How to deal with living as a sighted person

[cosmolinguist]

I was coming up the escalator at Piccadilly, from the Fairfield Street entrance. An older white man in a suit, with a wheelie suitcase, was a few steps ahead of me on the escalator. When he got to the top, he stopped (well out of the way, not like a tourist in London), turned around, smartly snapped the handle down on his suitcase, and gave me just long enough to think I wonder what he's doing... before he said "you're coming to the end...now!" just as I was indeed getting to the top of the escalator myself.

It made me laugh. I'd never had anything like this happen, or heard of it happening. It turns out that escalators are exactly the kind of thing white canes are good at -- I always put the cane on the step ahead of the one where I'm standing so I can feel, I can get a bit of warning even if I'm not paying attention (because I can see well enough to be fine on escalators anyway if I'm not daydreaming) and it tends to work very smoothly.

Still, I appreciated the guy's unobtrusive, effective help that only lasted a second and didn't interfere with my own plans about how I was getting around (as a person who's probably more sighted than I look when I'm using my white cane, sometimes overhelpful strangers surprise me and cause more of an obstacle than I had before, unfortunately).

I laughed a little at the sheer delight of it, told him he was kind, and moved on thinking about how once I get this immigrant book out of the way (it seems now like I never will, urgh) I might take all my thoughts about the sighted class -- I've been offered lots of classes on living with sight loss but I don't think it's me who needs them, it's everyone else! -- and make that into a book or something too. Since I can't actually get a job teaching the class, which is possibly the thing I'd most love to do (besides be an astronaut or something even less plausible), I could maybe put it all in a little book.

The next thing I had to do was buy my train tickets, so I got in line to do that. Just then I got a text so I took my phone out and I could swear that the middle-aged white man who'd just joined the queue behind me was glaring at me. But I chalked it up to either his bitchy resting face or just me being paranoid because I do worry about doing anything when I'm out that complicates the perception of me as a blind person. Of course, totally blind people use phones too but it's another thing that subverts people's expectations of us and I'm aware of the potential animosity that can be caused by anything that does that.

So the line crawls along, there's a big group of students or tourists or something who seem to be going to London and are having to have peak and off-peak tickets explained to them. Eventually I'm at the front of the line and someone calls "next please!" from what seems like miles away. It's certainly on the other side of this group of European young people who still don't have their tickets but do all have rucksacks and bags everywhere.

And this part of Piccadilly station is really badly organized; there's no way for people who want to leave with their tickets to get out except to walk past the queue of people waiting t buy tickets. So I see a man walking towards me from what I can presume is the ticket seller who's just shouted for me and because she's way down the other end and there are all these people and their bags at one of the nearer ticket counters, I'm waiting for this man lwaving to walk past me before I attempt to go to the ticket seller because there's no room to do anything else. (And indeed I still end up bumping into somebody's bag anyway as I tried to get past this big group of people.)

But as this man gets past me and I start moving toward my ticket seller, the grumpy-looking guy behind me says "go on love!" in his grumpy northern-man voice. I can't help bristling at this, and snapping "yes I was doing." I add a "thanks" that I hope is understood with all the sarcasm with which I intended it but I worry that it's to mitigate the possibility that he was telling me to be nice and not to be mansplainy or ablesplainy like it seemed to me. (Or even just to be impatient but in an impersonal way.)

And then I was annoyed that I do expect sexism and ableism so much that maybe people would legitimately be able to say "but I was just trying to be nice!" and I am in fact an ungrateful bitch.

But then I thought about how this contrasted with the other thing that'd just happened. I didn't mind being singled out and helped then (even when it was help I didn't strictly need). I was pretty convinced this grumpy man wouldn't have been as grumpy if I weren't younger and more feminine than him even if I weren't carrying a white cane.

We never interact with people as only one of our identities unfortunately. I don't know what it is about me that makes people react to me like they do. I can't react to them except as a combination of all the other interactions I've had and what those have led me to expect. Of course it's not fair to each new stranger I might encounter and maybe react to a bit more snippily than they think is warranted. But it's hardly fair on me, either.

Anyway, I'm really going to have to think about writing that book! Like I need another book to be writing...

Comments

[miss_s_b]

write ALL THE BOOKS!

[cosmolinguist]

Get none of the sleep. :)

[newandrewhickey.livejournal.com]

This. We need more Hollybooks.

[davidgillon]

Oh, applause for escalator guy helping without being intrusive. Ends of escalators are always interesting if you're using crutches* - you need to time that transition from standing to walking several steps earlier than other folk, but I hadn't really thought about the issues of doing it while VI.

I was thinking about intrusive help last night. I was in the car park as Asda, loading the car from the chair and an older woman came up and offered to help. But the way she phrased it was particularly odd - "You look like you're managing, but..." If I look like I'm managing, why offer to help?

* Which it suddenly occurs to me I may never do again. If I'm going somewhere with escalators I'll almost certainly be using the chair.

[cosmolinguist]

"You look like you're managing, but..." If I look like I'm managing, why offer to help?

I think this kind of thing gets said because we live in a culture that so severely pressures people to seem okay, independent, "managing" that even if they needed help it wouldn't be easy to ask for it. I have certainly wasted a lot of energy sometimes on looking like I was managing when really I wasn't at all.

Plus, there's something to be said for "I could do this alone, but if a person did want to come along and hold the door/let me go first/read a sign for me/help me lift or carry something...it would actually help." Like, I can do this alone, but if I don't need to that might save me a spoon or two.

It's really hard to know how best to offer a stranger help, when people and conditions and personalities vary so wildly,

[jesse_the_k]

Seventy seven Ways to be Sighted sounds like a great read.

