fashion, tried to handle it with humor. When the guy said we were doing a reall good job, Scot said something to the effect of, "Oh, glad to know you think I'm doing a good job at stuffing my face," or some such thing. The guy laughed, but I dont think he got the deeper point Scott was driving at. I held my tongue on that for Scotts sake, but am not so sure I would have, if i'd been by myself. People like that are trying to compliment us, I know, but as far as I am concerned, they are being insulting as hell.
And Misty, someone correcting your child for you is beyond rude. I remember people used to try to correct my guide dog for me, or, get angry when I did so. How much more with your child, for God's sake? That is completely unacceptable!
yes the man who addressed my friend rather than me in the shop is probably a spotty little shit who's probably less qualified than me to do his job *smile* but i can't do his job, as i can't see. *grin* but i can buy clothes as well as anyone else, and have been doing so for years. as it happened, on the same day i went down to another store, and that one was run by one of the ppl who used to work at the store with the first guy, and this chap is wonderful, he knew me, so talked to me properly. the only issues we had was trying to find trousers that were not too large for me, as this place did everything xxxxxxxl! hahaah and yes i did manage to get some tracsuit trousers for riding horses in, as he didn't do hjeans size 40.
I couldn't agree more with Margorp's Post (64).
I think to some extent we all miss the point here, although I agree with much of what's been said.
They don't really pity us: You cannot pity anything that you don't know. It's not even about us, it's about them. Naturally this is bnot the case if you really are confused or appear so, and someone offers help, that is another story. But what I'm talking about is when someone approaches one of us, or one of any number of target groups.
They make a show, approach, wish to converse about it, and if you could follow them without being accused of stalking, you'd probably find they went and told their friends about this 'wonderful person,' or this 'poor person,' and had themselves quite a time of it, looking very sensitive and gratifying themselves with the affair. So while I attempt to remain civil, it is not so much to educate as it is to put up with someone childishly being fabulous in the near vicinity, and I or my daughter are the catalyst against our will.
A great parallel occurrence used to happen when I was at college. A bunch of overfed underworked premadonas wanted to 'identify with the poor,' and unlike the rest of us working stiffs, hadn't really been poor or wondered how they were going to make ends meet. So they publicly humiliated themselves by dumpster diving for food. I wouldn't have believed the reports, it was so preposterous, except that several sighted people I knew made it a point to describe what they were seeing on the way in: these kids having apparently dirtied and torn their designer clothes to appear "as if" they were homeless, could be seen conspicuously diving for leftover pizza in the trash cans.
Naturally they were doing no real good for the homeless population, they were just 'identifying', which was all about them and their feelings. They didn't so much as buy a homeless guy a sandwich, they just talked and talked about injustice and homelessness, as well as putting on this public spectacle, of course.
These two groups are one and the same, in my opinion.
As to presentations / education about being blind: I have not done what you all have, put on a presentation about being blind, not of my own free will at least. As a kid some of this was required, though I do not remember by whom. All I ever saw were two effects: The first was one of resentment by children / attention-starved adults behaving like children towards me for what they perceived as desirable attention I was getting.
The second, an open-mouthed bug-eyeed response that more closely resembled a fish you'd caught, hadn't yet killed, but has been on land a bit long to survive release back into the water. Neither is flattering, and I don't remember any resultant output that could be called an improvement. Hats off to you, though, if you can put on such an exhibit / show / presentation and affect anything. Especially if nobody is compelled by the Brass to attend.
Some sighted people are probably trying to make themselves look and/or feel better, yes, but some of them genuinely don't know, or just don't think enough about it to possibly think their assumptions could be inaccurate. I have all the patience in the world for those who are trying to learn, but I have no time for those who prefer to assume rather than actually consider other possibilities.
I think, too, that a lot of sighted people are coming from a perspective where they try to imagine themselves struck blind and conclude they would be helpless and scared and couldn't cope. This is maybe why we get random people congratulating us for doing such a good job at very ordinary things, like going out to your favorite pasta place. They see your ability to be able to do it as the act of some extraordinary person who is very inspired or very positive or brave. They do not see you doing what you do as the result of applying particular adaptive skills. They seem to see them as astounding acts of will and they see themselves as such ordinary folk that they could never do it. I guess they don't think their learning capacities would work anymore if they were just struck blind, I don't know. The problem is, they can only imagine in a very hypothetical sense what life is like to be blind, and I don't think a sighted person can truly understand the blindness experience until it really happens. One of those things where you just have to be there. I'm also hesitant about the whole idea of educating sighted people because it's not just about what we can or can't do. Many sighted people do not even have a sense of who we are and how we fit in with them culturally. Even in 2010 people do not think we can possibly take in TV or movies which are very important to many folks. Maybe they think we all sit alone in the dark being read worn old copies of Charles Dickens novels by our guide dogs or government-provided personal care attendants or just listen to Stevie Wonder on the radio and wish we were him. LOL!
Putting on a show, presentation?It's not that heavy, but okay. Smile. I understand that is might be an issue for some, but face it, we are different, and so people will do as they do out of not understanding, or whatever reasons. I only can justify getting uptight with say a person that has lived with you or dealt with blind people on a regular bases stil doing things, and only if these things are out of lack of respect for you as a person, but the average person on the street really might not know, and have never come across you. As I say I am even guilty of this, giving some what I think in my heart is love for another human bing. No I don't step up and tell people they are doing a great job, if they are blind, but I'd say to a lady, or man "you're looking good today." Or if I perceive they seem happy I smile and say "it's great to be happy isn't it?" I give up my seat, refuse to take the front seat if I know someone is older, or seems burdened with things even if that person is younger. It's not pitty. I can walk, so someone in a wheelchair I'd rush to get the door open for them and I know well enough they can open it themselves, but why not? Seems that being uptight is worthless. It is a fact of life like you can not see, so relax and enjoy the attenchen. The person will help you and go away shortly, and if they feell better about themselves and go tell their friends then you have truly done them a good deed not them you. Smile. I do ask if I a person I notice with laces undone if I could tie your shoes, and I've done that for sighted people as well, so. I open doors, when I was dating a blind lady I'd cut up her food in a restaurant for her if she had trouble. Guess I should have said she should have learned better? Naw! Forget it! I'd feed her if it help.
What you describe is overall genteel behavior and I for one am glad the days of us men getting slapped for holding the door open for a woman are over.
No, what I meant was deliberate shows put on as a demonstration. Don't know how much good that actually does.
As to "not knowing" or whatever, doesn't matter one way or the other, provided all parties can remain civil and polite in a common space.
did yall hear about a lawsuit against a blind person for waving trafic.
I don't know when it was but apparently a guy had stopped for a blind person and the blind person waved him on telling him to go first.
the person in the car went and had a rec and sued the blind person for telling him to go.
that is just ridiculous.
I had heard about this incident before, and the only thing i have to say is: Tough, they shouldn't have waved that car on. This is why my high school mobility instructor didn't teach me to do that in case that person should get into an accident. In this situation, it is my belief the blind person should be held responsible for his actions. better safe than sorry.
I don't get it. If the blind person waved them on, which I've been taught to do by various mobility teachers, then he/she would know that the car was going, and not to cross until the car had left, or if the car simply wasn't in a position to go first, just don't go. Most of us will get the picture if we wave and the driver doesn't respond. Why sue for it? Seriously, some of the things people sue for is just absolutely ridiculous.
I always hear the following:
"You are a real inspiration to me and others." Oh? What did I do but walk down a flight of stairs?
It goes back to what I just posted up the thread. They do not understand or believe that you can only use a flight of stairs because you learned adaptive techniques or understand how to harness your remaining senses. You do it because you have access to a certain inner strength that ordinary grunts are not allowed access to. Maybe they see your ability to use a flight of stairs sightless as due to some sort of gift or uncommon ability, as if you were born doing this. I know, it sounds outlandish and far-fetched, but people can believe some awfully nutty things.
Something happened today:
I was doing my food shopping as I do every week, and some woman came up and tried to hand me money like I was some bum on the street. I delt with it by saying "no thank you." She didn't speak much English so I couldn't explain to her why I turned her "gift" down. I can't believe some people.
something happened the other day that I forgot to post about: I was at a restaurant with family, and this old man comes up to my cousin and tells him to give me a cross from him. he said he didn't mean any disrespect by it, but "felt a specialness" with me, whatever that means. I had no choice but to take it, as I didn't see the guy. otherwise, I would've given him a piece of my mind and made him keep it.
A while ago, I posted on the quick notes that it irritates me when people tell you that you're amazing over and over again. I'll most likely get this job at an Air Force base doing legal transcription, and I've heard it said over and over again that people will be blown away by me, which is probably true, but it does not need to be emphasized. The emphasis here is my friends and I praying that this works out and that I will end up with this job. What's so amazing about getting a job? A job is a job, and there are thousands upon thousands of blind people who work. It's not like I'm the first blind person in the world who will soon get a job. I'm not like Taylor Swift, who blew everyone away by getting a string of number 1 hits when she was only 17 years old. I am myself, and I'm going to do what I was born to do. This is by no means an attempt to try to be rude or anything like that, but when someone says that blind people are more special than the sighted, that would pretty much be prejudice, wouldn't it?
Fighter, he said he had a special feeling with you? Um, wow? That could be taken a few ways. But that's just my sick mind talking. It would have creeped me out, personally.
I've never been randomly given money, but I've seen it happen. Last summer, when Scott and I went to an amusement park with a friend of his, one of the admissions people gave Scott's sighted friend 20 bucks to spend on us. It annoyed/insulted me, but I just let it go. I wasn't going to stop the friend from getting money. Nor was I going to stop him from getting a speeding ticket. Back tracking a little on that story, we were driving to the amusement park, and our friend was speeding, and got pulled over for it. The cop was writing him a ticket, when he figured out that Scott and I were blind. Then he gets all mushy and tells our friend how he's doing such a good deed, by taking these blind people to an amusement park. The cop goes on and on about how he respects people who do such good deeds, so he let Scott's friend off with a warning only. Again, I was angry at the condescending crap, but wasn't about to step in and say anything. It was our friend's car, his insurance, his money, so if the cop was willing to let him off the hook, I didn't feel it was my place to argue about it. But then we wonder why 70% of blind people are unemployed when you've got stereotypes and treatment like that out there?
Oh, and one more thing on the money. A blind friend of mine told me this. A few years ago, he was standing at a bus stop, preparing to go to work. He was professionally dressed: nice slacks, shirt, shoes, etc. So he's standing there drinking a cup of coffee while waiting for the bus, and all of a sudden some random person walks by and drops two dollar bills right into his coffee cup. Apparently this random idiot just saw a blind dude standing there with a cup, and thought it was for money. Talk about overlooking appearance, and also not looking to see if there might be anything in that cup. Yuck!
I can see I'm not gonna win this one. I will open the door for anyone male, or female that I feel could use the help. I only use the girl as an example not a romantic thing. Sister many pan handlers dress up professionally and pan handle. It is said they can get more money that way then by looking like a bum. They is a true story about a guy that lives in New York City. He'd dress daily in a suit, then go and say he just got mugged, so people would give him subway fair. The man owned a Porsche, and lived in a top notch place, so the person might have figured this blind man was working, not begging. Okay, as I said I'll not win. I also except money that is given me. I have some, but if some one wishes to hand me a few dollars I except them and say thanks. It is their good deed, so why spoil it for them? Might make them feel worse if you turn it down then if you except it. Okay okay. Smile.
I'm only a teen so I have never had money from a randum stranger. thank god.
and, I think I'm the only blind teen in my whole town.
there is one othre visually impaired teen but I'm the only totally blind.
Let me steer the topic in a slightly different direction. Have any of you experienced somebody acting as if they wanted to help you, and they actually intended to do you harm of some sort, be it robbery or worse?
i've heard of that happening, but have never had it happen to me, thank goodness.
I once was with some o and m teachers and a few students learning how to use the bus our last year of school. We all came from a small town that didn't have one so we had to go out of town to do this. As we were getting off, I stood up and waiting for my group to head out adn this lady who sounded as if she was high on something and crazy grabbed my hand and tryed to pull me the wrong way. I yanked my hand back adn told her I did not need her help then started to call out to my group not to leave me. I also last year had a car of teens slow down next to me and ask me if I wanted a ride, I told them no. I had not lived here for long and did not trust kids just barrly over the age of driving licens. As i cross the street I get people who will pull up next to me and ask me if I need help or a ride while I am waiting on trafic: i usually wait for people who are waiting on the same road as me to go first because they are faster and bigger than me, but when I hear a door open, boy do I run across that street. there is this young guy who lives across the corner from my school were I cross to go home, if he is outside with his dog and sees me waiting to cross, he will yell if I am unsurtaint about the trafic. He has so far not been wrong. I also get to play and pet his cute cute cute dog. Its one of those with the cirrly fer on its ears. So cute.
I too have had strangers offer me rides, and I do not accept that. Too risky. But no, I've never had someone act like they wanted to help for the purposes of harm, or if I have, I've been smart enough to avoid it, or mercifully unaware of it.
Oh yeah, I've ahd strangers offer me rides, butg I never accepted them. For all I know they could ahve really just wanted to do something nice but you can't trust people one hundred percent these days.
Never happened to me but it is just as bad as the money thing:
These people need to be told what's what and a bit of respect or just stay in bed.
I want to refer back to SisterDawn's amusement park story. The police officer's reaction sort of bugs me. This person did not see the three people in the car as a group of friends just going and having a good time. He seemed to see the sighted person as somebody just doing two blind people a favor, as if he didn't actually know the two blind people personally, sort of like a teacher or activities director giving them a free pass for a day from the Braille jail and some sort of joyless existence. But see, it's always bothered me how people assume that the only way the blind and sighted can interact is because the sighted person wants to be helpful or charitable. Any sort of meaningful relationship is just not even thought of, it appears, not even friendship.
Saved him $50 or more for speeding. Who cares what the cop thought. Smile.
Godzilla, you are exactly correct. As our friend said that day, the three of us would have been going to the amusement park together, blind, sighted or otherwise.
It just so happened that our friend needed to be the one doing the driving, etc. I have seen this type of thing before when I've been with sighted friends: where it's viewed as you described it. This one just stuck out at me at the time I wrote it, but I could have found plenty of other examples. One night
a few blind friends and I were out at dinner with one sighted friend in the group. When the waitress brought the checks, she gave them to our sighted friend saying, "I'll work on these with you, since you're the one in charge of them." Oh man, our whole table was pissed, even our sighted friend.
