Category: the Rant Board
Physically I can’t do as much as I used to - soo I have a helper - BUT it really does my head in when I’m out - everyone speaks to them instead of me - even when I’m buying stuff !! I AM NOT INVISIBLE OR STUPID !!!!
Does this ever happen to anyone else??
Well if they speak to your helper, that's good, and I'm sure if you hav a very saw throat you'd appreciate it, them talking to your helper could be the determining factor in whether or not you lose your voice. Also if I end up in that situation, it's great because I can then test the ability of who ever is helping me to say what I would have said if asked to speak.
It happens to my friend Stevie who is paraplegic.The majority of people, seem to equate his chair, with mental incapacity and that is definately not the case with him.
Yeah, isn't that weird how people automatically assume another disability that usually has nothing to do with the one the person actually has? I was guilty of thinking like that at one point about multiply disabled and autistic people, that they were too not all there to be capable of anything, but I've learned and am still learning that that usually isn't true at all. But yeah, that's crazy. Or when people speak loudly to blind people? That is extremely annoying to me! Anyway, now for the original question. I've had that done several times, where people will talk to whoever's with me either thinking I can't speak for myself or as if I'm not there. I've also had where I'll be paying for or reaching out for something, and they give the money or thing to the person with me. In the latter case, where they speak as if I'm not there, usually, it doesn't bother me if it's something informative anyway; I just pay attention and keep in mind what the person said, and if I need to ask a question, I do. But it does make me upset when they hand things to the other person when I'm the one they're supposed to be dealing with. Usually, I feel more annoyed at the one with me because if they had stood back, the other person wouldn't have been able to reach them, which would mean they would have to work with me. (The reason I do let the other person help at times is if I need to do something and it'd be easiest to help from the same side of the counter I'm on, like say signing something or using my debit card.) As for people who talk to others instead of me, particularly when they ask a question, I will speak up and answer as if they were talking to me and usually this makes them more likely to talk directly to me next time.
That is infuriating I think they just assume that it's easier for them to deal directly with the sighted person, than to struggle with the poor unfortunate blindie, in the end these people are selfish and easily embarrassed, as they are only concerned with looking incompetent and stupid in public.
yes, this infuriates me too, it always seems to happen to me in restaurants, waiters will a lot of the time directly ask the other person i'm with "and what does she want?" to wich many of my friends will say, "why don't you ask her?" Generally they get the idea after that.
what also infuriates me is that a lot of people just can't come to terms with the fact that many blind people are independent. If ever i'm with a sighted friend and i'm not seen to be being helped by them they usually get filthy looks by the general public because they're not helping the "poor blind girl"
Also some people who work for airlines or long distance train companies seem to have a hard time when confronted with a vision impared person without a sighted attendent. I was told by one of them once "not to get out of your seat" An order wich i disregarded immediately.
These sighted people who don’t understand the extent to which blind people are independent have probably no experience or knowledge of blind people. In fact, they may even be amazed about how independent blind people are. If you consider things from their point of view you can understand why. Anyway about the talking louder thing, well guess what, just like what I said in my last post in this thread, that is advantageous too. Know why? Well, as a visually impaired person, you can were headphones which are attached to some portable audio-playing device, have the audio playing loudly and still here what the person is saying. If you were sighted you’d have to turn down the audio. Do you now realise how advantageous being blind is? People seem to think of these occurrences negatively. I don’t, I think of the positive sides to them and I feel better for it. Did I ever mention the blind man who got angry because someone tied his shoelaces, which had come undone? Ungrateful bastard! They wouldn’t have tied it if he was sighted, so he’d have to bend down and do it himself! Some people don’t realise how lucky they are sometimes, especially when they’re visually impaired.
ok, you have a point, however, many of us spend our lives being told by our parents that we must be independent and learn to do things for ourselves and that no one will be around to do things for us. However, when you are exposed to the real world you find out that this is not indeed the case. For those who have the skills of independence it is often a constant struggle to make people understand. Don't get me wrong, I'm capable of recognising the patrenising ones from hte ones who just need teaching. People who try to point me in directions where they think i want to go without even asking me are an example of people who i just don't have time for. However, i really just think it's a matter of education.
