Beggars can’t be choosers..unless they are blind.

I was on the tube, holding my cane, when a homeless man entered the carriage and began to tell his story;  He was 19, with no family to speak of, and he desperately needed money for a bed for the night to help him on his way to build the life he wanted.

He then looked around the carriage to see if anyone would offer him any of their spare change. As his eyes met mine, i apologised

“I’m sorry, i don’t have any cash!”

His eyes met my cane and without hesitation he replied

“I wouldn’t expect anything from you anyway”

…

…

…

I waited but it wasn't a joke.

expect nothing from me? why not? why is it ok for him to expect change from the other passengers, but i am excluded from this group?

Now, i'm going to go out on a limb here and hazard a guess…... It’s because i’m blind!

So you know, that automatically means many other things are true.

For example, my life is really hard, a struggle in fact, clearly much worse than being homeless at 19. Poor, poor me. I couldn’t possibly be capable of helping someone else because i must spend all my energy worrying about my own awful existence. Never mind the fact I'm an extremely capable individual, that's not important here, because I couldn't possibly be considered equal to my fellow passengers.

So this highlights something REALLY important.

If a homeless man, begging for money sees my white stick and immediately imagines my life to be a largely negative experience….(either enough of a struggle that he wouldn’t feel right accepting my spare change, or outright worse than being homeless in central London), does everyone? Is the visual representation of my disability enough to define me as the most pitiable member of society? but it's ok, because it's not my fault...

How can blind and disabled people accept their abilities and learn to work with the tools they’ve got (Other very cool and useful senses and an interesting logic and perspective developed over the years) - becoming educated, resourceful, useful and contributing members of society if society itself tells them they don’t belong there; they are not equal; they are struggling, they SHOULD be struggling.

“Having an easy day? Well, you shouldn’t be, remember, your eyes are broken and it's not ok to be ok with that"
Can you think of anything to put you in your place more than a struggling man that wouldn’t accept your help?

The worst part is, that comments like this are acceptable. But they are hurtful and they hinder progress, both personally and socially. Please think before you speak- we are all capable of helping each other.

Blind people do not always want sympathy

My eyeballs can be quite painful at times, particularly recently after having a bout of
optic neuritis. Medical professionals aren’t really sure what causes the pain as all my
eye problems are typically painless. But then, I wouldn’t be me if I had a typical eye
disease that did as it was told.

I find my eye pain to be quite intriguing. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s annoying and
impractical and distracting at times, but it’s weird. It’s never bilateral. Every single
pain feels slightly different, for a different length of time, in a slightly different part of
the eyeball,  a different intensity … sometimes it’s constant, sometimes it throbs. Being
a scientist, I quite enjoy trying to figure out what it all means (though I’m not an eye
specialist so it’s more of a fun way to pass the time while my eyes won’t let me think
about much else) .

Today I sent my best friend the following text message:
“I just had the worst pain in my right eye I think I've ever had.”
One might think an appropriate response would be,
“Oh my gosh, are you ok? Do you need anything?”

But, in fact, it is not. As annoying as my eye pain can be sometimes it’s not something
that requires sympathy, just understanding.

I could not have asked for a better response:

“That’s quite inconvenient.”

Blind people think other people’s problems are minor in comparison

I’m sat on a wall eating a McDonalds with a friend, and he tells me all about how he’s had a
really bad cold for weeks. Such a chesty cough and cold that people at work forced him
to see a doctor. it’s really making life difficult for him, particularly since he has a very active
job with unsociable hours and can’t quite get the sleep he needs to recover. Whenever he
tries to go out he’d just end up leaving the room for a coughing fit and going home early
anyway. The doctors told him that it may actually be an unknown allergy, and this may
be something he has to learn to control with medication and get used to.

I provide him with the sympathy social rules dictate in this situation.

To which the obvious and appropriate response is, of course: “I’m sorry, I know this
sounds pathetic compared to your eyesight problems.”