Forereel, yes, it did save our friend some money by not getting the ticket, and for his sake, I am glad for that. But I was angry that his saving money had to be at the expense of Scott and my dignity as people. It's all well and good to say, "who cares," but as I said, how can we wonder that so many of us are unemployed, when
there are attitudes like this alive and well out there? That's one of the many reasons I cant' just write stuff like this off. Attitudes, misconceptions, and incidents such as have been described on this board are not nearly mere annoyances. They, when combined together to form societal attitudes, are a good bit of the
barriers that stand in our way of being on equal terms whith our sighted peers. One sighted person would not treat another in many of the ways that have
been described on this thread: why should we allow it, accept it, and simply write it off?
OK, rant over. Thanks for your understanding, Godzilla.
I agree with SisterDawn.
When I go out and about with my sighted friends or family, people will some times give them dirty looks because they don't carry me around instead forceing me to walk. OK! So not that exstream but almost as if. If I am looking at stuff and they are not handing everything to me and then taking it back and putting it up, or showing me wear stuff is adn letting me find it myself or just look for myself, they look at the people I am with as if they are rude adn should help me a bit more.
I get that quite a bit. I guess we as blind people can't be a part of society. We should just rot in that braille jail and stick to our own kind. This makes me lose faith in humanity...I mean, I'm sorry but I can't tolerate that sort of ignorance.
agreed with the last poster completely. to the person who replied to my story about the guy giving a cross to my cousin, I guess I have a sick mind too...cause I was quite creeped out to say the least.
Well I truly understand the issues and why many capable people are not working due to mis concepts, but I truly can't get to uptight about dumbness. It is here to stay, so I for one try my best to change it by doing. Now that doing is only a small drop in the pit, but I feel better for it. I have been to job interviews and been ask the question don't you receive help from the state or government or something? I I have to admit I did get angry and ask that interviewer what kind of car she drove. It was a new upscale model, so then I asked her how much her car note was. Of course she didn't answer, but I pointed out it was probably more then most SSI payments. Didn't get that job now, but... Smile.
I just feel anger is a waist, because people are going to be dumb. Educate your sighted friends so that next time the wait staff hands them the check and says something to that effect that they make a loud point of handing it to one of you and stating that they are taking care of me tonight not the other way around. They'll be paying. Smile.
It's people like this that really deserve a slap in the face. No, not literally, but a slap or reality would be good, maybe. You know, I've actually had people stop me while I was walking on my way somewhere, and tell me I shouldn't use my cane because it might be a danger to society. I could hit someone with it, after all.
I hadn't had the money thing until the other day. I got off the bus and there was an old man who got off because he was going sort of in the same direction. He randomly gave me some money and said, there you go, there's 10£ for a taxi for when you go home. I shook his hand and said thanks, but I don't know ... I half wondered, why me, is it just because I'm blind or something or because he just felt like it? Well I carried on walking and went round the corner of Tesco's to go to the cafe I was going to meet a friend of mine and their mum so we could go and look at some stuff in Commit or whatever the electrical shop's called and me and this man met up again. He asked where I was heading and I told him which cafe I was going to and said I was fine once we got to one of the tables or the counter or wherever, but he insisted on getting me a drink. I accepted, but kind of felt bad that he hadn't got anything himself seeing as he went to all the trouble to see I was OK.
Another thing I find kind of annoying, or maybe it's just because I don't understand why, is the fact that so many people feel sorry for cane users and not so much guide dog owners. I use the buses most days now to go to college and I hear so many saying among themselves that they feel so sorry for us or that they think we are so brave. I asked a sighted person at my work placement what she thought and she thinks it's because most sighted people don't know how to react to disabled people in general. But why? Don't they expect us to just do the same as them, maybe?
To post 99:
I do understand, as we all must, that some people just give out of kindness. Whether it is money, help, or advice, they like to give. The problem is, with all the pitty going around, it is difficult to tell what the intentions are.
Ocean dream:
Are feet can also be a danger to society because they could be used to give someone a swift kick in the hind quarters. Lol!
Now I don't know if this counts as pitty, but any of you had someone pray over you? I have and it is odd.
yes, I've had a few people pray over me throughout my lifetime. I'm not religious, but used to be...and I'd say something like, "if you wanna pray for me, pray that I'm successful and healthy". when they get that sort of response, they're usually surprised cause they don't understand how we can live life happily as blind people.
I'm not religious but even if I was, I'd find it offensive I'm sure.
When random people ask where I'm going, I simply ask why they want to know. I mean, it's really none of their business, is it? Now if they ask me if I need help, then I will politely refuse.
I let a woman pray over me in a grocery store once when I was about eleven or twelve, and I decided in my mind that from then on, no one would pray over me about my blindness; that was it. A couple of months ago, my mother and I were at the public library checking out audiobooks, and some woman approached us and asked my mother for my name. My mother was about to give it to her when I said: "/Why do you want to know my name?" She told my mom that she wanted to put my name on her church's prayer list so the congregation could pray for the return of my sight. I was heated! I told the woman that I did not want my sight back, and that losing my vision was the best thing that ever happened to me. I wish I could have seen the look on the sightee's face!
I am a Christian, and I do believe God could heal me if He so desired. However, it does offend me when people want to pray over me specifically because of my blindness. It's ten times worse when its strangers wanting to do this. I try to be patient at first, but if they insist, then I become rather snappy, I must admit.
Harmony, in answer to your question about why cane users get felt sorry for by the public and guide dog users don't, I think I've got the answer. Most sighted people believe that a guide dog takes care of its handler, and that the handler couldn't travel anywhere without the dog. They don't understand that the blind person is stil very much in control, and that the dog takes its commands and directions from the blind person. So, when they see us with canes, and no dog to, "take care of us," they see us as less independnet, or feel sorry for us because we have to figure it out ourselves, etc. At least that's what I've perceived based on conversations with various sighted people. I used to have a guide dog, and though he was a great guide, I found that a dog was simply not for me. So I use my cane now, and have experienced first-hand what you mentioned in your post.
i had some religious nut, sorry, fervant believer, leap out of a side passage way at me. he asked me if i wanted to allow Jesus into my heart. I said, the way you leapt out of that passageway at me, my cane could have ended up your ass. he kind of left me alone after that.
Haha. That's actually kind of funny. I mean, I don't know if I would recommend it, because although I am an atheist, I do believe that we need to respect the beliefs of others. If someone says they're going to pray for me because I'm stressed, or I'm having a family problem, I'll just leave them to it and thank them politely. However, if they pray for me because of my blindness, they'll find themselves getting a lecture, which they can either listen to or walk away from. I really don't care which. I met a religious lady on the train once who told me that since I'm blind, God probably had a very special place for me in heaven, and asked me if I had accepted Jesus yet. When I said no, she said: "It's really too bad. God has a very special plan for your life, and you won't accept it". Anyway, I digress.
Haha. That's actually kind of funny. I mean, I don't know if I would recommend it, because although I am an atheist, I do believe that we need to respect the beliefs of others. If someone says they're going to pray for me because I'm stressed, or I'm having a family problem, I'll just leave them to it and thank them politely. However, if they pray for me because of my blindness, they'll find themselves getting a lecture, which they can either listen to or walk away from. I really don't care which. I met a religious lady on the train once who told me that since I'm blind, God probably had a very special place for me in heaven, and asked me if I had accepted Jesus yet. When I said no, she said: "It's really too bad. God has a very special plan for your life, and you won't accept it". Anyway, I digress.
I have had people pray for me because of my blindness as well. While it does bug me a little, I always tell people that sight doesn't really matter to me. And of course I do it in a polite way. I've noticed some of your replies on here, and some of them do sound a little rude as far as telling them about blindness goes. It's best to be careful about that, especially at a job interview. If you're rude to someone like that, you could hurt their feelings.
Oh no. I don't agree with being rude. Although, if they are rude to you, I'm not going to politely thank them for it and walk on either.
this isn't meant as harshly as it may come off, but if I hurt people's feelings in life, tough shit. I'm certainly not out to do that, but if people don't like what I have to say, that's their problem. I'm not on this earth to please anyone other than myself; if people don't like honesty, they don't have to interact with me.
I'm with Fighter on this. I try my best to be polite, but when that fails, I have no problem with getting a bit more, um, forceful. If a person is going to insult or belittle me, I honestly don't care if I hurt their feelings or not. If they didn't want them hurt, then they shouldn't have insulted or belittled me as a person to start with.
The only thing I'll give you, Michael, is the part about the job interview. Even if a potential employer is acting in ways I don't like, I will stay professional and courteous, and educate as best I can. You have to do that on a job sometimes anyway, even when it's not related to blindness. being rude to your boss, or potential boss, is not a good way to get ahead. Now, if that potential employer is venturing into illegal territory and/or discrimination, that's another story entirely.
I'm getting sick of treating people with kindness only to be subjected to ignorant bullshit. I try, I mean really try to be a nice person but people just get me so mad.
Forceful and rude can be two different things. Bashing someone's religion because they said they would pray for your blindness is rude. The religion itself didn't make that comment. Coming back with such comments as, "I'll pray for you because you're sighted" is forceful. Of course, this is just my opinion.
Well, the thing tht us blindies need to watch out for is that some sighted people aren't familiar with a blind person, so they have no clue how to interact with that person. In that case, I just talk to them about my blindness and try to tell them how a blind person should be treated. But when it gets to where that sighted person has known me forever and still belittles me, then I can get bugged by it. I'm a nice guy as I am, but don't ever say that just because I'm a blind person, I can't make it in life. When I hear someone calling me handicapped, that's what disappoints me the most. Being handicapped is not blindness.
There was a time I hadn't been around a parapleigic, a black person, or, to be honest, a woman engineer. I treated none of these folks in any different way than I would anyone else. Consequently, the "Oh they may not have been around a blind person," type thinking, just doesn't cut it with me. I'm nothing special, so neither are they. If I'm not expecting any favors, I'm not giving them either. That may sound mean, but it isn't, it's simply fair. Now that doesn't mean I'd get bent out of shape for nothing, and I'm not easily offended in the least, but in my book, nobody gets to cut it both ways. And I just saw the eyes of every teenager on here roll at that one: my daughter's usually does, or at least I assume that's what the accompanying sigh is all about.
I'll give an example: I was at jury duty, and due to some construction, the sidewalks were blocked. This older woman, probably had a friend nearby to show off to, started ragging on the construction guys working in the rain there, because they weren't "being considerate of the blind man." They were just fine, had been digging out the sidewalk and doing whatever they had to do. I hadn't got that close, was just preparing to take a detour. However, for their sakes I intervened, tossed any gentlemanly behavior aside since she was rather acting like a little girl and not a grown woman, and asked her: "What exactly would you expect them to do? Oh here comes theblind man, let's fill in the dirt, patch up the concrete so there's a clear sidewalk? Isn't that just a tad silly?"
Some would think what I did rude on account of her "not knowing blindness" or whatever: I think it would have been more rude to leave her tearing at a couple of decent working people just trying to earn a living.
If as some indicate, these people really are tards, then we should treat them like it. Everyone encounters people of types they haven't seen before. That's why we have common courtesy, minding one's own business, keeping one's nose in their own affair, all those things.
So yes, normal questions by people I know I'll answer just fine. However, retard behavior like that, running up and hollering like a mental gimp at a couple of construction workers was like to get her treated like the little girl she was acting like. Not because of blindness, but because of an obvious shortage upstairs ... on her behalf.
Right, you shall be treated in the way in which you act...or somethiing of that nature.
One of the things that gets me actually angry about dealing with sighted people is that, well, it seems there is a notion that we as blind people and who knows who else are not subject to the same if any social boundaries that sighted people have between each other. It seems that we are expected to just put up with behavior that no sighted person would stand for a second if a fellow sighted person did the same thing. And, if you call somebody out on these behaviors, they will always justify it by claiming they were only trying to do this or be that or whatever. If you're really lucky, you'll be told you're the one with the bad attitude.
agree with person above
If they think I'm the one with the bad aditude for calling them out for it, more power to them. I really don't care, because as long as I know the truth, that's really all that matters. That probably sounds cheesy, but it's the truth.
And see, that's what a cane or a guide dog is for. To protect you from getting caught in construction and things like that. I don't treat anybody any different myself, so I do expect the sighted people to treat me the same way as they would with another sighted person.
I hope sighted people read these boards.
I think part of hte problem may be that people's reactions to us are based on emotions, not on logic or thinking. I also think a lot of the things people say or do are done very impulsively. It's sort of a kneejerk thing.
Well done about the construction thing, Robo. You're right, it wasn't fair that the workers were getting bitched out by a biddy who didn't know what she was talking about.
Yes, I've encountered people with disabilities other than my own, but I try to treat them as I would wish to be treated. In college, I met a girl who was paralyzed from the neck down. Though I couldn't imagine living like that, I treated her as an equal, and asked questions about the things I did not understand. Like me, she was perfectly fine with people asking questions in a respectful manner. She and I even used to help each other out. I would get or move various things for her, and she would often read things for me.
Godzilla, you make an excellent point about social boundaries. We are expected to simply take people invading our space, or treating us rudely or condescendingly because we are blind, while no sighted person would be expected to accept that from others. Yet, as you say, then we are criticized for having bad attitudes, or being stubborn, or scorning help. I don't scorn the assistance of others, I simply do not want it forced upon me.
I've been in situations where I knew people with other disabilities, and I can't say I ever asked them personal questions about their disabilities or anything like that unless it came up in the conversation. I didn't feel like it was any of my business unless I knew them really well.
ok, ok, I've read through like 40 posts here :)
This is a huge thread considering that it was started in late April!
What sucks for me is that my mom and family is totally into the "poor blind thing". Often time, they say, "I feel so bad for you because you're totally blind, unlike most of the blind world which has some vision at least.". In fact, my mother wanted me to go to a local college but I'm going away to Toledo, so a bit fartehr away-bout 2 hours.
now she tells me how black people will rape me and that I won't have my iPod touch after 2 weeks of being there, because the college is a public one and is state-funded (the one she wanted me to go to was a private college). I try to ignore all this but honestly it has effected my life in more ways-I'm not motivated to write, to just do anything until college because I know the lecture I'll get every night about me being incapable.
Another thing she says is "if you fall into a ditch, I won't be there to get you!"
I understand some of this as parental concern but this has gotten to the extreme lvel for me. I try to tell her that I'm fine but no relief.
With that said, Yesterday I heard as my sister and mom were talking about me, my sister telling her some people at school are still amazed that me and my girlfriend are still dating. Afterall, we've never met, we're long distance, and have been going out (continiously) for the last year (may 30th is our day). The question if it's dating or not is debatable but is for another topic! So these teachers at school were telling my sister how they are amazed that she's still with me (girlfriend is sighted btw) and how there are thousands of other guys who are "more fortunate" then I am and that in college my girlfriend will leave me. We are going to the same school-so that's exciting.
I don't like pitty, and I know in college I will not tollerate any of this. In fact if I knew the names of the people who said that, I know I'd confront them-though probably by bringing up a conversation about my relationship with them and seeing if they'll express any pitty that way.