LOL, i have too many of those stories to share, but I'd love to go to some restaurant or someplace, and when the person at the cash register asks my sister "what she wants", I'll turn to my sister and say loudly, "Tell him/her I want ..." See how that goes over with them. Ehehehehe.
Parden my choice of language but that just fuckin' pisses me off to no end, especially on skype! I get these sighties who ask if you can't see how can you read what I'm saying and how can you type? That's when I use the same line over and over again, "I use a screen reader called JAWS for Windows, the acranim jaws stands for job access with speach. The program will read any information that's on the screen as well as anything I type on the keyboard via a software speach synthesizer called eloquence." These sighties then ask so you need a microphone? and I'm like no, didn't you just hear me tell you jaws uses the eloquence software speach synthesizer? meaning the program will read information that I ither type, or that is displaied by another program in synthetic speach. Most of the time I end up quitting and reloading jaws wile I'm in a skype call with a sighty to demonstrate it, and some don't even fuckin' get it even after all that! Still others are like wow! you have a movy on your desktop, and I'm like no! that's my screen reader! Now I don't know about anyone here, but that just makes me furious!
One time when I don't mind people talking to the sited person I'm with is when the person can't speak english well, or at all, then it's just easier, else it just pisses me off.
Do you guys think a lot of this behavior, outside of just coming from lack of contact with blind people, is because of the lack of eye contact when you're communicating? Seems to many sighted folks that it's kind of important so when they're confronted with a situation where they don't have the eye contact, the brain goes "does not compute" so they opt for using your sighted companion as some kind of middleman because it's just easier and more comfy for them? Not sure how this can be resolved.
That is a very valid point and I wreckon it's probably true in a lot of situations. renegade_rocker, I have to say I didn't know so much about Jaws until I read that post, Despite the fact that I'm totally blind, you and a lot of blind people I've met seem to have far more knowledge on your disability than I do. You know sighted people don't care about independence anywhere near as much as blind people do. It should be a personal thing though, yeah be independent, that's great, in fact everyone who is capable of being independent should be, but as long as I know I'm independent, I'm going to make as much effort to let everyone else know that I'm independent as my sighted associates do to let others know that they're independent, because I'm more like them than blind people who are so passionate about their disability that they know far more about it than blind people like me. Know what I mean?
well, we could insure that nobody ever has sight. and that would have so many good points for the world. we wouldn't consume so many forms of fosssil fules, and we woulld get a lot more
and, women wouldn't have their breasts staired at by losers.
Just excuse me...i'm in a strange mood and i've been reading Brave New world.
the thing that I find irritating is when a person asks me if I can put a picture of myself up in the chat room, this after the person knows I'm blind, because we've been talking about it. I was having a private chat with someone on the paltalk program, and we were talking about being blind and the screen reader, and he suddenly said, I was wondering about something, if youcould do it. and I asked what, if you had a webcam, or youhad a picture of yourself if you could put it on the computer. I told him I wouldn't want my picture out on the internet, and he said, it's just a way to get a sense of who we're talking to. I said that I get a sense of who I'm talking to by their voice and what they say or how they say it. It's hard enough to get the things for our computers that would actually help us, why should we go to the expense and trouble of having something on our computers that doesn't do us any good and only gives sighted people something to look at? He was from a disability room and had cp, so I thought he would at least understand.
wonderwoman
I think some people, even though they use computers, don't know the difference between speech synthesis and speech recognition. Since, and this is a wild guess, speech recognition programs like Dragon Dictate and the like are more visible on the market than something like Elloquence or DecTalk Access 32, which is more of a component of other programs, they might get the two confused. But then again you might run into those folks who think you have to see to type. Aren't most sighted folks taught something called touch typing when learning to type? If it's touch typing, you're touching, not looking. Hahahahahahaha!
These are probably the same folks who think you have to see to find your mouth when eating, yes?
