[nabs-l] this one aide is driving me crazy? how should i react?

Wed Mar 7 03:23:17 UTC 2012

Hi Vejas,
First of all I can totally relate to what you are experiencing. When I
was in high school I had very similar frustrating encounters with one
of the special ed aides as well as some of the teachers and other
staff at my school. Unfortunately the problem doesn't ever really go
away, just the other day I was walking to my building on campus and
had some random guy following me and audio-describing my whole route
("There's a curb coming up, watch out, there you found it" etc.)
It's important to remember you aren't alone in this and that the way
this guy treats you has more to do with him and his own issues than it
does with you. As you pointed out, he is used to working with students
who have much more intense disabilities than you have and he likely
knows very little about blindness. So definitely don't take it
personally.
I don't recommend being rude or sarcastic toward him, because
unfortunately since you are a student, if he gets offended by
something you say to him, he could tell on you to your aide or another
authority at school. Even if you're just trying to stand up for
yourself, you run the risk of getting in trouble if your actions are
misunderstood. I say this as someone who got in trouble with my TVI
and my parents because I tried to stand up for myself.
It's important to think about whether his behavior is just irritating
or if it makes you feel unsafe or distracts you from getting around
efficiently. If it's just annoying, you may just want to try not to
talk to him or if he starts acting weird or condescending, just ignore
him. If on the other hand his following you makes you feel
uncomfortable or is distracting you, you may need to tell him in a
no-nonsense way that his actions aren't helpful. For example, with the
guy who was following me and narrating the other day, I turned to him
and said "I need you to be quiet so I can hear what's around me" and
this worked. My worst pet peeve is when people talk to me while I am
trying to line up to cross the street and I have learned to say "I
need you to be quiet so I can hear the traffic". Sometimes these
people genuinely think they are giving helpful information and they
never considered that it's actually more helpful for us to be able to
pay attention and listen for sound landmarks. You could also just
simply say, "Please stop following me; thank you". Again you want to
be polite, but you also want to be clear that you don't like what he's
doing. It's still possible he might get mad and tell on you to your
aide, but at least you can say you tried to be as polite and
diplomatic as possible when dealing with him.
If it gets really bad or he starts to creep you out, you could try
talking to the principal or your guidance counselor about the
situation.
I still haven't found a good way to handle the many people who tell me
I'm amazing/awesome/brave for living my life. Sometimes I find myself
just responding with silence if I really just don't have the energy to
try to work with them. If I have the time, I might say something like
"actually for me what I do feels pretty normal". I recently started
telling people, if it felt like they might listen, that the skills I
use are ones a sighted person could learn after a year or so of
training. But I'm not sure any of these tactics really make a
difference in terms of showing people that we're really not all that
special. Have any of you found any other ideas for dealing with this?
Arielle

On 3/6/12, Nicole B. Torcolini at Home <ntorcolini at wavecable.com> wrote:
> Bluntly explain to him that you appreciate his help but that you don't need
> it. Ask him what he thinks your cane is for. Next time he starts following
> you, stop and refuse to go anywhere until he stops following you. Tell him
> that you have an aide already and that aide would do what he is doing if he
> thought it was necessary. As far as the talking on the phone, ask him how he
> would like it. Then, do something like, when leaving the message for your
> mother, include that you had to hang up before because he was being rude. If
> this does not stop things, go talk to whoever his boss is.
>
> Nicole
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "vejas" <brlsurfer at gmail.com>
> To: <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>; <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2012 4:50 PM
> Subject: [nabs-l] this one aide is driving me crazy? how should i react?
>
>
> Hi,
> The person I am writing about is not my aide, it's another guy.
> This guy, Gregory, helps out with other kids, I think maybe the
> ones who are autistic?
> Anyway, when I've seen him recently he has been ABSOLUTELY
> ANNOYING.
> For example, for no other reason than the fact that I was
> travelling on my own, he said he was proud of me.  But I didn't
> do anything! I'm just traveling, exactly as I should!
> On a second incident, when I was outside a classroom, I had to
> call my mom for something, and he came up.  After being told that
> I was on the phone, I was just about to leave the message when he
> began talking again in his loud voice, and I had to call her
> again.  When somebody knows you're on the phone, they should
> seriously JUST LEAVE.
> And maybe the worst was today.  He followed me the WHOLE ENTIRE
> last quarter of my math class.  He would tell me to turn left,
> even if I knew I had to.  And the weirdest thing was that when I
> was walking, I felt a trash can with my cane and went around it
> just as I was supposed to.  Then a couple seconds later he said,
> "There's a trash can." Yes, I know.  I went around it a couple of
> seconds ago.
> I really need help.  He really bugs me.  I'm assuming he might
> just be uneducated in blindness, as he is so used to working with
> learning-disabled and autistíc people and probably has to do a
> lot with them.
> I've considered telling my aide, but they're sort of friends and
> knowing who he is (I've had this aide for three years, same one I
> talked about about getting lost a week ago), I'm assuming he's
> probably going to make some excuse for Gregory (they're on
> friendly terms.)
> How can I get the message across to Gregory? Seriously if he
> doesn't listen to the fact that I'm about to send my mom a
> message, how am I going to expect him to listen if I talk with
> him firmly?
> Thank you so much.
> Vejas
>
>
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