As for my mom, I don't know. I know that if I had kids I would worry but would try to hide it as best as possible by giving them positive reinstatement so that at least they feel comfortable for college. I'm really afraid, I admit I am because of all that I've been told about the miss-treatment of the blind. Again another topic, maybe I'll create it later :)
That's sad that your own parent can't even support you in any way possible. Of course she won't be there to get you if you fall in a ditch. So? My advice would be to make the most of college. If you know that you'll do fine, others will realize it in time.
It is sad...hold on:
Black people will rape you? Wow, racist!
After going through a lot of college, it might happen... But the chances are pretty slim. Everybody on campus will jsut as out of place as you for the first few days.
Wow, sounds like your Mom labors under a ton of stereotypes, racism and poor philosophy of blindness at the top.
This makes me feel very fortunate that my first mobility teacher went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure my mother wouldn't be overprotective, and to explain the importance of not sheltering me. Even she admits to this day that I would have been a very sheltered child otherwise.
I was a bit sheltered but...well I'm not sure how that changed but it did. Lol.
My first cane instructor was instrumental in that I guess.
Yes, my first teachers were also the reason I did not get sheltered, or sent to the state school for the blind. I am eternally grateful to those teachers for that.
Yes, what a life saver!
I want to go back to the topic of the attitudes of random religious folks towards blindness. First of all, I'm curious. When somebody stops you, wanting to pray over you for healing, are they wanting to pray over you right then and there, out loud, for all to see or hear, or will they do it later in the day in private? Next, is this a practice specific to Christians, or have any of you been approached by representatives of other faiths wishing the same stuff? Third, I wonder if such people ever considered that it might take much less investment in time and energy accepting a blind person for who they are, right that instant, then blowing all that time and energy wishing for the supernatural to turn them into fully sighted people, which I'm guessing is the desired effect. Maybe I'm wrong, though. What do you think?
I went to a church back home and the preacher did something that I thought was really realalistic. He asked if any one wanted to come up to be prayed for or anointed. I kept thinking I wanted to go but of course me being shy with things like that I kept waiting. Of course I did go up close to the end of it all, and Jessy the preachure said thatGod had told him I would come up that day. Maybe thats why I wanted to go up so much, never cared to do so before in my life. But anyways: I stood there in this pentulcossual church with about five or six people standing around me toughtching me and Jessy holding my head in his hands with oil on his paulm and pressed to my forhead, he prayed that I would get sight. Not with my eyes, but with my heart. He said something like, "God you know she needs sight from her heart more than her eyes right now and I pray you give it to her." something like that. I was about to leave to move from OK to NC in just a few days when this happened, and God knows I really need sight from my heart to make some of the choices I had to make in to last couple of years.
other than that i don't think I had any thing happen to me like that. I did have a girl once wile I was working with my cane in the third grade and try to give me money for eye surgery or something I wanted. She said she would pray for me and talked to the lady I was with and not me. The lady told her no thanks and I didn't need the money. I do have to say that when people do do these things, it must take a lot of courage to do it because most people rather pretend that nothing is there but there own self.
to answer the question of whether people prayed for me right then and there, yep, they sure did. I've only encountered christians that do that sort of thing; never others of different faiths.
As far as I know, the two women who have stopped me to pray for my sight's return were Christians. I only let one of those women who stopped me pray for me, and it was in public but she was not loud with it or anything.
And ask yourself, if it were to be in private, where would it be? Are you thinking those of us who have been prayed for by these sighted people are just going somewhere with strangers? Really?
ok, I won't change the topic :) since I have my own story with this.
First, about my mom, she is bias, but probably because she grew up in Romania where of course Stalin was around and the Roma people (they are what they calle jipsies but I don't like that word) were always stealing and rading houses.
I was always sheltered, but more because I am blind and totally, mom says that that the other visually impaired are lucky to have sight. I don't believe it since my view on my disability are that it is totally limitless, though her statements do make me worry.
Mom also says that my view of the world is skewed because I don't see the horror and cheating which goes on in it.
Regarding the praying thing.
One day me and my mom, and her friend were at our house. Mom was telling him how worried she is about my well-being in college because I'm blind.
He told her that he has some "holy water" from a certain river which has been known to cause miracles. According to him, this water was from such a special place that thousands of people come there .
So he brought it out, told me to close my eyes and put some of it on them. Honestly by this point I have argued with them both so much over the fact that I can be independent and that blindness is just another way of living life and is not a "disability", that I gave up on refusing this. I just lay there and went with it.
Very odd experience I have to say, one which I never want repeated. Ever. If this would have been a random guy in a public or private place putting holy water on my eyes telling me how it'll cure my blindness and that God will help, I'd of broken the vile right then and there out of his hand. I know that sounds rude, but at this point in my life anyone who dares to pitty me because I'm differently abled will get a serious kick. I've already gotten enough of that.
-Tomi
I'm thinking the person could just pray for me in private by themselves at their usual prayer time and not have me actually involved. Or is that not how they think that sort of thing works. A religious person can't just add me to their list of people to pray for and hope God will do whatever-it-is when he's good and ready?
nope, that's not how it works...at least not with anything I've ever experienced.
Guess religion isn't immune to instant gratification. LOL!
Well, the second of the two women who stopped me wanted to know my name so she could add me to her church's prayer list, but I didn't give her my name because I don't want or need my sight back. God made me blind for a reason, and I don't want there to be anyone trying to change that.
People pray for you then and their because that is the teaching they learn. God can heal now. I do believe in healers, and that you can be healed, but I believe these people are doctors, or people you'll not find on the street praying for you. Smile. Healing also depends on your condition in that a blind person that has false eyes will need some surgeries to get healed, not a praying. I've been reading this board closely, and I do truly understand the anger I see here, but I think it is coming more from our wanting to be independant people, then the pitty. I would not wish a sighted person to read this bord as was suggested, because all they would see is the anger. They would not understand the opression if that make sense. I still stand on my belief that prayer or other acts of kindness should be looked on as such not a bid to take our independants away. Smile.
Hmm. Interesting. Most of the people I've encountered wanted to pray for me in Church that Sunday. If they prayed for me then and there, they were very quiet about it.
I think this propensity / obsession with healing is relegated to a few sects of Christianity plus some eastern spiritual types out here, anyway, but it's people who have a focus on, or desire to see, a magic show. I realize this may come off as harsh or anti-religion, but I are one, meaning I've converted to Christianity. I can say I've seen the difference between what we all have described here, this public display, making loud noises, fluffing up the feathers as it were, compared to folks who take prayer seriously, / requests are passed out for people who are truly suffering.
Godzilla I'd have to say you're right, but a magic show is in fact instant grat, is it not? Were you or I to go to a haunted house, it would be nothing if not entertaining / scary. In order for said magic show to work, however, we must be first portrayed as totally helpless. After all, where's the grat if you biologically transform an otherwise normally functioning person? No, I'm afraid it's all a magic show for them, and it appears to be from select groups.
As to the whole purpose for being blind thing some of you all describe, I've never got my head around that: it looks to me to be more a hardware defect caused by one or more biological events. So if I contribute to the wellfare of others somehow, participate in a comunity or church event, I see purpose or value in that. But a particular state of biology? I personally just don't see it, though of course if it helps one cope that's to their benefit.
As to the anger and desire to be seen as normally functioning members of society, yes of course that's a factor, because we have competing interests. Those who want a magic show must have a helpless invalid to render complete and sustainable, preferably in a flash with lots of noise and the like. And we as members of a civilized society simply seek to carry out our individual lives / responsibilities / hobbies and the like. If the magic showmen are confronted with this, they aren't usually very happy because not only is the immediate show over, but it's a true Game Over incident if they're found out. By found out, I mean if one or more of their followers gets to know one of us as people, perhaps even become friends, the illusion they must maintain about our being incapacitated is forthrightly dispensed with, magic show dismissed.
I will say this, rather than thinking of it as a fight about independence, think of it as a pursuit of respect / dignity. After all, if the Magic Show people were right, we'd be feeble-minded embiciles whose opinions amounted to almost nothing, whose professional advice couldn't possibly be worth the paper it's written on, whose duties in life would go totally unfulfilled, and whose existences would in fact be sad and pitiable. After all, as I said in the previous post, what good would a magic show be if you are to transform an otherwise productive, respected, taxpaying, responsible citizen.
And as I referenced, the magic showmen's perspective is decidedly very very primitive, while you and I function as civilized members of an ever-globalizing and increasingly complex society. The greatest apostasies per capita happen in native tribes where magic showmen have controlled the masses with their spectacles. Once the masses find out it's all illusion, they perform quite a mass exodus.
So, even inside a church setting, though I will be a gentleman to such a person, it is rather the behavior of a civilized gentlemant towards a barbarian magician. If they can keep the game up while I'm still around, I guess I could respect it in the same way you respect a rather clever rogue, but that's about as far as it goes.
Some guy I went to high school with came over and said he had something important to tell me about. I assumed the worst, invited him in and all and began:
"Last night, I heard the voice of God..." I asked, "Uh...and what did this so-called voice say?"
He said, "God told me that I should pray for you to get your sight back." I asked him, "What would your parents say if they knew about this?" He said, "They'd be proud of me."
Then he grabbed my head in his hands and chanted the following:
"open his eyes, Lord!" I had to kick him out.
did you horrify him by telling him you weren't religious? that would've been funny.
Wow, Margorp, that guy was really rude! Yes, when people have asked to pray for me, it has been right then and there. generally it's a church setting, though I have occasionally encountered it on the street. Usually got it from Christians, though as someone else said, people who do stuff like that are generally from certain sects of Christianity. It angers me when such people do things like that in the name of Christ. It makes other Christians who don't do that stuff look bad, as far as I'm concerned. I've tended to get that from extreme Penticostals, Mormons, or Jehova's Witnesses. Mind you, I'm not saying all Penticostals, Mormons, or JW's are like that, just that's where I've usually gotten it. Did get it from a Muslim once, though, which I found interesting.
Tomi, I guess now that I realize the culture issue involved, your Mom's views make more sense, though I still disagree with them immensely.
From more than one story I've heard about blind folks who are put into a faith healing situation, if, at the end of the healing, the blind person is still blind, that blind person is always blamed for things like not having enough faith or whatever else. This is not right to me. Do these people ever consider that sometimes God's answer to a prayer or request is no? I'm not Christian, but I betcha God hears these things and says, "Would you guys please cool it? I actually like this person exactly for who they are, blindness and everything. How about you?" But these people seem so single-minded in their wish for God to do a magic show they probably don't even hear it.
Oh, and I need to make another few small points. As to the angry/frustrated feelings in this topic, I think a lot of it comes from two things. First, I think all blind people want is to be left alone to do whatever they're doing without interruption by do-gooders. Next, seems so much of what people say or do to us tends to clash with a lot of what we were told was good manners. Things like violating personal space or other social boundaries happens so much. Now, I do not think people do these things on purpose, although by the reactions we get when we call sighted people on it, you'd think such sighted folk believe they have some sort of right to do so due to curiosity or good intentions. I think it's more a case of these people being so overwhelmed with curiosity or other emotions that they forget the rules. They're so busy feeling they forget to think. LOL!
Because people today just don't stop and think. If I could read minds I bet I'd here alot of elivator music and the occational "What's my name?"
I dunno. I think I would hear people talking about themselves and their concerns or else they'd be trying to run everyone else's lives, including celebrities! LOL!
Or perhaps you'd here people talking about how great they are. haha.
I've had a few people offer to pray for me. THey probably did even though I refused, though if they did I thankfully didn't hear it. I figure I must have been blind for a reason. Thankfully my new girlfriend, though Catholic, doesn't seem to subscribe to that belief. Nor has she thus far attempted to do things for me or stopped me from doing things, though she admitted that it will take some getting used to. As for the politeness thing, I tend to agree, but sometimes no matter how polite you are in your refusal of assistance or whatnot, you're going to make some people mad. That's happened to me on occasion, though admittedly not often.
you're gonna make people mad in life no matter what you do; it's not specifically a blindness thing. however, as long as your secure in who you are, that's all that matters.
I actually had a friend tell me I would be better off if I died.
What! Wow! You're blind, so you may as well just die? Really? It's not like you don't have control over numerous systems and organs in your body. She should have worded it: "I'd rather be dead than blind." Just wow! I'm sorry, but that's unintolerable ignorance right there.
Ok, as far as I'm concerned that's not a true friend. It's one thing to say I'd rather die than go blind, but to tell someone who is actually blind that they'd be better off if they died? That's unacceptable. Maybe she just worded it wrong but still. And as for the money thing I actuall had that happen to me last week while out job hunting. I've been working with a local rehab agency called Community Partnerships, where they actually take you to the businesses and give you the chance to talk to employers rather than leaving you more or less out of the loop like the last agency I worked with. Anyway, my caseworker went to get the car since she'd had to park further from the doors than we would have preferred. It was both windy and rainy that day so she had me wait under an overhang for her, not that she was gone very long, half a minute at most. And just as I was stepping out to go get in the car, this lady from Mexico or even somplace else was trying to put money in my hand, not that I was actually aware of that detail myself. Liz told me about it after I'd gotten into the car. But all I could understand of what the lady was saying was "Monny," at least that's what I thought at the time. But apparently it was money, and she'd been trying to give me some. I don't think it was more than a few dollars, two or three at most, or it might even have just been spare change. But I don't get that often either, where someone just tries to give me money. I did have that happen occasionally while I was bell ringing for the Salvation Army six years ago this December, where a few people tried to slip me money personally in adition to what they slipped into the kettle. But at least in Twin Falls you're not allowed to accept anything personally that's not edible or drinkable. And money is top of the list, even if it's willingly given and to you specifically. Needless to say tempted though I was I took the first opportunity to slip those private donations, for lack of a better term, into the kettle. Of course I don't necessarily think those ad to do with blindness itself. I don't think I've eer had anyone try to give me money based on that, except that time last week.
Wow! the money thing couldn't be more insulting! Like we are helpless beggers or something, but on the other hand, if people came up to me on a regular basis handing me hundred doillar bills, I'm not so sure i'd turn it down, lol! Some people are just totally ignorant, but some people's heart is in the right place, even if their actions are totally out of line, sometimes it's hard to tell the difference and sometimes it's humiliating either way.
Call me crazy, but I think I'd refuse the money no matter how much it was. Gifts and things from families are different, but random people slipping you money like we're some sort of beggars? No, not going to happen with me. It's really the point of it all that I'm really after.
I'm still trying to get my head around somebody telling a blind person they'd be better off dead than existing as a blind person. I would love a detailed explanation on that one, as in according to what factors and evidence. It's one thing for a sighted person to say they'd be better off dead because that's only in the land of the hypothetical. But to tell a living breathing blind person who has somehow lasted a decent amount of time on the planet that *they* would be better off dead, that's just full of wrongness to me.