Here's a Deaf version re hearing folks
http://limpingchicken.com/2013/05/20/charlie-swinbourne-the-10-incredibly-annoying-habits-of-hearing-people/

You said "I don't know what it is about me that makes people treat me like they do."

I suspect it's nothing at all about you, and all about their notion of what a "disabled person" is capable of and would need.

[cosmolinguist]

I'm sure that's true. But I'm also sure there are times when age or gender presentation matter as much or more. It's impossible to untangle all these things.

I really like the Limping Chicken post, especially the idea that "hearing people is a category which most people who are in never think of themselves as being in because they think they're just "people."

The subtlety thing is interesting, too. I find myself wondering how or to what extent this might map onto sight-impaired people too.

[jesse_the_k]

You're right, it's impossible to untangle — and really, why should we attempt it? I don't ask people to disambiguate how they feel about me as a brown-haired person from their reaction to my queerness from their response to my Judaism. Disability is just one more personal characteristic.

One thing I've been trying to figure out for years is why everyone wants to rest their hand on my left shoulder (when I'm sitting in a wheelchair). Doesn't happen to other wheelchair users, male or female.

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

I've been offered lots of classes on living with sight loss but I don't think it's me who needs them, it's everyone else!

I've been maintaining for years that schools need to include awareness lessons so that the population knows how to behave around people with a range of abilities. This would be fairly basic, but would include some simple sign language, what is helpful and what is really not when assisting someone with a visual impairment or who uses a wheelchair, and some understanding about a range of other physical and learning disabilities. I like the idea of a book!

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, I was the Learning Experience for all my grade-school classes, growing up. And there was S, a hard of hearing girl, in my grade too, but all that ever seemed to mean was that the room she was in every year got carpet (previously the floors had been hard, cheap tile) as a priority over the other room for that grade. But I never knew what else might benefit her, and never had much of a chance to talk about what was good for me; it seemed limited to "here's Holly, she's different, don't make fun of her for it" (which worked about as well as you'd expect).

It was portrayed as an individual thing -- this year we have S, or Holly, in our class or whatever -- none of this "general awareness because you will meet people like this all your life and you should know what to do." I think that'd be really great too. I've had to learn all that stuff from knowing people who are hard of hearing, who use wheelchairs, etc as an adult.

And I'm finding my friends are really interested in hearing what I do and don't like about the way people interact with me or even what my opinions are about buildings and pavements and such! But I'd really rather a large-scale thing like part of the curriculum (I'd love to teach that!) and failing that, maybe I'll write a book. :) With pictures.

[barakta]

I for one would love to read anything you write as I am sure it would be really interesting and you are good at knowing "what I experience" may be different from "what other person with similar impairment name may experience".

I think there are differences between interactions with strangers who we don't expect to see again and people we can expect to spend more time with. You may well find with stranger interactions that you get help you don't strictly need as part of a wider inclusive help (in ideal world if done properly) whereas with people you know better you have more time/investment to establish "how I work" protocols. I don't see that as much different to learning and remembering people's tea and coffee preferences except for disability stuff.

I know when I worked with Patrick the second blind colleague I worked with I amazed him by asking him "How do you want me to do visual things in a presentation I'm giving e.g. spend 15 mins with you in advance going through stuff and or verbalise a bit more during the presentation?". He said in 30 years of being partially sighted and blind (on and off) no one had EVER asked him what he wanted to be done to give him least-worst or best access... Whereas I just considered it basic courtesy because I didn't wanna make a huge fuss and single him out, but at the same time it was obvious he could not access the material the same way as the rest of the team who are all sighted and therefore functions in a structurally sighted way.

Maybe yu don't have to do it as a book, maybe you could do it as a series of conversations or some audio/films or something else? Or just fragments of blogposts and stuff...

[cosmolinguist]

Oh it probably won't actually be an actual book. I'm thinking...maybe a zine, actually? I'd actually like it to have pictures/cartoons. Maybe just because it's for sighted people. ;) Originally I was thinking of something almost like Post Secret, images with handwriting over them. I don't know yet. :) I don't actually know anything about making zines, never done it. That's just what popped into my head.

A friend on the DW version of this post linked to this from Limping Chicken as the deaf version of the same thing, which is easy enough a kind of format for me to do, so I will probably start with blog stuff. Though the temptation to do video now is high, if I could get my friends to help act out (or maybe just animate) the Things Not to Do!

you are good at knowing "what I experience" may be different from "what other person with similar impairment name may experience".

This is one of the things I think is most important to do, so I'm really glad you think so. )

I don't blame Patrick for being amazed that you'd ask a thing like that; no one ever asks me that kind of thing either. And it's so stupid because it is usually very easy to ask and the adjustments are not huge in time or energy. I think a lot of the problem comes from people just thinking this is Not A Thing You Do. Even people who kinda grok disability stuff, who are halfway there, think it's somehow insulting to the blind (or deaf or whatever) person or a failure on their own part if they have to actually mention or ask questions about somebody's disability? Even when, as you say, it's obvious a blind person won't be able to access information in the same way as the rest of a sighted team, there's still a kind of taboo around being straightforward about this?

I think it's mostly only other disabled people I know who are really matter-of-fact about it, because that's for the most part how we want to be treated ourselves, and we're just waiting for everybody else to catch up.

I might well use an analogy like your tea/coffee preferences one, if I do write anything about this, because I do think that's more like how this should be thought of. Especially because it's also something that people might forget even if they do know you, and it should be okay to say the disability equivalents of "hey I have sugar in my tea actually" or "am I right in thinking you drink coffee and hate tea?" or "I can't have dairy" or whatever. I've had people apologize for asking me to sit/stand on one side of them so they can hear me better or whatever, and I don't think that kind of thing should ever need an apology! But I understand why my friends do it. It's part of living in a society that's disabling them.