I am a visually-impaired person who holds down a full-time job, travels by public transportation without human or canine assistance and yet face the frustration every day surrounding the assumptions which others often make about me. Here are a few examples. When I board a public bus people often offer me a seat but as I am very tall it's actually more comfortable for me to stand. It always has been. If I swipe a transpass card through a card reader and happen to get it in backwards the first time like others often do, I do have the ability(without someone touching my hand) to actually turn it around myself and try a second time. I have had other passengers and sometimes bus drivers attempt to assist me without my permission.
In my place of work when I go to make a cup of coffee or tea I often have co-workers who are new attempt to assist me with this task and in the process make demeaning and degrading statements to me. Some use the employee kitchen as a place to scout for companions and have to be told several times that I already have a wife and that she doesn't do things for me either without my permission. There are those well-meaning persons also in a tough economy who are simply looking for a chance to be assigned as an in-home attendant after completing their temporary or job-training assignment at my agency. Again they have to be bluntly told that I am not in need of their help.
I bring these anecdotes to you in order to provide a simple guideline for anyone who feels compelled to assist the visually challenged whom they might sincerely see as " less fortunate than themselves ".
If you walked in my path and in my shoes, how would you want to be treated? Most people remember how important it was to them as a child to learn how to do something for themselves.
If you are willing to assist a blind visually impaired person with anything please remember that it is very simple and proper to ask any adult, " May I help you? "
Grabbing someone's arm and demanding that they allow you to tell them what to do is demeaning and immoral. Other adults are not your children.
Most blind adults you meet have had years of training in self care and are perfectly capable of asking for desired assistance from those whom they choose to trust, especially themselves.
~ Spiritual Warrior
FATHER LESLIE Wilson Farrell ~