I can't wrap my mind around being told you're better off dead...makes absolutely no sense to me.
I, too, would refuse any amount of money from strangers. that's extremely insulting/demeaning in my eyes.
One thing's for sure; If someone told me I'd be better off dead, they would not be invited to my funeral when I did, from an unrelated cause.
Yeah. My girlfriend certainly won't remain so if she ever tells me that, although she does seem to have a lot more sense than a lot of people anymore. Not only does shee seem to have no problem with the fact that I'm blind but she also doesn't seem to react with the astonishment that a lot of sighted folks do when they learn that I'm trying to get a job or, more accurately, that I want one and don't want to live off the government my whole life. In fact though I'm not going to hold my breath on it, she's offered to find out if she can whether or not there might be jobs I could do at her work. True it would mean I would have to commute from Idaho to Nevada daily at least two or three times a week, but Jackpot, Nevada is actually only about half an hour from Twin Falls, Idaho.
I hate when people assume that just because I am blind, I live in a group home or something. I've actually had people ask me that.
I called PetSmart once, wanting to inquire about getting a cat. I told the lady on the phone I was blind, and she said, "So, I assume you don't work then?". Some people...seriously!
that's why I don't make my blindness known over the phone if I can help it.
I didn't mean to at first, but she asked me if I could come to PetSmart immediately, and unfortunately, since we live in an area where we have to cross a highway to get to the bus stop, I couldn't at that moment, so I had to give a reason other than I didn't want to. In any event, the point is, you shouldn't assume that a person can't work because they're blind, and worse yet, tell them about your assumption.
maybe you should call back and tell the manajor
Of course then you have to persuade whoever answers the phone to put you through to the manager. And that can be difficult sometimes, especially if it's the same person who insulted you and they get suspicious about your reasons for wanting to speak to the manager. I've heard of that happening on occasion, even with in-person meetings.
And then it could have been the manager herself. Smile.
I guess this is the over all atitude towards us blind people. I know it's not everyone but cociety still seems to see blindness as a weakness. Am I way off track here?
Have you heard someone say about someone who has just died, they are in heaven now, they are in a much better place? Well that's the thought behind someone telling me I would be better off if I died, if that's true, then that's true of everyone, not just the blind. It's like saying a blind persons life is not worth living, unlike a sighted persons life. I understand the reasoning behind it, but it's a terrible thing to say to someone.
I wouldn't wish blindness on anyone, but if it happens to the person who said that to you, well, what goes around, comes around. People who do stupid stuff like this don't have an inkling of the fullfilling lives we lead until they actually go through vision loss and learn how to cope with it.
This goes back to something I said up the thread. Anybody, even a so-called friend, who thinks that your entire life experience or quality of life is lesser than theirs or just worthless knowing only that you have vision loss is a fool. People who say such things probably have not spent enough time with you to understand how you get along in life and the particular ways you adapt. Somebody thinks they've got your whole existence pegged and that is 31 flavors of wrong with epic fail sauce on the top. LOL!
I agree 100 per cent, but a statement like that can still make you feel bad about your self, even though you know in your mind it's not true, it still hurts.
Yes, it does, but not because of your blindness: you're more like to be hurt on account of having thought yourself a better judge of character than to pick a knucklehead of a friend like that. If a stranger says it, you can just write it off as filthy and disgusting, like a monkey throwing its waste around.
Some people are just annoying when they assume a blind person doesn't work. I haven't had that happen myself, but ... Anyway, I was getting off the bus to go home the other day and the person sat behind me asked if I needed any help and I said no thanks and got up to go towards the front of the bus. Then said person was like, oh you're so clever being able to go round on your own and I just turned back and was like, well in that case sighted people must be really clever then. I got off the bus at that point because i couldn't be bothered, but then the person just started going on about something or other that I wasn't listening to because I was concentrating where I was going not some mad person being ...
Well maybe it's just me, but sometimes people do kind of seem as if they don't expect us to do the sme as they would just because our eyes or whatever don't work as they should.
Some people really state the obvious as well. Has anyone been standing at a controlled crossing and had some random person walk up behind you and tell you that you've got to wait for the traffic to stop? I did during the week and I was like, well this is a controlled crossing you know and I'm not that thick anyway? I kind of felt like saying, well never, but thought I'd better not be too sarcastic seeing as I was already annoyed. `
I had an African gray parrot on my shoulder in the hallway at college once, in the apartment buildings of student housing. A woman came up and introduced herself saying she was from the medical school. She then proceeded to tell me "I don't know if you know, but you've got ... a rather large bird on your shoulder." You couldn't very well have an African gray parrot sitting there and not know it. I told her whose it was, without a beat, it was a friend of mine's, told her its name (I don't remember that now), and since it seemed she was making to reach for it, I firmly told her not to, and don't make any sudden gestures towards it like that, it's previous owner was a neurotic woman so it was calm with men but not women. Anyway, weird enough to think you should tell a blind guy he's got a bird on his shoulder. But dangerous to get grabby and reach for it. Some people I knew thought I should have let her get bit, but she cuolda had her finger(s) broken. So who, pray tell, was the protector, and who the simpleton in this scenario? Laughable actually, though of course rather annoying. She did get really indignant of course ...
Catching up on a huge amount of posts in this thread so sorry for the several postings at once. Convoluted: I never understood why some people ask the person who's travelling with a blind person about the latter. Seriously, it's so stupid. Most of us are blind not mute or deaf. And in the cases where we are, all that would happen is that our companions would tell the questioner and ask us the question or get an answer from us in a way that we could understand. Smokey Bear: Why didn't you or your friend confront the assistant and explain that you were perfectly capable of choosing your own clothing and answering questions? If I were your friend, I'd simply refuse to answer them and tell the assistant to ask you. Misty: quite honestly, I would stop being friends with those people. Correcting a child is one thing, but it's essential that the guardian of that child, in this case your friend, be made aware of what's going on at once. What idiots to not tell her! As for whispering and gesturing, very few things annoy me like that and I'm likely to explode in anger if someone does it around me. I guess it's a result of having it done to me by my braille teacher and aid in elementary school. They would constantly whisper and pass notes and never tell me what's oging on. I never forgave them for that and now get aggressive when anyone does it around me, or at the very least, call them out on it or insult/try to humiliate them. If you've got a question just ask! Wow! If I had a child and people tried to put something on him/her without asking my permission, I'd probably punch them! Hands off the kid! I would've told the woman at the bus stop to shut up after awhile, especially at the religion pushing! I have my own religion and don't need your's thank you very much. And, if you must know, it's Hermes and The Fates who prevented me from getting hit by a car but I must've done something wrong cause I'm sitting here listening to your bullshit. Usually, a simple request to stop would work, and I wouldn't bring up my own faith in such a way, but these kinds of people never listen or respect others.
Godzilla: That's a very good point about eye contact. When I was younger, my mother used to make me wear sunglasses. She said that they take attention away from my eyes. She told me that, when I didn't wear them, most people would be too busy looking at my eyes, which move, instead of listening to what I was saying, no matter how important the topic. I still wear glasses, though mostly out of habbit and because I don't want the sun to get in my eyes. Good points you made about how sighted people must imagine us. I suppose that we could do it too. I, for example, couldn't imagine being deafblind, even though I know a perfectly capable person who's blind and going deaf. Grandma told me that when she tells people how I make her tea and food in the microwave and how I go on the computer etc. they act as if it's this amazing thing and can't believe it. She said that our contractor, who's working on the house, couldn't believe it, even though he saw me not only make tea on the stove but soup as well. He's from brazil and said that all the blind people he'd seen sat in the corner all day. Sadly, the other people with whom she's spoken, who are from America, have the same perception of us, that we sit there all day and do nothing. And these aren't older people either! Mom sometimes gets the same reactions and it truly angers her to the point that she confronts them. forereel: There's a difference between being respectful and helping as you do and in not listening when someone asks to not be helped. In your personal case, if you complimented a blind person and said they looked nice, you would also compliment a sighted person. And I'm sure that you wouldn't mean "you look nice for a blind person" or "how did you do that?" But some people go out of their way just because the person is blind and honestly think they can't do things on their own which is a big difference from just wanting to help. odicy: Uh... Yeah! I hope that case was thrown out... What an asshole! I blame the sighted person because he could've made a clear judgement and seen that it wasn't a good idea to go yet. The blind person probably waved him on because he thought he was stopping just to let him pass and didn't feel that was necessary. I've never been tought to wave anyone on so can't comment if it was a mobility thing. margorp: How strange. Ordinarily, unless I know the person really can't afford it or unless I suspect there's a bad reason behind it, I never seriously turn down money. I might say no once out of politeness but that's about it. Just very weird. SisterDawn: That's totally cool about the $20! I'd be thrilled if someone would do something like that for me. Then, I'd definitely take it, cause I'd know it was safe and all. But the cop was a jerk and would've seriously annoyed me. Speeding is speeding, unless it's a life and death situation. Yuck is right about the coffee cup! Talk about a moron! Godzilla: I've never had anyone offer to help me for the purposes of harming me, but I never travel alone. But the idea is a very scarey thought, especially with those who don't grab you and who don't appear crazy. Sometimes, they can act as normally as anyone else. I wouldn't accept rides either, unless I knew the person. I know of someone who took a ride from a really nice older woman but I suppose even they can be harmful. It's sad to miss out on truly good people's hospitality but better to be safe. SisterDawn: I've never been treated special when with sighted friends. So that sounds a bit odd to me. "In charge of them?" What the fuck? I had to stop a moment when I read that! OceanDream: I'd tell them that they shouldn't use their mouth, since it could be a danger to society. People like them might get into government and start making all sorts of idiotic decisions. Harmony: What a nice man! So long as he didn't try to grab my arm or insist that I go a certain way, I'd probably feel good about it. Plus, I love old men so. *smile* I've gotten the "why don't you have a dog" bit alot. My answer is simple. I don't work and don't go out enough for such a dog to be happy. Guide dogs are working dogs and it would be unfair to get one so that he/she could just sit around all day and go out occasionally. Yes, I might get out more if I had one but it still wouldn't be enough to satisfy him/her.
margorp: Someone praying over me would drive me bonkers. If you want to pray for me, fine. But don't do it in front of me and make a show of it or try one of those silly faith healing things. Convoluted Conundrum: I don't think I'd say that I don't want my sight back or that being blind was the best thing that could've happened to me. Still, nice strategy for shutting someone up. *smile* Smokey Bear: lol! Nice one! SisterDawn: I'm with you and Fighter too. Starting off civilly is always the best way, but when people don't listen, it's their fault if I snap at them. I'd much rather an interviewer ask me questions about how I can do a job with my disability than to assume and not to hire me because he/she still had questions floating in his/her mind. Of course, the stupid provision in the ADA makes that illegal, which is yet another reason, I believe, why so many of us are unemployed. OceanDream: I love the praying for someone because they're sighted! robozork: I usually don't treat anyone special either. But I'm not afraid to use the blind card where I can, like for jury duty. Very well done for calling that woman out. Tomi: I was fortunate enough that my mom went to college with me, not as a student but as my mobility aid. She regrets that I don't even have light perception, and has said so, but she's never put me down because of my blindness or said I was incapable. The closest she's come is saying that some of my job aspirations, like crafts, are unrealistic and I won't get hired in a restaurant or even in a cafe because I'm a liability. But she worked in the food business as a high end caterer and in a deli so knows her stuff. Don't worry about college. Yes, a private one is often better than a public one but those can be fun and exciting in their own ways. My grandmother was born in Croatia and moved to Italy when still a child. My mother was born in Italy and came to America as a child. Both respect me as an individual, though it has taken them time to learn not to do things for me. So being from Romania shouldn't be such a problem that it prevents your mother from learning, especially since you've been in her life for such a long time now. There comes a time when people need to grow up and accept things, especially when it comes to providing a loving and supportive home for their children. Nicky: I'm truly glad that you had such a nice and inspirational experience in that church. It was done in an appropriate place and to a believer, which is totally fine. But a random person stopping you on the street, especially for those of us who aren't Christians, and telling us that Jesus loves and will save us and can they try to heal us, is a bit offputting at the very least. I know the people in my religion, Hellenic Polytheism, don't do that sort of thing, though we can certainly pray to The Gods of healing like Asklepios or apollon if asked or if we feel it's a good idea. I believe in the group prayer thing but only when it's desired or at least accepted as fine by the person being prayed for or when it's a close friend or family member of at least one of us or the request was made by such a person for someone dear to them. Convoluted Conundrum: I'd certainly give my first name because every little bit helps. I'd certainly never refuse the opportunity to be sighted. While I do think The Gods made me blind for a reason, I also think it would be rude and foolish of me to accept Their help, whether direct or through a doctor or technological aid, to see. robozork: I think it's all three, independence, respect and dignity. Most of all, it's about being treated as normal people. I do believe that there are true healers in this world who work through divine or supernatural means, but most are unknown and probably want to stay that way and to help those around them rather than for people to make a spectical of them. Godzilla: It's horrible that the blind people actually get blamed when they've let themselves be subjected to all of this. In my religion, it's presumptuous to assume that The Gods will drop everything and help you. Granted, They don't have to love us or to be merciful, as the Christian God is portrayed, but I thought even Christians would understand that it's beyond them to control the divine. Tim21: Uh... What? Better off if you died? You still have your mental abilities and obviously some or all physical ones... The only way I'd ever feel that way about someone is if they had no clue who they were or couldn't do anything like take care of themselves etc. and even then, they'd have to have a severe mental disability so that they couldn't decide things. BryanP22 and Godzilla: Completely agreed with you about the friend! margorp: lol Group home? Wow! I've never gotten that one. Tim21: Even with that explanation, I could never understand a comment like that. Why would it make you feel bad about yourself? I'd actually feel superior to the jerk who said it. robozork: Good point. If anything, feeling bad because you befriended such a person makes far more sense. robozork: If a grown, supposedly mentally competent, woman doesn't know enough not to go making quick gestures in front of a strange animal who doesn't know her, it's her fault if she gets bitten.
Well blind people don't have super powers, or a crystal ball when it comes to choosing friends, so you cant' really blame the blind person for the sighted persons ignorance. lol!
Oh, I'm not saying that blaming them is a good idea. But it could certainly make the blind person feel bad on their own, however much it may not be their fault, for choosing such a friend. Of course, sighted people are often fooled into such things as well.
It is often difficult to judge the behaviors/actions of others. Usually when people meet you they put there best foot foward and don't show true colors.
