[rehab] Blindness mannerisms:

[Gloria Graves]

Thank you so much for sharing this perspective.
Gloria

Sent from my iPhone

> On Sep 29, 2017, at 10:08 AM, Angel238 via rehab <rehab at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> I don't know whether my post was sent to an individual.  Or whether it was sent to the list.  So, I am sending it to the list.  I apologize, if it was sent twice.  The post follows.  
> Blind people can be the hardest, and the meanest toward each other.  When it 
> ought to be the other way around.  They ought to be the first to understand 
> the blind child or young adult.  Who may have been sheltered their whole 
> lives.  Not truly understanding how to properly socialize.  I well remember, 
> in the mid 60's.  I was introduced to the adult rehabilitation process.  The 
> first time I and my totally blind rehabilitation councilor met.  I had to 
> fill out a form.  Stating all the skills I could perform, and how well I was 
> able to perform them.  They were skills I never was taught.  Because, I was 
> one of those sheltered blind children.  He said, nearly after each question 
> I answered no to :  "My wife can do that perfectly well."  Now, his wife was 
> also totally blind.  Perhaps, his intent was to spur me to a level of higher 
> achievement.  Telling me, his wife was totally blind, and implying that, if 
> she could accomplish laundering, cooking,  and sewing, and such, so should I 
> be able to do such things equally as well.  But, what he did succeed in 
> accomplishing was quite the opposite.  I left him with tears in my eyes.  I 
> told my mother this, and she was quick to remind me, his wife was some 20 or 
> so years older than was I, and was married, with children, and with 
> experience.  Which is why, we always should be sure those blind people for 
> whom blindness is an entirely new experience. Or those blind children, who 
> lived sheltered lives. through no fault of their own.  Receive a proper 
> prospective.  As it relates to their circumstances.  Just because others who 
> are totally blind accomplish things, or possess skills which a child or a 
> newly blinded adult isn't capable, doesn't mean he is a failure, and will 
> never learn.  Of course, this goes without saying, when we talk among 
> ourselves.  But, we forget, sometimes, the sheltered young adult, or newly 
> blinded person doesn't know blind people who succeed aren't somehow super 
> people.  Whose achievements aren't beyond themselves to accomplish.  After 
> all, isn't the stereotype of the challenged person, that he does marvelous 
> things.  When he accomplishes even the simplest things?  So, from the 
> beginning of a blind persons journey he feels incompetent.  Because his 
> expectations of what he might be able to do are so low.  So when he meets 
> successful blind people, and when he compares his achievements to theirs, 
> how inadequate he must feel.  Then, some blind writer comes along and tells 
> him, he is looked upon by sighted people as being somehow weird.  Because he 
> rocks, or claps, or can't cook.  What must do to his motivation to even try. 
> Each blind person needs to be encouraged as much as is possible.  Never 
> causing him to think he is weird, or less than ordinary.  Regardless the 
> mannerisms he might exhibit.  I think those who take exception to seeing 
> blindness mannerisms are exhibiting a hatred of themselves.  Perhaps due to 
> their blindness.  They are the ones who need to examine themselves.  Rather 
> than criticizing those.  Who may not be as far along on their journey to be 
> all they are capable of  being.
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