[Blindtlk] Needing Feedback and Support

[Brian Miller]

Hi Gary,

I really like your honest grappling with how our actions are often shaped by
the way others interact with us, sometimes causing us to behave in ways
contrary to our preferences or better instincts.  I've noticed the same
thing with respect to the airplane situation -- I may well just relax and
let the multitudes push and shove for position, but if a flight attendant
says to me "sit there and I'll come get you," chances are pretty good I'm
going to jump up and join the melee.  

Brian Miller

-----Original Message-----
From: blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Gary Wunder
Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 1:11 PM
To: 'Blind Talk Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Needing Feedback and Support

Hello Diane.  Like most of the other folks who have responded to your note,
I too have experienced this problem from time to time.  Sometimes it is only
frustrating; at other times it is downright humiliating.  I rode with a very
nice gentleman for several years who seemed to respect me quite a lot, but
one day when he was running late I heard him say "I have to go because of my
kids.  One of them I have to take home, and the other two I have to pick up
from daycare."  It probably goes without saying that he only had two
children.  So, he was the transporting daddy, and I was one of the children.
That didn't go down very well with me.

There are other circumstances where I feel more empathy for the people who
behave as they do.  Sometimes I find that the people who treat me like a
child, who want to carry everything for me, open the door, and give me
directions I don't need are people who have a tremendous need to be needed.
Mostly they seem to be scorned by others, and this only adds to the problem
because then they feel real resentment for what they rightfully read as a
dismissal of them and who they are.  In these cases I don't know whether I
am better served by direct confrontation, avoidance, or getting to the place
where I feel good enough about myself that what these kinds of people do
just doesn't get under my skin.  When I go to the cafeteria with a coworker
and she decides that she's going to carry my breakfast up the stairs, it's
not a lack of education that has her grab my Styrofoam box.  There are days
when we don't go to breakfast together and she sees that I get back to my
desk just fine.  So what is the issue?  Again, I think it is her need to be
important to somebody and to exert some control in a world where she feels
she has very little of it.

One of the reasons I find your post so interesting is that it makes me come
back to the point I wrestle with time and time again in my life.  How much
of the time do I have to spend educating, how much is about me, and how much
is about learning to receive what people have to give, even when it isn't
always what I would want them to give to me?  We are often taught to be good
givers, but mostly we have no instruction in how to be good receivers.  I
don't feel confident enough about this issue to make any kind of a firm
statement, but I do believe there are times in my life when it is more
important for me to respect in other people what is wrong or needy or over
controlling than it is for me to assert myself to show that I am the kind of
independent person I know myself to be.

Since this is a pretty disconnected message, let me throw out one other
thing.  There are times when I feel angry about the idea that blindness
causes me to act in ways which I think are contrary to how I really feel and
want to act.  A splendid example is writing on the airplane.  It makes
absolutely no sense to me to stand up as soon as the fasten seatbelt sign is
turned off and we are safely at the gate, if where I am sitting is near the
rear of the plane and there is no way the line is going to move for at least
3 to 5 minutes.  My normal inclination is to sit, relax, perhaps read, use
my cell phone to let someone know I have arrived, checked my e-mail, or do
any number of other things which seem to me more productive than trying to
squeeze myself into a single file line on an airplane which accommodates six
people across.  Still, I am very likely to be one of the first out of my
seat if a flight attendant comes along and says to me "now, when we land, I
want you to sit right here, and when I get everyone else off the plane, I'll
come back and get you off."  Am I really showing more control or
independence?  I don't know.  I certainly don't like the constant message
that I am to "sit there and wait," but neither do I like the idea that I'm
going to be so manipulated by what other people think and feel and say that
I'm going to act in a way which seems foolish to me.

Warmly,

Gary

  Puts me in


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