Okay, you can pick your friends, but not your family, and sometimes your family becomes the enemy. I recently found out that when my mom died, which was almost eight years ago now, while I was inside the funeral home, my siblings were outside discussing taking me out of my home and putting me in an assisted living facility or something, because I might fall down and hurt myself, and I would be alone in the house. The house which my parents left to me by the way. So I guess blind people can't be trusted by themselves since they fall down a lot, right? The kicker is that I had been taking care of my mother who had been ill for years with no help from any other family members, and now I am suddenly not capable of taking care of myself? What the hell! Besides that, I was in my 30s at the time, how about talking to me instead of talking behind my back like I am a child or something. It's been almost eight years now, and I haven't fallen down and hurt myself yet, well, I stubbed my toe a few times, but I learned pretty quickly not to do that, lol! I suspected that they had been discussing this when my mom died, and I felt like I was on my own and couldn't trust them, or ever talk to them about anything for fear that it would be used against me, as it turns out, my fears were not unfounded, I was right about my suspicions, and I'm glad I didn't let them control me. If my mom and dad hadn't made the will iron clad, I think they would have followed through with their plan, so what would they do with the house? probably sell it and split the money among themselves. They must be really concerned about me, since I am lucky if I get a phone call once a year on Christmas. I have never asked their help for anything, but they are more than happy to help each other, and boast about it, it's funny how people who don't really need help, others are more than happy to help them, but if someone really does need help, those same people don't want bothered, the thing is, i always helped my family and friends, but it was a one way street. Oh by the way, when my mom died, I had to pay all the expenses myself, including the funeral.
Wow! That's absolutely horrible! Personally, I'd completely disassociate myself with people like that, and if they wre in my will, I'd make sure to erase their names. I'm not one who holds to family when they turn on you. As a matter of fact, we (that is my immediate family whom I love and with whom I'm very close.) don't talk to the extended family precisely because we hate drama, lying and fucked up people.
I agree with Eleni on this completely; anyone, be they family or otherwise, isn't considered such in my book when they treat me like shit. blood doesn't mean a thing; I don't care what anyone says.
Chelsea and Eleni, I'm totally with you guys on the family thing. I don't talk to most of my extended family because I've been repeatedly rejected or pushed aside by them.
And Eleni, you obviously don't understand that I truly am glad that I am blind. I honestly believe that going blind was the best thing that happened to me, and I thank God I am blind all the time. I do not want anyone to pray for my sight's return, and if they do, I sure as hell don't wanna know about it. I was sighted before, and I really don't think I'm missing much, especially considering how so many sighted people only concentrate and ponder what they see and fail to pay attention to and analyze information picked up by their other senses. I would never jump at the opportunity to get my sight back, someone else can have that shit.
As a person living all my life with nothing but blindness, save for some light perception, it is hard for me to desire to see because such a thing is just something I have no real concept of. It would be silly of me to believe that if I were sighted,I'd live an easier life. I'm supposed to understand that the human condition is full of problems and frustrations, so if people want to argue that your life has more and bigger problems if you're blind, that's just splitting hairs.
I'm totally with Raven on this. I'm not religious by any means, but I'd never wanna have sight. Eleni, I seriously don't understand how you, being blind yourself, can't comprehend that...but to each their own. I live a perfectly happy/fulfilling life being blind, and I wouldn't have it any other way. if I were offered an operation to give me sight, I'd resist it time and time again.
My family can be ignorant, and when they are, I cut them out. Sounds harsh but it's the best way to keep your sanity.
Yep. I've got a particular aunt on my dad's side I could happily cut out of my life for that very reason.
I would like to get my eyesight back for only the reasons to be able to drive and walk in to a store and do things all by myself. But you get special treatment like your ritch or soemthing unlike the others when your blind. People go out of their way to help you and keep you happy, most time you get to do things that othersdon't because your blind. I also think that some blind people are stronger than sighted, because we have to fight to get what we want. so on so on I got to go but will continnue to read post laters.
to the person who said they have certain relatives they "could" cut out of their life, why not make it happen? as someone who has cut lots of people out of her life very recently, I can say it's one of the best things I could ever do for myself in sooo many ways.
same here
I haven't had this problem with family members, but I've had a problem with friends being that way, and I have no problem telling them where to shove it. I had a friend once who said she didn't invite me to her party because they would be watching TV, and she thought I would be bored because of my blindness. I was more than willing to work things out with her, but she said I was being unreasonable, and that she couldn't understand why that would upset me, and wouldn't appologize, so I told her to forget about it. Call me harsh, but in my opinion, anyone who openly has that attitude is no true friend to me.
Here's a new one: Last night, my husband and I went out for my birthday, and the waitress kept trying to spoonfeed us our meal. I'm sure she didn't mean to be humiliating, but...wow.
Convoluted Conundrum: This is the first time in my life that I've ever heard someone who had sight say that they're much happier without it. Perhaps, I should start a board post on this. You're totally correct in saying that many sighted people don't see what's aroun them because they focus so much on their sight. This is something I've seen myself in their behaviour and patterns of thought. My mother used to have a little trick she' play on people, not to be mean but to analyse them. She'd walk with them for a block or so without speaking. Then, at the end, she'd ask them "so, what did you see?" Most of the time, they'd look at her with confusion in their eyes and ask what she meant to which she'd reply something like "well, there was a plane that passed us, two dogs barking behind a fence, three children playing ball" etc. She's told me that having a blind daughter has taught her alot of things that she never would've realised otherwise. Another thing she mentions is giving directions. She used to say "please get that over there for me". But now, she's so accustomed to saying things like "please get the book on the table for me" that she even does it with sighted people and the "over there" variety of sayings actually annoys her. But back to what you were saying, while I can understand not wanting to see the evil in the world an so on, I personally think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Godzilla: I've been blind all my life too but can't understand how seeing wouldn't make my life easier. There are so many average things that I could accomplish without the need for technology or sighted assistance, from reading anything to handling cash to being able to take someone else's pen or pencil if I forgot mine at home, not to mention the already discussed mobility benefits. Certainly, being blind isn't the worst thing but to say that it doesn't cause problems simply doesn't make sense. Granted, I don't think about it much, but it definitely comes to mind when I can't do certain things, and I' say that that's a problem. Sighted people don't think about the advantages they have precisely because they've always had them just as most of us don't think about being able to touch things. But if, Gods forbid, something serious happened to one of our hands, I'm sure we'd think long and hard about it. It's not that we as blind people can't live happy/fulfilling lives. It's just that, for many of us, having this extra thing would make them better. Nicky: Very good points. We do often get special treatment and this is a good thing in many instances. Like you, I also think that blindness, or anything that makes someone stand out in society, makes people stronger because they have to fight more for things. That's one of the few times that I'm thankful to be blind. I've often wondered if my views on certain things would change were my site to be restored. OceanDream: I definitely would've stopped talking to that friend. To make such a mistake is foolish but forgivable if the person acknowledges that it was a mistake and learns from it. But faced with such stubbornness and stupidity, the friendship would crumble if I were involved. To not understand how something like that could be humiliating says alot about someone's mental state to me. As for the waitress. My mouth was open for a second! Spoonfeeding, are you serious? In my own personal case, I would've said "I graduated college with a 4.0 GPA and a BA in Sociology and then earned a certificate to teach English as a Second Language. Surely, by now, I should know how to feed myself. Don't you agree?"
I love post 14. I do try to be good natured, and usually I succeed. but sometimes, the question or comment is just too stupid and I answer gruffly.
That's certainly true. I won't say I never sih I could see. but the fact of the matter is I've always been blind and probably always will be. There's no point getting depressed or too frustrated about it. And to Fighter's post, that aunt actually might as well already have been cut out of my life as rarely as I see her. Last time was at my brother's wedding, now almost two years ago. Heaven forbid she should actually call me for a friendly chat, and given how she always tends to stear the conversation around to a point where she can criticize me for doing or not doing something, it's probably for the best. And heaven forbid she should actually sit down and play a boardgame or something with me when I was younger. If she wasn't afraid of going blind as a result of associating with me, she was definitely disdainful of me, which I could always hear in her voice even though she never actually said it.
BryanP, I understand; was simply trying to help.
Tiffinitsa, you say blindness isn't the end of the world, but I feel you're contradicting yourself by other things you say. I'm not about to argue; am just calling it as I see it. as someone who has mild cerebral palsy in addition to blindness, life is certainly a little more challenging, butI wake up every day happy to be alive and always find a way to work around stuff no matter what the case may be.
Jess, wow; I'm sorry to hear you had such an experience at the restaurant last night. I hope you guys put her in her place; I wouldn't have let that slide.
I would have demanded to speak to the manager of that restaurant if such a thing were to happen to me. Wow, that's ridiculous.
Yes, your's is the most logical and would probably have worked. Bet they would've gotten a free meal out of it too.
Again, apparently that fact just goes over a lot of people's heads, but that kind of ignorance is just a bit too annoying, if you ask me. Many of these people aren't intentionally trying to be rude, but if they're going to make such extreme assumptions, maybe they really need a rude awakening.
did you talk to the manager? I certainly would've.
I've said it once and I have no trouble saying it again:
Only relying on one sense is a handicap. That is all I will say.
Margorp,
People who work in fire departments, the military, police and many other professions would agree with you. Not just us.
Oh I understand you were trying to help Fighter. I was just telling you how it was.
I understand; I'm glad you don't have to see much of said relative, though. I truly feel your pain.
Yeah. Sometimes some of the things she says are so ridiculous that they actually end up being funny but more often than not I just have to leave the room and go beat up a few fake people in a video game to calm down.
Why even bother with her? There's no reason why you should have to suffer like that. Just dissassociate yourself from her. Even better, tell her off before you do it to give yourself the satisfaction of letting her know how you really feel. Ordinarily, I'd say do it nicely, explaining your feelings calmly, but since it appears that she's lacking a brain, it shouldn't really matter how you do it. *smile*
Problem is that there are certain family functions that I'm sort of obligated to attend such as a brother, sister or coursin's wedding where she's likely to be...well unless she feels the person in question is beneath her. THe point is I'm almost guaranteed to run into her at such functions, and believe me, if I did tell her off, and yes that would be extremely satisfying, I'd never hear the end of it. You can bet that I do see her as little as I can possibly do, which if I'm lucky is every few years or so. If and when I get married I wouldn't want her at my wedding but there's virtually no way of doing that without coming off suspiciously.
So never hear the end of it. I'm sure the rest of your family would back you up, and if they don't, oh well.
Exactly. Remember that as much as you may have obligations to your family, they have their obligations to you, and I don't mean to support the revenge theory here, but if they don't fulfill those obligations to you, why should you be required to do that for them? That really gives you the short end of the stick, and that shouldn't be one of your obligations.
If it's your wedding, then it's your right to involve whomever you want. Besides, I find that when you tell people off, they generally ignore you and the others around you get the message eventually, which is I'll say hi/bye, so as not to ruin the event, but don't expect me to talk or listen to you. Good point OceanDream! I never even thought of that. On the flip side, though, what if the person for whom the event is being held really isn't involved in the conflict? You certainly don't want to hurt someone innocent.
exactly; true family, as I've learned recently, is when people are there for you through thick and thin, and you the same for them. if the rest of the people you call family don't support your decision of telling her off, that's their problem, not yours. part of living your life for you is making it as stress-free as possible, and for most of us, that does mean cutting ties with people that do you more harm than good.
I support revenge theory. lol.
I guess it can apply in some cases, if you can actually accomplish something by doing it.
Yes. Getting back on topic, I have learned to dodge that woman at the store who tried to give me money. Hurray!
Send her my way! lol
Tiffanitsa, why would you wanna be given money by a random stranger as he's talking about? does it not bother you that when that happens, people are pitying your blindness?
I can't believe some of the stuff I've read in this thread.
If somebody grabs my arm when I'm getting off a train but I don't need their help, I don't mind. It's not causing me any harm or inconvenience. I don't need help but I don't mind receiving help from people who care enough to want to be helpful.
If I'm being served and the person serving me would rather ask a sighted person who I am with what I want, I don't care. It doesn't matter that I wasn't asked. I don't worry that the person thinks I can't speak for myself. All that matters is that the sighted person doesn't say that I want something I don't want.
A more recent post by Harmony was about somebody saying she was clever because she could find her way off the bus. Worse things happen. I could never get annoyed by something so trivial. If I could be bothered to respond, I would have either just said thanks (most likely), or said ... I'm struggling to think about what I would say ... probably that I was taught or that blind people can be taught how to get off busses - something like that.
If I am offered money, I'll thank the person who offers it, explain that I don't need it, but take it if that's what the person wants me to. I could always give it to a charity (probably not a blind one) if I don't need it.
Seriously, I think some of you let things bother you more than they should. Surely I can't be the only blind person who doesn't see sighted people as a category, or feel the need to raise awareness of my blindness.
So long as the person has no alterier motive, I honestly couldn't care less why they choose to give me money or whether they pitty me or not. It's a loss from their wallet and a gain into mine, and if you want to be nicer/less economically-inclined, they're honestly trying to help, as was said. However, grabbing arms is unacceptible. If everyone in the world were nice, it might be a mere annoyance. But with all the crazy people out there, I take safety very seriously and would be grately alarmed if someone just walked up to me and grabbed my arm out of nowhere. Normally, I on't mind if a sighted person orders for me, so long as he/she is ordering for everyone and we've discussed what I want. It's when the waitress/waiter automatically assumes that I'm stupid and asks my sighted companions that I have a problem. Usually, I interrupt the sighted person if they answer, but most of the time, they'll simply say "ask her". If I'm in a good mood, I'm not sure what I'd say about the bus, though my face would most likely show my feelings anyway, that is, I'm blind not stupid. Then again, in my situation, it probably would be a big thing if I rode the bus completely by myself and went places. lol
to senior, thank you, thank you, thank you.
But I don't want to be pittied in such ways. It is humiliating...am I the only one who is bothered by this?
Margorp, no. You're certainly not. I mean, if people say I'm amazing, or whatever, I'm not going to go out of my way to humiliate them, but I'm not going to take it as a compliment either, as if I'm supposed to be some super blind woman or something. As for the grabbing the arms, I completely agree with Tiffanitsa. Nobody has that right, whether they want to help or not. If you politely offer me help, I will politely accept or decline it, but don't expect any tips from me if you grab my arm.
Senior, I understand your views about not intentionally raising awareness of my blindness, but apart from the fact that I am not sighted, I am the same, and I expect to be treated as such. If this means interrupting a waitress who asks my sighted companion to order for me when I am perfectly capable of ordering for myself, then so be it. I'm not trying to raise awareness of my differences, but my similarities.
Margorp you are in good company. For us there just aren't that many of us, so in regular life your chances of running into a blink are seldom to none unless you're in a highly blink-concentrated area. That being said, I totally get wondering if you're the only one thinks a certain way, but no, there's others of us totally with you man. While I don't really raise awareness and things, I don't consider those remarks compliments either nor would I take money. I generally get frustrated when people like that, for their own masturbatory pleasures, interfere with otherwise functioning and necessary processes like looking after one's dependents, going to the store, and the like. Nope, methinks in this regard you got friends in both high and low places ...