I actually feel that, in this instance, some context would probably help you understand
why I find these kinds of comments so annoying:

We were very much talking about him, and he turned the conversation to me and my sight
with no logical connection. I’m not against talking about my eyesight, but it wasn’t exactly
relevant to the conversation.

You see,  the two things are very different. For example, i don’t feel that my sight affects my
work and day to day life much anymore, but his cough clearly does; in my opinion, this
makes it clearly a more pressing matter.

Unfortunately, it seems that everyone will always assume I’m comparing their problems
to my own (though incidentally, I would never refer to my lack of peripheral vision as a
“problem”) and they take the liberty of playing the blind card for me.

You probably don’t like having words put into your mouth. Surprise, surprise: neither do I.

Blind people can use other senses

I was walking home one evening during that annoying “in-between” phase of twilight that offers no contrast. It makes it quite difficult for me to spot curbs and obstacles, but I had my cane to help.

I was stood at the edge of a road I crossed frequently, ears pricked.  I usually use my hearing to cross this road, but it was a bit later than usual this time and there was a lot of background noise from people in the pub over the road;  it was taking me a little longer than usual to decide if it was safe.

I detected footsteps behind me. They stopped at the edge of the road next to me. I felt an arm brush mine, sweeping in the direction of the road. The owner of the arm loudly stomped onto the road.

I followed.

My cane picked up the curb on the other side of the road and I was fine. The footsteps remained slow for a little while,  but then sped off ahead of me.

Thank you to the kind stranger that felt no need to shout instructions at me, grab me by the arm, or leave me there endlessly. He let me use the senses I’ve got rather than forcing me to trust a stranger to do it for me.

Blind people can't have interesting jobs

A fundraiser working for a local sight-loss charity approached me in the street, wishing to educate me about all of the great work that they do. I quickly explained that the charity was something I knew all about due to my own impairment. As nice as it would have been to chat, I apologised and explained that I had to rush to work for a meeting.

“Oh, how fascinating to meet one of the people we help!”

I kept my mouth closed. Well, actually I’ve never  had any help from any sight-loss charities but they weren’t to know, so I don’t feel the need to get into that.

“What is your job? It must be quite important to have a meeting!”

“I’m a PhD student at the university,” I reply.

“Oh WOW!” The fundraiser’s eyes widened in amazement. “Well done! Very impressive for someone like you!”

My eyes suck, not my brain.

Blind people - sorry - VI people - sorry - require apologies for everyone else’s proximal existence. Sorry.

I’m getting off a train through some double doors. Have you seen those things? They’re huge. There is plenty of room for two people to exit the train at the same time, even if one or both are morbidly obese. The man next to me - not morbidly obese, neither am I, I might add - notices my cane and apologises as he exits at the same time as me. What for? His presence? Or mine?

I’ve decided that he probably panicked, felt awkward and then apologised for feeling awkward; forgetting that I couldn’t actually hear his awkward thoughts in the first place. It's amazing how often this happens and how much it makes me think about how "abnormal" i must seem to the majority of the world...I shan't apologise for it though :)

Blind people love being directed even when they know exactly where they are going

I’m walking down a busy high street. There is a constant stream of people approaching me. My cane is particularly useful in these situations as most people tend to avoid me and walk either side , allowing me to concentrate on where i am, not who i’m avoiding in that second (My friends say i look like Moses, parting a sea of people).

Occasionally, however, someone will feel the need to dramatically step to the side, lower a shoulder and gesture the way in which i am already walking. One might remember such a scene from Disney Princess films where the helpless princess must be guided up the straight and unconfusing path by hundreds of bowing footmen.

Yes thankyou stranger, i was totally unsure of where to go when continuing to follow this straight road that i’ve been walking for a few minutes now. your theatrical guidance, whilst entertaining, was perhaps a little distracting though and i ended up tripping on an uneven paving slab.