The following is courtesy of a friend, who posted this on his Facebook account and a post by a woman named Amy Elizabeth, who is my guess blogger (like it or not). I found this story so good that it needs to be told by the person who wrote it and not by somebody else. I will comment on it, but I will not tell the story so, here we go. If you don’t like it, tough shit.
The post I’m about to make might hurt some people’s feelings, but honestly, I don’t really mind because I think some feelings need to be hurt. Yesterday I was at work minding my own business going about my day. Let me set the scene for you. Amy is walking calmly using her cane to guide herself around the equipment in the hallway. Lady comes up and grabs me. Caught off guard, of course and a little frustrated I calm myself down take a deep breath and respectfully say no, thank you ma’am, I think I got this. She continues to say, but I’m helping you you need to let me help you. I continue to assure her actually, I work here every week, and I am really familiar with this area, but thank you for your help. Have a nice day. I continue to walk away from this lady and she continues to antagonize by stating well, you’re just so horrible aren’t you! At this point her ignorance is absolutely astounding to me, but I again take the more mature route and walk away from her. As I’m opening the door to the classroom that I need to enter, taking all my courage to leave this lady to her self and her ableist thoughts she turns to me and says well, if you’re not going to accept help from me. I hope you fall down the fucking stairs. Like… What?… Listen, I’m not here to be your piece of humanity. If you wanna feel like you’re doing something good for the world I don’t know, go pick up trash on the street or go volunteer at the soup kitchen on Christmas. But you have absolutely no moral high ground because you think I can’t walk on my own. It’s starting to really piss me off that people continuously expect me to respect their social identities but they will not respect mine. It’s 2023 and it’s so sad that people are still like this. Just take a second and come to terms with the fact that someone who is blind, can do something that you might not be able to if you lost your vision tomorrow.
Thoughts?
Okay, remember that our friend has done this millions of times and knows the way around where she works like the back of her hand. She is using her white cane, not a walking cane and going to work. In this case it is a classroom! The other person needs to help our friend for their own validation and our friend reacts in the correct manner. However, the other person does not by reacting like a child, as she says “well, you’re just so horrible aren’t you! Well, if you’re not going to accept help from me. I hope you fall down the fucking stairs.” That sounds to me like something that would come out of the mouth of someone who has not fully grown and had developed all of their mental, physical and other skills needed to function in society as a whole. Yes, our horrible friend is correct, while the other person is totally in the wrong and needs to be put away forever. Basically, if someone says no, except that they do not want help and the other person did not do that and for that, they should be sentenced to life where the sun doesn’t shine and no clouds can be seen. In other words, give that person a padded room with no doors or windows and nothing to keep them occupied, in order to keep them away from the rest of society for the rest of their life, which would shortly be over. They will go nuts and eventually, kill themselves and is that what we want? Sure, anything to get rid of those who need validation by helping those who don’t need help and clearly do not want any help at the time.
Sadly, this is not uncommon and it has happened to me, but I always succeed in shaking them off, simply by saying no. Unfortunately, using multiple words boggles the minds of those do-gooders and they forget that we don’t want their help and they instinctively try, like this person did to our friend. When our friend clearly is inside her welcome haven (away from this psychopath) our antagonist gets indignant and says what she said to our friend, which clearly shows that they have more than a few screws loose and need to be locked away for eternity
I’m not feeling sorry for our friend, but I don’t understand why I am having an easier time of it than others like me are? Because of the bus stop being taken away, some people have offered to help me, after I got off the bus to get home and I’ve said that I don’t need help and that “I live here” (using my length of time at the same location to my advantage) and that’s that. If I am in the mood to take a grown-ups hand to guide me home, I will be selective when making that choice. Otherwise, the answer is a clear “no”. How selective? It depends on how I feel at the time, but in general I like to be left alone like our friend should have been left to their own devices, instead of being harassed by a maniac.
Like I said, I get asked if I need help and sometimes I do and I’ll except it, but when I say no, I mean it and this includes similar situations to our friend and if there are people who don’t get it, neither of us are responsible for how they feel. I have much contempt for those who try to fix things for us, on both the sighted and blind side of society, as they do not want to think outside the box, but that’s another story for another post.
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