Living in a Sighted World Chasing My Dreams
I was born with an eye condition known as Anophthalmia also referred to as anophthalmos. Since this is a rare kind of blindness, I had difficulty in answering a number of hard questions about my blindness which were raised by my family and friends. With time I found it very difficult to maintain my relationship with the sighted family and friends. This was due to the constant nagging, lack of understanding, and irritation from the sighted members of the family and friends at times became too much for me. However, I realized that they were just trying to understand my condition. This is hard for them as it is for me. This propelled me to wonder; can the sighted people fully understand the blind people with a physical disability?
When I was reading “The Same Difference” by Amy Wang, I felt that her story related to me in a way. She had the fear when some one looked at her funny it was because she was a Chink. Fear can consume us and give us a bad feeling and could be why sometimes my friends and I fear as a blind person think that things happen due to our blindness. According to Amy Wang, fear can make us over interpret happenstances in our lives and can hurt us a lot. The fear that I had as a blind individual was that I was pitied by a lot of the sighted people in my life. For instance, I feared that a sighted person would just come up to me on the street and offer to help me in doing something that I am already comfortable doing. I do not understand whether too take this positively or negatively. On the other hand, there are instances when I feel that a sighted individual actually patronizes me, such as when such a person out rightly tells me that I cannot do something because I am blind.
Many a times, the blind people are caught in a dilemma as they wonder whether their actions would embarrass them or would be interpreted wrongly. I as not spared from this either. I had this fear about my blindness when I was younger. How would I answer these questions about my blindness? When we were out I felt that people were looking at us and feeling sorry for me because I could not see. I had this fear until I started going to the School for the blind and meeting others like myself. I then saw how they were answering questions about their blindness when a sighted person asked them. I therefore decided to join National Federation of the Blind to equip myself with answers for all kinds of questions about my blindness.
In my family I am the only one who is blind, so they do not know many beautiful things that a blind person can do. Initially they were not as understanding. They wanted to keep watch over me like a child, they wanted to get clothing for me, and sometimes they even didn't want me to use my walking cane when I was out. Though I am blind, I still need to make my own decisions; I need to use the cane to walk independently unless I ask for your arm, otherwise don't grab my arm but instead let me take yours. In this way the sighted people will give me the chance to make my own decisions. I do not need to be directed at dinner because with practice I have learnt the ordinary table skills and I can use them well. I remember when I was young, I was at a wedding and this lady asks me: "Can I feed you that cake?" I felt humiliated. Why was she asking me this? I am blind but my hands can still work. I just told her that I could do it myself I might not have eyes but I knew where my mouth was and could do this just fine.
The blind person also needs to know the people he/she is talking to. As such, the sighted people should always introduce themselves; including children, cats and dogs that are in the room. There are numerous occasions when I have been talking to sighted people and sometimes they would walk away while I was still talking. If you have to walk away that is fine, just say so that we may know. Just make sure that if you are talking to us you do not scream or shout; we can hear you, we just can not see you.
At times the sighted people hurt us a lot when they assume that we do not have feelings. Wang has noted that fear affects many in life; it comes in different forms and can etch itself on to someone and never let go. I felt that my family did not consider my feelings about reading Braille. I was hurt when they called it dots. In some occasions, my family and my friends would ask me how I can read dots. To them, they consider Braille as something which can take a whole lifetime to learn, yet this is something which anybody can use with practice. I noted that my perception of the sighted people in relation to Braille was misconstrued. It is not that they would not like to learn it; it is only that they fear they might get it all wrong.
In conclusion, I would like to state that the sighted people hurt us a lot because they fail to recognize that we have got feelings like they do. This is why we want to be considered and valued like any other person; just because it happens that we are blind does not mean that we have to be considered “poor blind person.”
