Please, Don’t Grab Me!

Special Edition

This Wednesday, I went to the ophthalmologist.  I know, it sounds like an oxymoron, a legally blind person going to the eye doctor, especially a visually impaired person with Cone/Rod Dystrophy, which is a low vision condition that causes the vision to progressively lower over time.

Since, I was a young girl, I have been visually impaired.  In fact, I was born visually impaired.  I grew up knowing that I would never drive.  I understood that I would always be different from my sighted counterparts.  I was all right with that.  When I was in my mid to late twenties, I was diagnosed again, as my vision was deteriorating and I didn’t understand why, neither did the specialist. then I went to a retina specialist in Augusta, Georgia who explained that I would never be totally blind.  His exact words were, “you’ll never go stone cold blind, but by the time you’re fifty you’ll probably be seeing shadows.”  I think Dr. Oh thought this was a comfort to me, and in some ways, it would become a comfort, but in that moment, all I wanted was some time alone to mourn the loss of something I hadn’t yet began to lose.

Over time, as you can imagine, I adapted every time my vision evolved.  I wasn’t angry or frustrated; I just wondered how long it would take me to get used to this level of vision.  I stopped thinking about it over time.  I just figured it out.  Every now and then, I think to myself and even tell my mother, friends, and colleagues that I’m having a bad eye day or say, “you know, I think my vision has worsened.”  It’s more of a statement of awe that I’m just now noticing.  I rarely worry over it, and I could care less about what others think of me being blind.  I find it fascinating the way children react to my blindness, especially because they can’t really understand that a person has significantly low vision as opposed to total blindness.  It’s a wonder to them, but most children are more respectful of my boundaries than adults.

This Wednesday, I walked into the eye doctor’s office alone.  I tend to do that.  Walk into buildings, doorways, and just about anywhere else I like without assistance.  Well, I always have my white cane.  I remember a time when I hated that thing; After all, it has to be the ugliest thing they could have ever created for a blind person. It practically screams, “Hey look at me, notice me, I’m blind,” which is why, for many years, I refused to use the damn thing.  in any case, I’m walking into the office and before I could get a good three steps into the room to get my bearings and listen to this new world I’ve stepped into, I have someone grabbing my arm and pulling at me. Okay, so let me tell you I wasn’t nice about it.  I probably came off looking like a royal jerk, but imagine this from a blind person’s perspective.

If you’re in the mood to try an experiment, take a blindfold or a scarf and put it over your eyes.  use something comparable to a cane.  Walk with the makeshift cane crossing your body, so if anything is in your path, your cane will catch it before your body or your legs do.  When I walk with a cane, I use what they call a sweeping method, where the cane is moved back and forth in the pattern I walk.  When my left leg is forward, the cane is in front of my right leg, protecting it from bumping whatever is in my path, and vise versa when the right leg is forward.  You’re walking, you have your path mapped out in your mind.  You have a general idea in your mind the way the office is set up.  Perhaps you walk to the wall next to the desk, but you can reach out with your palm and find your way there.  You have all of this in your mind as you’re walking.  You’re going to be all right on your own, then a hand from out of nowhere grabs your elbow and tries to lead you in another direction. 

Let me try to put this a little further into context for you.  You have never heard this person’s voice before. You don’t know this person, and of course, you didn’t see them reaching for you.  what would your first reaction be?  I don’t know about you, but my first reaction is damn it, I lost my train of thought.  My second is, I have no clue where I am now.  My third thought is to make the intruder go away, so I can get it all back again.  The first thing that pops out of my mouth is, “Don’t grab me!” And I’m sure my facial expression isn’t kind when I say it.

On Wednesday, I was so pissed when that guy grabbed me.  I figured if I’m going to write about this, I should not only be truthful but not try to paint myself in the best light because the truth is, I didn’t feel very good in that moment, so my behavior reflected that.  I abhor it when I’m grabbed.  It is frustrating, pulls me out of the moment of what I’m doing and trying to figure out on my own, and completely obliterates my concentration.  Then, when I bump into the wall the sighted person was trying to save me from, the person becomes all puffed up with pride that they were trying to help me, and say something along the lines of, “See, if you’d have let me help you….”  the thing is that they’re the reason I bumped into the wall to begin with.  When your concentration is thrown off and you’re trying to get away from someone who is trying to help you, you inevitably end up bumping into a wall, ramming into a pole, or slamming into a tree or falling down or up the stairs.  The reason is because the person who’s helping isn’t really helpful at all.

Now, so far, this probably all sounds like a diatribe of complaints to you, and maybe in some ways I’m still venting.  I’ll be honest and say, it still burns my bacon that people think I’m helpless just because I have to use a cane, but that’s a whole other topic. 

You see, the one thing I realized after I left the office that day and found myself telling my mother all about it in rather harsh and irate tones is that I didn’t do the appropriate thing.  I was just as wrong as the gentlemen who was trying to help me.  Instead of telling him I was all right and I would find my way, I was rude.  “Please, don’t grab me,” I said, pulling my arm out of his grasp.  I didn’t get a chance to move again before that hand was coming for me again and grabbing me.  “Don’t grab me,” I said with more firmness to my tone.  Later, he said he was just trying to help me.  then, he said he work with blind people and he do it all the time, and I popped back with, “you grab people?”  Again, rude and sarcastic.  At that point, I just wanted him to leave me alone, so I could calm down.

Then, after I’d calmed down and would probably never see this man again in my life, I realized I forgot to tell him how to truly help someone with low vision or total blindness. 

Sighted people, if you see someone walking with a guide dog or cane, and you want to help them, please ask them how you can be of assistance.  If someone tells you that they are all right, take them at face value even if they’re walking toward a cliff.  More than likely, they’re aware that the cliff is there.  They will turn when they get to something you’d never notice in the terrain because they’ve either been trained to look for it with their other senses or they’ve walked that path so many times that they know how many steps away the edge is and will turn when they get to that number.  When I bump into something, I’m never embarrassed.  In fact, to my mother’s annoyance, I tend to find it funny.  I know I’m going to make mistakes whether it’s in public or private.  There are going to be times that I turn too late and maybe slip or bump my head.  There are going to be moments of complete calamity.  I’m not saying that I relish those moments. Don’t get me wrong.  You’ll be hard-pressed to find any person with legal blindness that do, but you can bet we have lived with blindness all our lives and accept the good moments along with the bad.  It just makes for a better day when I’m asked what I need or want than when I’m grabbed and pulled or told to go somewhere.  A part of that is sheer stubborn human nature and another part of that is a need to be independent and respected.

Till next we meet, stay well and keep creating!

CSA

csa30@icloud.com, Facebook; Twitter; Writers’ Mastermind Community