There's nothing wrong with being told you're amazing. I'd rather be told I'm amazing than be told I'm a prick. People mean it as a complement if they call me amazing, so I'll take it that way. I'd rather feel complemented than feel insulted or humiliated. In my experience, people usually feel humiliated when things happen to them that were intended to have a negative emotional impact. I don't think I've ever met anybody who felt humiliated because somebody told them they were amazing.
Not only can I not be bothered to raise awareness of my blindness, but I can't be bothered raising awareness of my similarities with sighted people either. I don't see sighted people raising awareness of how similar or different they are to others. So long as I'm served with what I would have been served with had I spoken for myself, it doesn't matter whether the person serving me thinks I can speak for myself I don't go to shops to convince others that I can speak for myself; I go to shops to buy things.
On the grabbing, it doesn't hurt. When people grab my arm they are trying to look out for me. They never try to hurt me. If people are trying to help me, I'll generally treat them as if they're trying to help me. I don't see any sense in reacting as if somebody is trying to harm me when people are trying to help me and I'm being helped not harmed.
Yes, more often than not, when a sighted person grabs the arm of a blind person, they mean no harm. But I feel that people who do that are invading my personal space and depriving me of my independence. I don't believe they would ever grab the arm of one of their sighted counterparts if they looked lost, so why grab mine? I have personal space just as everyone else does.
If someone talks to who I'm with like I'm not there, but don't do that to a sighted person with a companion, why should I accept such treatment? You may not care, Senior, but I would rather betreated like someone's friend who is able to speak, and not their dog or child who they must represent.
No, Margorp, you are not alone in your feelings that we should not take condescending and annoying treatment from sighted people. We are not inferior beings, and thus, someone should not do to us what they would not do to a fellow sighted person. If you were alone in your opinion on this, this particular board topic would not be as huge as it is.
I strongly disagree with Senior on this, but I usually disagree with his posts, so I'm not going to say anymore than that.
See, this is just it. What people say and do to us may be harmless, but it's the motivation, the ideas, the mythology and assumptions behind these behaviors, this is the problem. It's the idea that a blind person is not equal, but either an idiot or a superman, and that's just one of many examples. And we seem to also understand that much of this behavior would never never never be put up with by any sighted person, and yet, even our fellow blind people seem to suggest we stay silent and lie back and take it because people mean well. No wonder many of us, including myself, have a helluva hard time being assertive. These people, even if what they do is harmless, are usually doing us absolutely no favors at all, are interrupting us from whatever we're doing, and do not realize that they are violating social rules and boundaries and doing things they'd sue for if it were ever done to them. I do not want to be healed, pittied, seen as lesser or even greater than the average grunt, nor am I a poster child, representative of all blind folks, or anyone's stepping stone to paradise.
um, okay, I decided I wouldn't read all 200+ posts on this topic, just so I could post, but from the first few posts, I've pretty much realized what I'm gunna say.
Truthfully, I can't stand pity. I'm not even going to explain why, firstly, cause it's a pretty petty reason (pride), and secondly, because I don't think I need to explain myself to people who totally understand. When someone shows pity-- "awww, I could just imagine how hard it must be for you being blind...", I don't say anything, just because I don't want to start some bitch fit or something. But seriously? I mean, we're all blind, but besides that, that's the only difference we have between sighted people, so I don't get how we should get pity, over the regular sighty.
I totally agree with one of Dan's posts, where he says something about hating it when people ask him how many fingers they're holding up. I don't really get how it came into the topic, but god, that bugs the hell out of me. Most of the time, I turn all sarcastic bitch on them and I'm like "oh, well don't you know?". It's a bit rude I know, but that's how lots of people know me as. :D.
As for help because I'm blind, I try and deny it as much as I can (pride thing), but if I do need help, I won't hesitate (that long, at least) to ask for it. It does irritate me when people ask to help with the simplest things, but I try not to get mad at them, because even though I feel like there treating me like a kid, I get that they're just trying to help.
um... that's it, I guess? Lol.
I think the key here, is choosing your battles. it's important to think about how we react, just as much as it's important to us to be treated equally.
Seenior:
When someone says I am amazing, I instinctivly snort, because I am just a person. Is it amazing that I buy groceries? Do I not eat food like everyone else? Same with walkind up or down steps; it's not a superhuman ability.
Senior, you say that you don't try to bring out your similarities because other sighted people wouldn't do that. Well, you're right, but by that logic, would sighted people allow some random person to grab their arm? Their intentions are probably good, yes, but if you don't think before you act, you live with the consequences, whatever they are, and most people I know, blind or sighted, do not take kindly to having their arm grabbed. Offering help is different, and even if I don't need it, I will give that person the upmost respect, because they have done the same for me in that situation.
Oh yes, no shame in accepting help if you need it but do not grab me.
Godzilla wrote:
very well said.
I don't think any of us are calling sighted people our enemy. If a blind person sees sighted people as enemies, then they have just as wrong of an attitude as the very kinds of sighted people we are talking about here. I certainly do not see them that way. I have many sighted friends, and don't have a problem with most sighted people in general. I only have problems with people who treat us in some of the ways described on this topic. And, there are plenty of blind people who are my friends, and some I have problems with, too. Both blind and sighted are cross sections of society. No matter what disability a person might have, or none at all, we are all part of society at large.
and, I think you may be getting the impression a lot of us see sighted people as our enemies because of some of the strong viewpoints posted here. Again, I don't think that's the idea. However, some of us do need a place to rant, to fellow blind people who understand. So, even though the majority of my experience with sighted people has been good, what you are seeing here is the venting from those of us about our negative experiences. We all need to vent from time to time to people who will understand, and that's what's going on here.
I couldn't agree more with Sister Dawn's last post.
I used to think sighted people thought about blind people a lot, but senior is right...for the most part, all people see is that we need help cause we can't see. why does there need to be this negative perception about what they think? more importantly, why does it matter so much to some of you? just curious.
I know they don't think about blind people a lot in general, only when they see one of us. And, you just got at the heart of the issue here: that when they do think about us, when they do see us, that's exactly what they think: that we automatically need help because we can't see. That's not how I want to be thought of, and more importantly, how I want to be treated. I want to be looked upon an as an equal in society, not someone who instantly needs help because I happen to be blind.
I see what seenior is saying but it can still be belittling. Sighted people are certainly not my enimy but more of them should think for crying out loud.
I know sighted people don't usualy think about blind people, but as Sister Dawn said, they only think of us when they see one of us; and what they think is that we are helpless. I don't appreciate people treating me like I'm helpless, talking to me like I'm four, grabbing my cane or arm, and telling me they feel bad for me because I'm sightless. Obviously, people don't think much. It doesn't take a lot of mental power or extreme brain functioning to figure out how a blind person gets around, dresses themselves, has sex, or wipes thier own ass.
It angers me and annoys me, but I try to be calm with it all the same. If they are curious I will educate them. And if they give me assistence, well that's fine, depending on what I need help with.
I'm not going to accept help if I don't need it, because then, as far as they're concerned, they're correct in assuming I need help. Instead, I will firmly, but respectfully deny it, unless I really do need it. In either way, I will let them know my reasoning, and thank them for their offer. It's really not a matter of having anything against sighted people, but about protecting my independence, and hopefully educating along the way, if possible.
My guess is that when one of us is spotted, people are so bombarded by their own mix of emotions that it makes it hard to think rationally. This is why people generally tend to act on impulse when they see us, because they are reacting due to an emotional response. Plus many people have been told or trained or convinced that it's better and easier to just go along with the herd and not think for yourself, because thinking is too hard. LOL!
Then, consider that they are also going on their own conclusions as to what it's like to be blind, based on their playing a very hasty what-if game in their heads. So it might go this way. "Hmmm, I wonder what it would be like to be blind. What? No eyesight? Oh, terror! Sadness! I'd be so helpless. I know if I were so helpless I would never refuse any help of any kind. Oh looky, here's this blind person and I bet they need help with something, well, anything, because I know I'd need help with everything if it were me. I'm going to help them because I know they need it because I know I'd need it if it happened to me." See how that goes?
Now, I don't get the bit about being spoken to like you were barely able to speak or understand human speech. I guess eyesight is linked to intellect, else people either get their disabilities confused, or they think we're all Helen Keller. LOL!
That or that we're all deaf. How many of you have had the hello! how! are! you! experience? I've only had it a few times but man oh man!
I try to remain patient and calm as well, and definitely try to answer questions and educate someone if they are curious. I actually welcome that. I'm a curious person myself, have been since I was a kid, and so I know that often the way to learn about things is to ask questions, and get good answers. So, as long as someone is being curious and not rude about it, I will do my best to answer the questions they have.
Like Jessica said, I will not take help I don't need, either. Granted, there are times I do need that assistance, and I am grateful for it. But, when I don't need it, I don't think there's anything wrong with a polite refusal of it.
Godzilla, you are very right. People do play the, "what if I were blind," game in their heads. This is not helped by those so-called trust activities often performed in school, where a person is blindfolded, but not given a cane, of course, and then must depend on another person to guide them through some kind of obstacle course. So of course then they see us, remember that, and there you have it. Even some rehab Centers play into this one. As PR stunts, they have the public come in, doo the blindfolding thing, etc. Of course in this case, they give the person a cane and some very rudimentary training on how to use it. But I personally believe that half hour or so under blindfold only serves to heighten a person's fear of blindness, not help them to understand it. Or, what understanding they get is often false.
And, I've only gotten the, "if you're blind, you're also deaf," mentality once or twice. Sighted people generally think of Helen Keller when they assume that one. I have gotten asked before if I know sign language because I'm blind, and I have had a couple deaf people tell me that they get asked if they know Braille because they're deaf. Gotta love it.
Wow! BSign for the blind and braille for the deaf? New one for me! Not at all making fun of those who really are deafblind but one doesn't necessarily mean the other. I suppose the what if game is true. I've never thought of it that way but it certainly makes sense. The films about the blind or that have blind people in them don't often help, though some recent shows have gotten better and now show their blind characters with more independence.
I can't say that I ever went off on somebody for anything they said or asked. I want to try and at least be diplomatic when I can. But some people do say some odd things or ask some strange questions and I ahve to think a bit before I respond just because what they say might throw me off my groove. One time somebody asked me if I had graduated. He seemed to approve of my having graduated once I told him so, but why did he want to know?
Oh, and SisterDawn, you're right, I don't think you can really truly simulate blindness to the point where a sighted person could understand every nuance of the experience. If you want to really understand it, if that's your goal, you really sort of have to be there.
But honestly, I don't think I want people to understand what it's like to be blind. What I want, I believe, is for people just to relax. Stop jumping to conclusions, stop being afraid of difference, abandon your myths and misconceptions and see what is before you, a fellow human being with life experiences that are actually fairly similar to yours, with some peculiarities of course. And maybe that's only touching the surface.
Sighted People we don't know may think we need help because we can't see but that isn't a problem to me. I don't mind people thinking I need help when I don't. I'd rather they make that assumption, than they assume I don't need help when I do need it.
If sighted people think I need help, they will either not give me the help they think I need, or they will try to help me. If they don't try to help me, I probably won't know that they thought I needed help. I may not even notice them. I can't be bothered to speculate on what everybody around me may be thinking about me.
If they do decide to help me, I'll know sighted people think I need their help. I then have a choice. Either I can accept their help, or I can tell them that I don't require their assistance. Usually I don't mind either way, but I don't mind making my choice and I don't feel uncomfortable about letting people know which option I've chosen.
Tif I've had:
Can, you, here m'm'm'm'm'me?
Stupid stupid people.
As long as the person is polite to me, I will return the favor. If I say I don't require the asistance, and thank you for the offer, I'll leave it at that unless they get pushy, which has happened. There's nothing wrong with asking if you need help, but if the person you are asking says, clearly, no, that should be the end of it, unless you're wanting to make casual conversation.
Also, has anyone ever thought about the fact that if someone needs help, they'll often ask for it themselves? If we're talking about assumptions, I'd rather people make the assumption that I'll ask for help if I need it. At least then, I feel like they're seeing me as a human being, on their level, minus the eyesight.
Amen to that about asking for help yourself, Jessica, rather than it being assumed that you need it.
I don't like people assuming things for me, but I know that it happens. I usually ask for help, and there's nothing wrong with it.
This is going a bit off topic, but it is rather annoying when some nutcase goes and asks someone else like the person with you if there is one or someone else who happens to be around to ask the blind person something instead of asking themselves! For god sake! Do they think we don't understand the human language or something?
What on Earth? Wow! I've never gotten that one!
people will do what they do...I just try to be as polite as possible.
It hasn't happened to me in quite a few years, but the last time a waiter or waitress asked my sighted companion what I wanted I responded pleasantly with "I don't know, why don't you ask him?"
exactly; people will do what they do...just let it be and live your life.
no, that's not off topic, Harmony. And it sucks when it happens, I agree.
Lately I am getting less and less pitty. The irony is, I am finding myself in those rare do or die situations when I am forced to play the "blind card"
There's nothing wrong with asking for help when you really need it, and yes, we do have our limitations, but everyone has one limitation or another.
I find it interesting that when the topic of interactions with sighted people comes up, it will tend to always come around to help. It's as if one goes with the other.
I think it's because they make it stand out more than other types of interactions. It's like we're magnets for people wanting to help us, and as we've already said, this can be a good or a bad thing, especially today, when you don't know whom to trust.
Exactly. They either want to help you get where you're going whether you actually need the help or not, or they want to pray your sight back. I actually had a guy approach me in a bus station once, a nice elderly gentleman handing out religious papers of one kind or another, and he told me that if I got someone to read the paper to me I'd get two new eyes when I got to heaven. I didn't want to be rude but to be perfectly honest I've always found such encounters to be more than a little unnerving.
Sadly, some blind people keep a sighted friend around just for help with something. That is so unfare because the sighted person is just trying to be a good friend and they don't realize they are beeing used.
I've heard of that as well. And I feel sorry for the sighty in that situation.
Sighted people do, in some cases, get taken advantage of by blind people, and that's just as inexcusable as the opposite. I'm not trying to excuse our own behavior. I'm just saying it would be nice if people would interact with us the same way they would interact with anyone else, whether it would be help related, or anything else.
I just had a mantnce man who was working on my aC unit ask to pray for me or with me about getting my eyesight, he said that he wasn't a holy person, really didn't go to church adn stuff but it hit him all of the sudden to do it and he wanted to do it. Crazy!
