[Blindtlk] Being Disrespected: How to Handle

Sun Sep 28 15:20:35 UTC 2014

Mike,

Your delivery was not in the best taste, IMO. I was responding to that in kind.

We do our best with our house. It is another assumption that you think we do not. We work extremely hard to keep it as nice as possible. I was simply commenting that her own house was worse than ours, so she really shouldn’t be saying anything.

On Sep 28, 2014, at 11:06 AM, Mike Freeman via blindtlk <blindtlk at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> I agree. In your reply to me, Brandon, it appears to me that you nit-pick on
> assumptions that I might not have gotten right rather than dealing with the
> main points of the message. It seems obvious to me that, as Ray says, you
> are too close to the situation and emotionally involved to step back, turn
> off the emotions and think clearly, logically -- and *honestly* -- about
> what's going down here. Put another way, it appears that you can't see the
> forest for the trees.
> 
> Thought: you say your mother's house has been and is at least as cluttered
> as yours. Why not start cleaning it up and see what happens? Turn and turn
> about. Ah, what delightful mischief!
> 
> On another note, I prefer "light-dependent" to sighty. But if we're
> sensitive about "sighty", then we'd better eschew "blink" also.
> 
> Mike
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindtlk [mailto:blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Ray Foret
> Jr via blindtlk
> Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2014 7:58 AM
> To: Michael Capelle; Christine Olivares via blindtlk
> Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Being Disrespected: How to Handle
> 
> I need to say something at this juncture in the thread.  I lost my mom this
> past March 28th, six months ago.  It sounds to me like your mother's just
> trying to help:  but, doesn't quite know how.  I think that we blind make a
> big mistake if we automatically atrribute every life difficulty to
> blindness.  If you just stop and think about it for a moment, when we so
> readily atrribute every life difficulty to our blindness, we do the very
> thing we accuse others of doing.  But, in our case, we don't want to admit
> that we're doing it because we've already got enough on our plate what with
> dealing with issues which truly are blindness related.  Permit me to give
> you a personal example.  Back when I first lived on my own, I had no washing
> machine or dryer.  My mom would come and pick up my close and ddo them for
> me.  I mistook her honest effort at helping as a blindness related issue
> when in fact it was not.  It sure didn't help the situation that I did
> accidently put pancake mix in  my laundery one particular night while I was
> still a student at the Louisiana Center for the blind.  It took a good
> friend, (sighted) to help me realize where I was going wrong.  When I got my
> own washing machine, that help was no longer necessary.  So, I guess my
> point is this.  Whether or not there is a true blindness connection in your
> situation, I cannot say.  Yes, there may be:  but, then again, it aint
> necessarily so.  Of course, the emotion of the moment makes it hard to be
> logical about the situation, but, we do need, I think, to step back and
> avoid doing the very thing we get on other people's cases about.
> 
> 
> Sincerely,
> the Constantly Barefooted Ray, Still a very happy Mac and iphone user!
> Sent from my Mac, the only computer with full accessibility for the blind
> built-in and fully protected by ClamXav Antivirus!
> 
> On Sep 28, 2014, at 8:17 AM, Michael Capelle via blindtlk
> <blindtlk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
>> and she was, people can not be so sensative, be glad she is helping, once
> she is gone, what will you do? i am always greatful for my parents, and
> appreciate there help.
>> 
>> -----Original Message----- From: Carly Mihalakis via blindtlk
>> Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2014 7:46 AM
>> To: Brandon A. Olivares ; Blind Talk Mailing List ; Blind Talk Mailing
> List
>> Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Being Disrespected: How to Handle
>> 
>> Good morning, Brandon, and everyone,
>> 
>> Something about the sensibilities of Ol'Sighty, particularly when
>> Ol'Sighty is also your parent! My boyfriend and I are also totals. My
>> Mom doesn't come up so much anymore but when she did, she would do
>> the same thing, moving things, "putting things away" all in the name
>> of you guessed it, neatening up! One time, we have a little bowl
>> containing quarters for laundry, and there is also a container of
>> sundry coins. She put the quarters in with the change! I mean, do you
>> really need too much of an imagination to suspect a bowl full of
>> quarters maybe having some purpose for being segregated like that?
>> So, Sunday morning when we got up to do our laundry and seeing that
>> and having to dig through all the change in search of our quarters,
>> Upon asking her about it later, however, she gave that old tired
>> line, "I was just trying to help..."
>> As has been said by many: Some people you just can't reach! 05:16 AM
>> 9/28/2014, Brandon A. Olivares via blindtlk wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>> 
>>> My wife and I are just looking for a bit of advice on how to handle a
> difficult situation.
>>> 
>>> We're both in our mid-twenties. We live on our own in her own home town,
> about 250 miles from my own family. By all accounts, we keep a nice house.
> It's not perfect, but it's clean enough, as confirmed also by several of her
> family and friends.
>>> 
>>> But still, every. single. time my mother comes up to visit, she finds
> something to complain about. The worst thing is that I think she believes
> she is doing it out of love, but on our end it feels like she is being
> condescending and disrespectful.
>>> 
>>> I've tried before telling her before she visited to please not say
> anything because Christine worked very hard on the house to make it nice for
> her. But still she says or does something every time, without fail.
>>> 
>>> I'll provide two examples to illustrate:
>>> 
>>> The first happened a few months ago when she came up to visit. Christine
> was out somewhere, but told me not to let my mother try to touch anything. I
> said okay. So my mother visits, and pretty soon, she says the table is
> cluttered and wants to clean it up. I say no, please don't. We have it
> handled just fine. But then she starts and just says she's only putting some
> things in the end-table drawer so the coffee table looked nicer. I asked her
> not to, but she kept doing it. I figured it was just small things here and
> there she was putting away, but when Christine looked later on, every single
> item on the table was put into the drawer, messing up our organization
> completely. It took us a while to put everything back in its proper place.
>>> 
>>> Case #2: It was my birthday just last week and my mother came up to
> visit. Again I asked her not to say anything, and she said she wouldn't. She
> made a few attempts which I successfully headed off. But then she said the
> bedroom floor had cat hair on it and needed to be vacuumed, and asked if she
> could do it. I said no, thanks for letting us know and we'll take care of
> it. Well five minutes later, I hear the vacuum being turned on. Apparently
> she told Christine behind my back she was going to do it anyway, and not to
> tell me. Christine was a bit intimidated I think so didn't speak up. But it
> was very hurtful that I specifically asked her not to, but she did anyway.
>>> 
>>> The ironic part is that before we moved out here, we stayed with her for
> over a year, and she was never a neat-freak. Her own house was often worse
> than ours would ever be.
>>> 
>>> So we're not sure how to handle it. I didn't want to make a big fuss
> about it last weekend because it was my birthday and I didn't want drama.
> But she might come up for Christmas and we really don't want this to keep
> happening. Unfortunately as said, every time we mention something, she
> agrees, but then ends up doing it anyway. At this point we're tempted to
> just not let her visit our house, but she'd be very hurt by that. But we
> feel disrespected and degraded, because it seems like she thinks we don't
> know what we're doing just because we're blind. I'm 26 and Christine is 24,
> and we're both quite capable to handle things on our own.
>>> 
>>> Sorry about the lengthy message, but any advice would be appreciated.
>>> 
>>> Brandon
>>> _______________________________________________
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>> 
>> 
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