WALKING IN YOUR SHOES

Just as I have longed for sighted people to put themselves in my shoes when they make throw-away comments like:

“You should do this”

and

“You ought to do that”,

regarding everything from learning computer skills to getting my writing published or going on holiday unaided, so I in my turn have tried to put myself in the shoes of a sighted person who encounters a blind person for the first time:

“What do I say?”

“How do I offer help”?

“How do I know what kind of help is needed and when and what if I get rebuffed”?

Obviously these dilemmas paralyse some people into inaction, making it impossible to do anything other than freeze to the spot.

Because I am normal to myself it’s easy to forget that some people regard me as abnormal if only in that I’m unusual – A rare occurrence in their every-day lives and sadly they have been rebuffed, sometimes rudely by those to whom they’ve offered assistance. Even if a person refuses politely because they feel it would be wrong to put someone out when they can manage perfectly this can be taken as a slight especially if you’ve spent half-an-hour plucking up courage to open your mouth.

It may help if however much someone hurts you, you do your best to see the person as just one individual out of many and to try as hard as possible to wipe the slate clean when you next see another blind person whose response may well be different. It’ll certainly help me if you approach and speak first rather than grabbing me by an arm without uttering a word. This is hard if not impossible if you see me hurtling towards a hole in the pavement but should in most cases be easy to do. Let me take your arm because then, like my lovely Esme, you will then be in front. Remember the saying: “The blind leading the blind”? Leading is the operative word. If you try pushing from behind with hands on shoulders then your attempts at help will be clumsy and I’ll be likely to become awkward to guide as I try to anticipate what you want me to do. Guiding with you in front will mean that I can follow your movements as I do with the dog. If you’re trying to show me to a chair, take me up to it and put a hand on either the arm, back or seat. Then I can manoeuvre myself into it in safety. I never sit till I feel the edge of the seat against the backs of my legs. Please don’t change your terminology for me at least. I use visual terminology all the time. I feel more self-conscious if you say:

“Did you hear that tv programme last night”,

“feel this”, as opposed to:

“look at this”.

This is an individual thing and there are some blind people – Mainly those who mourn their lost sight which has deserted them later in life, who don’t like visual words being used in this way. Unfortunately there are also those who seek to embarrass and elicit sympathy who deliberately want to draw the other person’s attention to their disadvantage and rub it into them just how lucky they are not to be afflicted in the same way. Also those who have lost their sight clearly draw a big distinction between looking at things and feeling things. For me this has been the only way I have ever been able to:

“Look”

at things so to me they are one and the same. I was taught that to fit in it would be unhelpful to use different terminology in a predominantly sighted world.

I have given much thought to the lack of eye contact, so important to communication between two sighted people, and how this affects the interplay between blind and sighted people. Perhaps it’s a bit like getting a lack of signal back on a phone and some people really do find it disconcerting to find blank eyes staring back at them. I was thoroughly taught and had it drummed into me just how important it is to face people when I speak to them and they to me and to keep my head up instead of hanging it down. Unfortunately, apart from smiling at you and really paying attention to you there’s nothing I can do to compensate for the lack of eye contact. I loathe to grab your hand while we talk because in this culture this isn’t done. I’d have no problem with this but you may. By nature I’m quite open and tactile which probably explains my great affection for and deep love of children who readily engage in this form of communication.

Finally for me, it’s all in the voice. If you sound serious but are smiling and are joking with me I may well misinterpret this and could take offence where none was intended. I believe I have done this so it’s best to make amends quickly rather than walk away hurt and that goes for me too. Also if nobody is near and I’m sitting with you in a crowded waiting room I may well look unfriendly or wooden faced because there’s no outside stimulous such as looking up at the pictures on the wall and there’s no magazine to hide behind as Braille is very heavy to carry and if I took a portable cd player in I may not hear my name called.

There’s just one more thing, many of us, me included suffer from irregular sleep patterns as a result of the erratic release of melatonin which governs our need to sleep. This is because I no longer see light. I do admit to being fairly irritable when I’ve had no sleep all night and an appointment during the day when I need to sleep till the pattern rights itself again, makes it necessary for me to forego sleep for even longer. During these times I’m desperately tired and am not best able to cope with people. This isn’t an excuse for rudeness but rather a reason for my usual cheerfulness to slip. Also, while I may be the only blind person you’ve met, the chances are that I’ve answered the questions and explained all you want to know over and over again during the whole of my adult life and just like a famous person, there are times when I just want to melt into the background but can’t. I’m genuinely sorry if I lose my temper or cause hurt. All I ask is that if you ask me what it’s like to do this or that you will accept what I say even if it makes you feel uncomfortable. I take it that if you’ve asked it’s because you really want to know and though things are not identical for all blind people, much of what we go through is and it’s important that just because someone else did or didn’t, could or couldn’t do something it doesn’t mean we all can or have had the help we need to do so. I shall always need help from you and just as I can’t turn my back on the next sighted person who offers it because the last one may have let me down, taken advantage of me, been insensitive with or without meaning to, I implore you to see us as individuals first and pluck up the courage and talk to me. We are in one world, all of us in one race – The human race and need each other to enrich each other’s lives and help us understand things and grow. Without you, my life is the poorer, duller and emptier, without me you may think you can cope and most certainly you can and will, more than I will ever be able to do without you but I have ears and may well be able to help you in unexpected ways for as Donne said:

“No man is an island, entire unto itself”.