It doesn't occur to these people that we might not necessarily want our sight back, particularly if we never really had it in the first place. A lot of people are surprised when I tell them that.
as I've said before, it shouldn't matter how others see us; as long as we're comfortable in our own skin, that's what matters most. I used to see it the way lots of you did, but people either accept you or they don't, bottom line.
Some peole view the blind as lesser beeings. How sad that is.
I often wonder what it would be like to have sight, as I've been totally blind since birth, but then again, if the opportunity ever came up, I don't even know if I would take it. I'm not saying the transition would be impossible, but it would definitely be challenging, and unnecessary.
I'm the type who would've brought out my statues, incense, food for sacrifice and drink for libation and said "okay, let's go for it. Shall we start first with Asklepios or Zeus, since he's The Father of Gods and Men?" Speaking of Zeus, I just heard thunder so went inside. Time to close all the windows...
I've been blind since birth, and can tell you if an opportunity to give me sight presented itself, I'd refuse it right away.
As would I. No thank you.
I've been blind since I was two-months-old and could never wrap my head around that philosophy. Sure, being blind is comfortable for me, since it's all I know, but there are so many advantages to seeing. If you've seen and don't want it, I could sort of understand that more, since you've seen alot of the bad things that this world has to offer. But for those of us who have never seen, imagine the adventure and all the great opportunities we'd have in all areas of life.
But think about it. Scientifically, your brain isn't equipped to handle visual stimulus if you've never had it before. I mean, sure, you'd eventually adjust, but personally, I think that would be really scary. I'm not saying I'd flat out refuse it, but I'd really have to think long and hard about it.
yes, the adjustment process isn't worth it...plus, I wouldn't trade being blind for the world. opportunity isn't related to sight; it's up to us to seek what's out there.
So seeing wouldn't give me the opportunity to drive, to travel independently, to read things, to cook with greater ease, to see those whom I love, to understand colour, light and all manner of visual things that are totally abstract to me right now? I'd say it would.
It's all a matter of perspective I suppose. Personally I think sighted people have gotten too caught up on sight.
If it became less expensive to get sight than it is to continue to purchase extra equipment, pay extra for transport and the other overt and hidden costs we experience, I'd do it. I'm not ashamed of my biology, but being blind is not a lifestyle, nor is having sight. It's simply the use of, or lack of use of, photons and the sensory impact that implies. If it became practical to do it, then I would just suck it up and go do it.
I see Tiffanitsa's point. Yes, we would have benifits. Our brains would not crumble under the weight of the unknown stimulus, (lol) but I will say this:
Those of us who use public transportation, or paratransit, or whatever technically do travel independintly. I'd rather not have to adjust.
sure it would, Tiffanitsa...but if you used public transportation, you'd understand that you can travel independently as a blind person. and, sorry to rain on your parade, but there's more to life than sight.
I am an extremely dull and unadventurous person, because I don't think it would be worth it for me to gain full eyesight. Much as life as a blind person has its assorted frustrations, I'm quite comfy in my own skin and would not want to deal with all the upheaval and I doubt after 45 years that my brain could even process visual things. I would be a silly person to believe if I were sighted all my problems would go away. No, they'd be replaced by a totally new set of problems. I say this because people who want us to have our eyesight think our lives would improve. Nope, it'd just be life amongst the humans, but now I'd see things. Nobody, not even the fully able-bodied, the rich, beautiful, strong, powerful, whatever, lead problem-free lives.
Besides, I just don't want to be like everyone else. Yuck! LOL!
Yes, and there are sighted people who also take public transportation. But they can be dropped off wherever and find their place. They can go to new places without getting totally lost. They can go to stores with a bus and do the shopping on their own, go to parties and pick out anyone in a crowd to talk to or to flirt with, they can read the street signs and find people's houses or a job site on their own etc. They can also flag a cab that they see going along the street if the bus is late etc. I suppose it makes sense for some people to stay blind, and it's certainly their right. But I'd like to get out of this prison if I can.
I'm with GOdzilla. I'm not 45 (in fact I'll be 30 in four days), but i honestly don't think it'd be worthwhile at this point in my life to get my sight back. I won't say I've never wondered what it would be like but not enough that I'd be quick to jump at an opportunity to have sight.
So Tiffanitsa are you saying you are unhappy beeing blind?
I couldn't imagine the adjustment i'd have to go through if there was a cure for stage five retinopathy of prematurity. come on ... learning to read all over again? they say when you're a kid it's easier to do it and you pick up things much faster than you do when you're an adult. way too frustrating ...
Again, I agree.
I will say this, on the earlier topic of how much leeway we should or shouldn't give, being nice, educating and the like:
Whatever one wants to believe is their thing. However if someone who thinks that way, and I, are both working on the same team be it work or parents with a group of kids or whatever, keep those beliefs in your pants where they belong. It's not a di-versity thing, it's a "Quit-being-a-numbnuts-and-get-to-work" thing. Believe what they want: hang a picture of me in the garage and pop it with darts, wear the white sheet, think all blind people are inferior, use the n word, whatever, but in private. Dont whip that out when we all gotta work together. Safe to say, in software I rarely get this anymore. It's only if on a volunteer crew or something similar. Even then they can blather on for all I care, so long as we're not draggin' and slowing everything else down / keeping the rest waiting because they've gotta interfere on account of their beliefs. That's not hard to expect from people, and it's not a blind / sighted thing, it's a grown-up, I'm-not-a-six-year-old-anymore thing. I make no pretenses: I'm not there to change their minds. I think it's a futile effort: I can't think of once where I knew someone who openly acted like that, then changed their mind over time because of me or anyone else.
I remember working on a woman's machine in the mid-1990s at a company, and while I was doing it, putting in some new hardware, she was standing there complaining bitterly like a cat being forced to take a cold bath. It was constant!
Some of you, especially some of you human service people may not like this, but basically my attitude was, "just stay out of the way while I finish." She went on belly-aching all the way till bootup and I told her to enter her password. She continued to drivel about blind people after the Windows sound came up and as I was leaving. others were commenting on her behavior.
So, what was I to do? I had work to do: Sorry I'm a gearhead not a diversity expert, wouldn't even know where to start frankly, just push bean-brain outa the way, and get the work done, get 'er up and running, away she goes, drivel and all. Her manager asked about the incident later, wanted to know why I didn't report it ... my response: "To what end? It'll be another case of minority complaint, then backlash. I'd have reported it if she interfered with my work,but she didn't she just bitched and complained." Not my problem.
And, FWIW, I can't solve it, so it's doubly not y problem.
tiffanitsa, if you're under the assumption that having sight would guarantee you to live problem free, you're sadly mistaken. we all have problems; it's all in how we look at it, though. we can choose to bitch, or find ways to make the most of what we're dealt and live happily.
You're alot stronger than I. I would've found a way to humiliate her, probably by asking her about her qualifications to fix computers, and if they were so high, why did she need me? Furthermore, if I was so incompetent, how is it that I got her computer running and why did my company hire me and not her? I never said that sight would solve all of my problems. It would be foolish to assume something like that. But it would certainly solve the ones that I've mentioned.
There's a time I probably would have done that, yes, we all go through it. However, I'm kinda a straight shooter, and in these instances we don't have a sentient mind at work, we have a volley of emotions that are about as coherent as a four-year-old's scribble on a wall. And I don't particularly want to talk to a wall. If she had been coherent as a human being, the drivel would have stopped when she saw parts going out and going in, or at very least when the machine was rebooted. Black professionals deal with white racists, I even saw footage of a white emergency team person - I am guessing they would have been white - dealing with a black angry woman during 2008 hurricane season, her saying the whites just want to break the black man and all this, while they're putting her and her fellows on a plane to take them to safety.
Basic rule of thumb: The zookeepers aren't really seen behaving like the animals. This isn't an education issue, it's just simple bad behavior, has nothing really to do with black, blind, gay, whatever. I simply posit that I've seen people teach dogs to control their impulses better. As I said, to me if they're not interfering but dithering and babbling incoherently over there in the corner or I refuse to make it my problem, I'm not their father.whatever
in response to your last post, Tiffanitsa, it's all in what we make of it. I've been through crap in life that no one should have to go through, yet, that's what has fueled me to make the most of what I'm dealt. to each their own, though.
Same with me. Live and learn, and yes, changing people's minds can often be compared to trying to breath under the ocean. It will kill you.
I'm not totally against the idea of gaining the ability to see, but I'd really have to think about it. It's not something I could just jump into. I'm very much used to how I live now, and nobody's life is a hundred percent perfect.
Which is exactly what a lot of sighted people don't seem to get regardless of how you try to explain it.
I think when people want us to see, they seem only interested in the result itself and its accompanying magic show. They might believe that it would just be like a light switch being flipped and have probably not considered in what ways one would have to adjust or have to relearn things. Again, this is something based mostly on emotions, not thought or logic. What they want is for a person they perceive as broken, freakish, alien, impossible to understand, to be magically turned into something normal, familiar, somebody they can easily understand and figure out, something they're used to. Plus, they think you would want this because they think if they were suddenly magically struck blind, they would sure as hell want it. They do not understand the difference between a sighted person who becomes blind later in life and somebody who's been blind all their life.
Oh, and I remember a little incident that happened many years ago. This girl I knew was living with somebody, I don't know how she knew this woman, but at some point, this woman up and says something like "It must be fucking hard being blind." I don't recall what I exactly said to her, but I was thinking, "you know, if I could find one word that would express the totality of my absolute pain and hardship and misery in my life merely for existing as a blind person, fucking would be it." LOL! Talk about somebody with a limitted vocabulary.
It's even easier to defeat someone when they're arguing without logic, though it takes away the fun. I would've either helped the woman in the hurricane, thinking she was so emotional that she had no clue what she was saying, or left her to her own devices if I knew she did. If she was so determined that the whites were out to get her, as one was risking his/her life to save her, then the whites don't need to help her and the world would hear less nonsense. I treat people as they treat me and if they're mentally competent and don't respect me, or at least act civil towards me, I don't show them the slightest concern.
if it was your job to do so, you would. Military people take oaths on this stuff, and most the rescue folks at the beginning were military.
Yeah, with the military, it's certainly different. *smile*
One benifit to having sight would be less pitty. Still, the good outweighs the bad.
I agree. I just think it would be harder for me to learn things since I'm older. I don't mind being blind. Sure I'd want my sight, but I use alternative techniques to help me. I hang out with sighted friends, talk to friends from my university who are sighted on Facebook, etc. I've had people come up to me and try to tell me about surgeries that would correct my eyes and help me get my eyesight. Come on, idiots! I was born with Rop, weighed less than 2 pounds, and do you really think I can hand out thousands, or even millions of dollars to something that might not even work? What a money-waster! Simply put, I'm not going to change what God started for me. And that's that for me.
I'm the same way. Why bother changing, even if there was a procedure to restore my sight, when I've never known what it was like to have it in the first place? You can't really miss something you've never had. You might wonder about it, certainly, but I'd want an absolute guarantee that it was going to work first before I handed over the money (assuming of course that I had it), and even then I don't think I would.
Sighted people see things from their point of view. since I've always been blind, I wouldn't want sight. for different reasons though. The majority of the sighted world are quite shallow, so I don't want sight, because I feel that I might start being judgemental because of looks and so on, and I don't want to be.
I echo the last post completely.
Brings up the question how much of sighted people's judgment of one another is part of human nature and how much of it is cultural and overall how much of it you can control.
Well, I, for one, would be very interested in hearing about these surgeries, since I too have ROP. The only ones I wouldn't do are the ones that go into the brain because I think brain dammage is far worse than blindness could ever be. I've heard of stem cell research going on in China, but one can never be sure if any of these cases are real or fraudulent, and even if they do work, how long they will last. There's something going on in Louisiana that involves a computer chip placed on the retina and that sounds very exciting to me. But my biggest interest is in the Brain Port. This is a nonsurgical device that consists of a camera, a processor and a censor-filled thing that you put on your tongue. It's about the size of a postage stamp and emits electrical impulses so light that they feel like seltzer bubbles. In any case, it allows people to actually see with their tongues. Results have been astonishing and studies show that this actually stimulates the visual cortex, a region of the brain not active in blind people but responsible for sight. I understand the worries about being judgemental etc, but I think that, if anything, blindness has taught us how to see in a different way, how to judge based on actions and comfort level, and I truly doubt that having sight could undo all of that, especially for those of us who have been blind all of our lives. Very good questions on people's judgement. We blind people judge too, just in a different way. I think to say that we never do would be ridiculous.
I still posit that blindness is merely a hardware deficiency. People on here are as deep or as shallow as the population at large, from what I've seen. And this is one of a few places I have gotten exposure to the blinkosphere.
If it was pay for my daughter's college education or buy sight, I'd obviously get her education.
If it was cheaper to purchase the medical hardware upgrade than it is to continually buy adaptive stuff / pay extra for cabs and the like, I'd buy the additional hardware; in my case the optic nerve. Naturally, that isn't going to be the case for the indeterminate future especially as it relates to cost.
I just think the matter far exceeds youthful idealism of one form or another. Like most things, it would end up resolving to practical consideration.
tiffinitsa, I don't think said poster was implying that blind people don't judge; she was simply saying that sighted people are often extremely critical upon first seeing someone.
That brain port thing sounds cool. I'd love to try it.
I'm writing to the Lighthouse in New York to see if they have any openings. You also might be interested in these links.
www.xcell-center.com
This is the only licensed place in the world for conducting stem cell research in which the patient's own cells are used to treat diseases. It's in Germany and has been featured on the American network NBC. Right now, they only mentioned macular degeneration among the eye diseases but this doesn't mean that it's the only one they treat. Mostly, they deal with nerve diseases, spinal injuries and things like Altzheimer's, Parkinson's etc. But I'm e-mailing them to ask if they would be willing to work on someone with ROP.
http://www.lighthouse.org/news-events/newsletters-publications/newsletters/shared-vision-spring-2010/retinal
This is an article from the Lighthouse, about a successful retinal implant performed in New York. They used it on a patient with retinitis pigmentosa but said that the technology could be used to treat other eye diseases as well. So I'm guessing that ROP is included. Basically, there's a camera and a base unit, as with the Brain Port, but in this case, a chip is implanted ontop of the retina an instead of stimulating the tongue, it stimulates the retina allowing the eyes to actually see.
http://www.lighthouse.org/news-events/newsletters-publications/newsletters/shared-vision-fall-2009/brainport
Here's an article, again from the Lighthouse, about the use of the Brain Port. Youtube and the net has alot of information on this device, and truly, the results are amazing and a dream come true. I pray that they let me in...
Tiffanitsa, I agree with you. If you've already been blind, I don't think becoming sighted would change whether you would be judgmental or not. If you've never had a tendency to do that before, you probably won't, and if you already do, well, that one's pretty much self explanitory. I'm not saying it's an impossibility, but I don't think it's very likely. Of course, I've never had any sight, so who am I to say?