Been there, done that and so hated it. I've never had that happen in school though. And in resturants I've had one or two occations of the waiter/waitress asking whomever I'm dining with what I'd like. The only time I ask for people to speak on my behalf is if I have a sore throat, no voice, or bad cough as I can never get a full sentence out when I have coughing fits.
It can be annoying but lets face it... It happens. So try not to let it bug you. Easier said then done I know.
i think the eye contact has a lot to do with it, and i do try to look at people when i'm talking to them While it doesn't matter to me, i realise that sighted people need that kind of contact, so i try to give it too them. I know about the sort of people who ask stupid questions, and, they're not necessarily always stupid questions iether, they're the sort of questions i have no answer for, like "how much can you see"
I have never had full vision and i have no way of relating what i see to another person. I get really infuriated when people ask me questions like that, because when i can't answer them, they suggest answers, and most of the time, it still makes no sence. Also, i just don't like talking to random people on public transport. it makes me feel uncomfortable. i preffer to be left alone.
But the sort of people who asume things such as "you must need to see to type" or "how can you feed yourself if you don't know where your mouth is" just don't seem to me to be really thinking when they ask those kinds of questions. Generally i give them a gentle polite reminder that most people don't need to see there backside to whipe it after using the bathroom. This generally makes them understand.
Several points I'd like to add onto here. First, to wonder woman. Just because u r blind doesn't mean u can't have a picture of yourself on your hard drive, although I do understand your not wanting it floating around the internet, but blindness is no excuse for not having a picture of yourself in and of itself. I have one here that has only been sent to a couple of people, just because it's the type of thing sighted people like to know about. As far as Gal's ideas concerning the entire world being blind, it sounds good on the surface, though I don't think we could have reliable fast transportation of people and/or goods. I think this could be a rather interesting idea for a book however. Going back to the actual topic, there is no one explanation for why people react the way they do to others who have disabilities. As far as being asked questions that don't seem worthy of an answer, I believe this stems from the discomfort generated by having someone with a disability pressent. Also, even though some questions would nay strike you as having painfully obvious answers, to someone not living in your particular circumstances, maybe it isn't. And, always remember. Whenever u step out of your home or encounter a sighted person, you are essentially representing the entire blindness community whether u like that idea or not. People, whether sighted or otherwise, tend to link whatever past experiences they have with others that are the most similar. So, if u r nice or rude to a sighted person, this will have an impact on the next blind person who comes along. Just something to think about.
there already was a book on the subject...well, it was a short story by H.G. wells. And, fast transportation was one of the things i suggested should go, if it did, the world might be better off. the story was called The Lost Country Of The Blind.
Without fasttransportation, then blind people who can't drive may find moving long distances quite difficult. Labyrinth, I must honestly say, I have never found the time to explore all these cynthesisers and explore the difference between recognision ones and the other type whatever it is. It is true that how sighted people treat the next blind person may be influenced by their experiences of the blind people they've met. However, I will never claim to be representing a community I don't acknowledge or am not part of, especially when I have a problem with its existance. The blind community is one such community.
Doesn't this whole thing about one blind person representing all of them in public reinforcing the misconception that we are all pretty much identical? By playing up this idea, are we telling the sighted that it's OK to think this way instead of trying to see us as individuals?
I think it's fine to tell a blind person to have good manners and make a good impression, but to say one of us represents all of us makes it sound like we're having to carry quite a load of responsibility on our shoulders and be more perfect than the most perfect sighted person. Why can't I expect this of sighted people in turn?
There is a blind community, in that there are ppl with the same or very similar disabilities, and they tend to get togehter quite a bit, which quite readily lends itself to the community label. re the one blind person representing everyone who is blind. NO, that doesn't work. you can have independant blind people, and dependant blind people, if someone meets a dependant blind person, meaning one whom has never learned, or never wanted to learn to live independantly, *special cases aside, E.G. other physical/mental disabilities which make independance as far as possible impossible,* the sighted person may think that all blind people need a load of stuff done for them, which they don't. I've also had the experience in the shop when a sighted friend is guiding me, and the shop assistant talks to them instead of me. Of course, when I'm on my own, which is often the case, the assistants have to deal with me, and that works fine most of the time.