I wouldn't wanna change who I am even if I could. more power to those of you that do, though...
I guess if hardware defines us. I think "who I am" is more what my interests are, my personality, and other nonphysical characteristics. That's like saying I changed who I am because in the last few years I went from moderate to pretty hard workout. Or that if I go bald and then got hair replacement that would change who I am.
Maybe I'm a blockhead but I fail to see the connection.
my point in saying that is: I was born blind, and wouldn't have, nor want it any other way.
I would think with such a huge life change as getting eyesight, there have to be some psychological changes that would happen. Again, this is such a speculative topic it's hard to really say what would happen.
I agree completely. it'd be a bigger adjustment than some of you realize...
Oh yeah indeed it would, and has been in the early days of eye surgery when simple cataracts had meant people were blind from birth, but then were made to see.
I imagine you'd spend part of your time at least somewhat blind, with dark glasses or even a blindfold or whatever those are they have mobility instructors use, so you could continue to live and yet work your way into it. Everything has psychological effects, like busting your ass and losing it all, perpetually finding yourself at the end of the line, finding your kid has really grown up, or for some poor parents, that the kid hasn't grown up and still wants to live at home at age 29.
I hear that those who do regain sight later in life have a really difficult time adjusting, to the point they actually get scared. I'm not against the idea of having sight, but I wouldn't want that either.
neither would I. I could totally see myself being scared out of my mind, if I ever were to become fully sighted.
It sounds to me as if many of you are afraid of challenges and afraid to think outside the box. That, to me, is very scary. I'm sure that regaining full sight at once would be frightening. this is why I think the idea of the glasses or blindfold is excellent. Personally, I'd like to see gradually so that I could get used to it. But I certainly wouldn't refuse sight completely just because it's a new and potentially scary experience. I'm sure I'd get used to it if it were introduced properly to me.
Fear is fun.
Think about it. When you jumped off the ladder, ran through the neighbor's yard but were afraid of getting caught, any number of other things. How many people go to haunted houses / funhouses when buzzed? We as humans have an attraction to things scary, and then we overcome. Sometimes it is in fact interesting because it's so scary.
I got lost in a train station (mall) in Japan for two or three hours. People asked, "Weren't you kind of scared?" Well, yeah! But if it were really predictable it wouldn't have been memorable.
Yes it would be frightening to get sight like that, but wouldn't there be, if you're honest, just the smallest portion of yourself that would dare yourself to do it, and then do it on a dare?
I guess this isn't true for everyone, my attitude about fear or fearlessness took some getting used to on the part of my wife, so to be fair not everyone gets a personal buzz from facing down something frightening.
I can't say it's a buzz for me, since I don't think in that way, but it's definitely exciting. Getting lost in a train station, however, would be anything but. You'd better believe I'd try to get assistance as quickly as possible.
Yes. I agree that if I could regain sight gradually, I would be more than willing to. I just don't know about getting it all at once. At least with some other frightening experiences, you don't have to do it again if you don't like it. Unfortunately, unless you want to injur yourself, you couldn't really go back to being blind again after you got sight.
I had a corneal graft last year and I actually have to say it didn't make a lot of difference in the long term, except for the fact that I am incredibly light sensative now and I never used to be, to the extent where I have to wear glasses, which I have always been dead against because it's such a stereotypical blind thing to do, and I try to avoid things like that at all cost, but I can't go out in the bright sun without them. I hate it also, because I can see less with them on, and that makes me wary because I have always used my vision, and I still want to.
and that is indeed what I meant by my previous post. I generally wait till I at least talk to someone for a while or am in their presence for some time before I pass any kind of judgement, but sighted people often pass it before even that.
I guess it's hard to say what we would do in any given situation until we're there ourselves.
tiffinitsa, who the hell are you to say I don't like challenges because I choose to not correct my vision? to each their own, but you really have scary and offputting views...
I tend to agree with that. I just turned thirty this year and so I see no reason to change evenif I were to hear on the news tomorrow that a revolutionary surgery had just been approved that would be guaranteed to restore my sight. Yeah having sight migt make it easier for me to get a job but then I'd have to consider getting a car since there's no public transit here. And I'm not financially in a position to move at the moment so it would be Twin Falls or nowhere, not that I particularly want to leave Twin Falls anyway. But getting back on topic, I've more or less accepted the fact that I will more than likely be blind all my life and that there will be things I'll probably never be able to do, drive a car, fly a plane, that sort of thing. And while it might be fun to fly an airplane and it can sometimes be fun to drive a car (I've done so with parental assistance and supervision), I'm in on hurry and won't be too disappointed if and when it doesn't become possible for us in my lifetime. And I think the psychological impact would be too much. And like others I don't want to take the chance of becoming even slightly judgmental based on looks the way fully sighted folks tend to be. That's probably why blind folks with canes have a harder time getting jobs or just dealing with sighted folks in general than folks who use guide dogs.
Why change? I am fine with who I am.
I still propose it wouldn't change who you are to have a hardware upgrade.
Now I wouldn't be one of those to jump out and do it if it was still high-risk, low-performance. Sorry, but no cameras embedded which do 4 frames per second and require me carry around a laptop.
However, if I thought it was the most expedient move, I would. By expedient I mean, if I could do it gradually, continue to live and work while adding in this particular new dimension, I might well do it. The fact is I could do more than I can now.
If sighted people could be given the ability to have night vision, or see in infrared, I bet some would. And if it became expedient to have said ability, they would.
I'll go even further: If you could get the ability to fly or to breathe underwater at will, with no unsightly external aparati, would you? And if you got said ability and could get to the store as the crow flies, using echo location from the air like bats do, why the hell not? Would that be "not accepting yourself?"
I don't think so: You'd just be doing what people do: pushing the envelope because it's there and has an itch to be pushed. That's just nature, seems to be what humans do.
I still say that'd be changing yourself. I'm happy with who I am, thank you very much. I accept my blindness, and wouldn't have nor want it any other way.
Well, I, for one, don't care if I had to wear an unsightly external aparatus. I'm not a fashion model and this isn't a beauty contest. If something were guaranteed to help me see, whether with the tongue or with the eyes, I'd do it. There are far too many advantages not to and far too many things that I'd miss out on if I didn't take the chance. The only time I'd draw the line would be if it involved the brain because brain damage is not something with which I'd ever choose to live. But if it were safe and proven, I'd be first on that list.
if you've never tasted chocolate before, you don't know what you're missing. same goes with not wanting to have sight if you've been blind all your life; it's just a different scinario.
To Fighter:
If I could enhance my hearing to the point of being able to use additional frequencies that would enhance my abilities, would that be changing myself? Would you call it changing themselves if a sighted person took the opportunity to see in infrared? Would it be changing myself if, since I live in an area with lots of waterways, I took advantage of an opportunity to get some modification that would allow me the option of breathing underwater? Does a lack of flight aparati define me? It's all equally far-fetched right now: even the tongue thing at best gives you very limited visual interface. I just have a hard time seeing how all this would change myself. Sure I would change dimensionally if I could experience life using photons, or from the air, or from underwater, and with each there would be additional opportunities I would take advantage of, but maybe I'm just not much of a philosopher, I'd be curious to know just why that is changing oneself. People accept where they are all the time and make the most of things, but then, like the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, they take off and do something radically different. Wouldn't you have loved to have been them? We're not talking a closed cabin like we fly in now, but far closer to the experience of flight. How different is sight, or infrared, or enhanced ability to hear frequencies, or the ability to breathe underwater. I would be interested in an explanation.
Well, Tiffanitsa, unless you go with the Stem Cell treatment, which is probably the most likely to become reality, it would probably involve doing something with the brain. Of course, that depends what your pre-existing condition is.
In a way, I think gaining sight would chage a person. It would likely change your outlook on certain things, and it very well may change your opinion on certain things. Now, what you choose to do with that change is up to you. Is it a good change, or a bad change? I really couldn't say unless I was there myself. But, I really don't think you would be completely changing yourself, as a person. If you choose to dye your hair from brown to red, you're changing the look of your hair, not yourself as a whole.
for the most part, people wanna change things when they're unhappy with themselves...so that's what I'm getting at. I'm happy with my blindness; why would I wanna change who I am?
I have ROP (Retinopathy of Prematurity). My retinas detached when I was two-months-old and my optic nerve is either dead or underdeveloped. I had nine operations, all under the age of two, to try and restore my sight. One was successful for a few hours. I also have a buckle on one of my retinas to try and hold it in place, and originally, to hopefully connect it. I'm sure that gaining sight would change us in some way. But so has the telephone, the radio, television, the internet, braille and, going really far back, fire. All of these things have changed humanity in some form or other. So why be afraid of something that, like the net, could open up so many possibilities? I'm sure that people my age, who are used to having information at their fingertips, process things differently from those who had to use libraries and newspapers. But does that mean that everything should be shut down? I'm all for old tech, yes, but not if it seriously holds us back. I can't see any serious advantages to being blind just as I can't see anything good about not having indoor plumbing or electricity, unless you're on a camping trip. OceanDream: good point about the hair. There are some people who go crazy with plastic surgery, who wear the latest designs and who are always at the salon getting their nails done. But inside, they're still the same people. Do they look different? Sure, but it doesn't define them. Now if something happened to their minds and their entire personalities were changed, or they forgot who they were and had to learn everything from scratch, that would be a change. If I were to gain sight, I would still have had the experience of being blind. I would still remember my previous life. So that has to count for something. To fighter of love and life: I suppose, if you're truly happy with your blindness, that's a good thing. But why must everyone else be happy with it? Why must we stay blind too? This reminds me of the deaf people who actually refuse to let their children undergo operations that would allow them to hear because of a fear that they would no longer be a part of the deaf community.
I don't think she's saying it's not okay for other people to want sight if that's what they want. She's just saying she, personally, is perfectly okay with her blindness, which is completely understandable. I, too, am perfectly okay with being blind. If I could have sight temperarily just to see what it was like, by all means, I would do it. I just don't know about getting surgery, and suddenly waking up fully sighted. That just scares me more than it's worth. I'm not really so much against the stem cell treatment, because it's completely natural, it works gradually, and if it doesn't work, it won't do you any harm, and may actually help you in some other way, since stem cells help to heal what needs to be healed the most.
Ah, I see. Well, it makes sense then. As for stem cells, I'm all for the idea, providing the risks aren't too great. I'd love to try it myself if I could. It does seem like the most likely option for nonsynthetic sight.
Jess is totally right...I'm simply stating the way I feel. if others want sight, more power to them. I, too, have ROP, and have had numerous sergeries to try and correct it. in saying that, though, said operations weren't my choice, as I was too young to decide for myself.
Personally I do not want an upgrade. Just yesterday I had a talk with a friend who is slowly going blind. We had a long talk about blindness, surgeries, and so on. I told her that I would not want to change who I am because this is all I know. I can, however, see a sighted person all of a sudden have no vission look into laser sergury or something because sight is all they know. But if the worst I have to deal with is some pitty once in a while, so be it.
I'm with the last poster completely. very well said; thank you.
You know, I've never considered whether or not I was happy with being blind, or 'my blindness', as was said.
I guess content you could say, or it's just another thing. I'm also reasonably content with my terrestrialness, I can't fly nor can I breathe underwater. Most sighted people are reasonably content with their infrared disability: many creatures on earth can see in infrared as well as standard light waves, and use said sight in a multitude of ways. Other creatures have excellent night vision. Is a sighted person discontent with the night vision disability if they gain an apparatus or some modification that would allow them to have night vision?
And yes, sight would no doubt change my perspective on some things, as would the ability for me to fly, or jump in the Columbia River and navigate its waterways without a thought.
Then again, many things change our perspective all the time. Perspective isn't static.
I guess regarding blindness, by reading some things on here I've learned for some it's rather a personal thing, or perhaps part of an identity. While it no doubt exists for me in total, being I have no optic nerves, to me it's just biology. Perhaps it causes me to look at some things differently, perhaps not. I would have to have sight in order to truly know, and even then, since I grew up without it, I couldn't really know. But I do know for sure that it is biology. Obviously it kept me out of certain things like playing baseball or some other sports, but then again, my physical size and bone structure would have kept me out of being able to play football even if I had sight.
As to what is or was "meant to be", to me that's all up to interpretation. I never start out thinking that because things are the way they are, they must be meant to be that way: they simply are that way now. I have certainly learned by reading some of these posts, as I said, since I have never looked on being blind as part of who I was, anymore than my bone structure does, or humans' inability to fly renders us human.
But I think you are missing the point just a bit. The question is are you content with who you are at this moment?
The shark seems to enjoy the fact that it has an endliss supply of saw blades it calls teeth. They get the job done so why change?
Exactly. The same is true of us blind folks. We've found ways to live that work for us so no need to change, particularly not later in life.
exactly.
I don't know if the shark would change or not, if it would become amphibious or not, but we humans do this stuff all the time. We lived in caves for hundreds of thousands of years, developed flint knapping to very highly skilled and specialized proportions, and yet, conditions climactic and otherwise facilitated changes that led to agriculture and ultimately what we know of as civilization, including the use of minerals such as bronze and copper. People are changing yet again, to embrace new ways of doing things, because we're rapidly depleting the resources that make up the life support systems for this particular rock we're living on right now. Perhaps who we are as humans is just that: adaptable plus our evolution is now more mental than physical.
With the argument against any physical modification, you'd have to say no protein shakes for the body builder, especially if he or she starts out later in life, because they're changing their bio-mass, aka not content with who they are. But does bio-mass define us? I'm not sure our ability or inability to use photons defines us either.
Then again, I would pretty much jump in with both feet for anything that dimensionally extended my abilities. What if we could expand our memory using a computer chip? Might change our perspective on some things, but I don't think by opting for such an expansion that qualifies as playing the victim or not being content.
But from what I see on here, you all are making the lot of us *think* about it, which is by far more important than any decision one makes down the road. As I said, I hadn't even paired biology with identity in this way. And while I still can't say I fully get it, at least the perspective is now out there. And, should the capacity to use sonar, or an extended memory chip, or artificial sight, or any other extension come along, I'm now at least aware the paired biology-identity perspective exists.
But these changes are changes that just naturally come about. Nothing in life goes without changing at some point. As human kind in general, we just evolve over time. That's just how we are. Why? Well, I'll admit I can't come up with a very inteligent answer for that. We were just born into it, just like many of us were born without sight. But, like a few of us said earlier, gradual change is different from a sudden change, like regaining sight would be.
Okay, so how about this. What if there were a way to restore sight gradually? Would it be more acceptible then?
in my opinion, no...but that's just me.
That's one of those individual decisions...
Yes, and I personally would not want that.
nor would I, ever.
But to each his own.