well, as for there being no excuse not to have a picture of myself, well, it's my preference. If other blind people don't mind going through the rigamarole of having their picture taken, scaning it on the pc, and sending itto someone,well it's their perogative, but it doesn't interest me, and there is no reason for me to do it. As for representing blind people as a whole, that's like saying one sighted person represents the whole sighted population. Both sighted and blind people are their own individuals, and no two sighted people think alike, and no two blind people think alike. I don't consider it my job to be this or that based on what a sighted person may think of blind people in general. We recognize not all sighted people are alike, so it's up to them to realize the same.For instance, if one blind person is nice to them, and they think all blind people are gentle, kind and sweet, they will get a rude awakening when the next blind person is rude to them.And of course, it could work the other way around as well, if the first blind person is rude and mean to them, they could get a pleasant surprise when the next blind person is nice to them.
wonderwoman
I think this pervasive attitude is all down to a massive lack of education, sighted people are mortally afraid of going blind, we are the living personification of their fear, we cant expect them to act rationally when confronted by their fear. However I am also sick and tired of coming up against eejits who insist on treating me as if I'm mentally retarded.I just hope that by the time my Nephew Louis is independent and going out, things will have improved sufficiently, to the point, where he is free of this inane nonsense.
That's a very interesting discussion about blind individuals representing the entire blind community and I can see both points of view although I do prefer the idea of all of us beeing indivdual people with indivdual personalities.
Speaking of which, it bugs me to no end when a random public member asks me if I know such and such a person and I say no and then they say something like what do you mean you don't know him/her? he/she is also blind and living here in Ireland. Does that mean that just because we are blind we are expected to know every single blind person in our country?
An other thing that annoys me is the fact that when I tell people I used to work in an office, some people assume that I have to have been a switch board oporator. Please don't get me wrong. I have nothing against switchboard oporators, but now a days there blind admins, receptionests, secretaries, clerical officers, programmers etc.
As for people asking a person with me something about me, I just answer them and so far it always worked.
My friends and family were never asked what I would like in restaraunts, but my brother was given my change which annoyed me, but I'll live.
there are 2 things that annoy me most. 1.When you are walking with your cane confedently, minding your own business and then someone suddenly grabs your elbo and tells you you are walking into a pole. For god's sake! I'll feel the bloody pole with my stick! that grabbing of me only puts me off! When I want help, I'll ask for it.
2. Please don't be offended guide dog users, but it really annoys me when sighted well wishers try to convince me that I'll be better off with a dog.
I sometimes get tired of explaining that every blind person's mobility needs are different. Some are happy with their sticks and some with the guide dogs.
I hate this steriotype of some sighted people's that every blind person has to have a dog!
Once again, I don't mean to offend anyone with guyde dogs. I know and respect the fact that your dogs are very special to yous and that most of you wouldn't be without one, but I wish the sighted public could have the same respect. Though in fairness, some people seem to understand after I explain to them.
As for explaining about my computer, I don't mind that at all. I consider that one of the educational questions.
I do mind stupid questions such as "do you get lost in your flat?" and "how do you manage to go to the toylet when you can't see"?
I also hate it when some elderly people keep incouraging me to pray to God to get my sight back and there seems to be no explaining to them that I do pray, but not about that because that's not a need in my life, but like I said, I'll live.
Thanks for letting me vent.
I feel much better now.
Maria
I love telling people about my computer, I stump them, and they think carefully about what they will say next.
Yeah I love confusing tech support and other people with the computer thing. What I can't stand is people opening doors for me. They don't understand that it's not a help and if anything, it makes things more confusing! And, when I am with a sighted person, people will talk to that person and not to me usually. I try to change this around as soon as possible though. It really annoys me! Also, isn't it odd that when you're doing fine, everybody asks if you need help but when you actually do get lost etc, nobody notices! It's kind of funny actually. But not when I got lost in a snow storm recently. That really worried me and there was noone around. Luckily, I finally found where I was and made it back home.