Re: Do you feel excluded?
I've experienced the whole talking through you and to the sighted person you're with. I was with a friend at the liquor store one night picking up liquor (no, really?). I was using sighted guide so I wasn't risking knocking into the bottles and breaking them. A gentleman approached us and told my friend he was doing a really great thing by helping me. He went on to give my friend $10 and said "God bless you."
I just love how disabled people are looked at like charity cases whenever they receive help. Heaven forbid a friend help another friend out because that's what friends do. It didn't really make me uncomfortable, and after discussing it with my friend, he shared the same sentiments. It just bothers me that there are others out there who consider and treat me like I'm anymore helpless than a perfectly able-bodied person asking for assistance with something.
There are times, though, when I'm being talked to indirectly where I will chime in, and the person redirects the attention to me. I'd say I have a 95% success rate. A similar situation happened where we were at a university-owned convenient store, and the cashier was praising the same friend for helping me out. What was interesting is that he interjected and said, "Just helping a friend out." After that point, we were having a normal conversation about how things were going like classes, finals, weekend plans, etc. Not only did my friend's comment help the cashier understand that I'm just a human being who happens to have broken eyes and a cute yellow lab for a guide dog, but that my friend also views me as a friend. I often feel like I'm a burden to my friends because of the level of help I ask at times, but I'm constantly greeted with nothing but overwhelming willingness to give it, and it's because they are genuinely great people. This is why I say I'm supremely lucky -- it's quite rare anybody has friends of that caliber, and that's something I have the utmost appreciation for.
Whenever I'm on my own, I sometimes encounter the back-handed comments that are degrading but so minor in nature.
I was alone at the dentist a year or two ago for a visit. When I was done, I was about to leave to go outside when one of the receptionists asked if my dad was picking me up. Perhaps it was because I had been going to that dentist for so long with my dad that she just assumed that's what was happening, but why would that matter? Can't I just leave without you wondering about how I'm getting to my next destination? Do you think I have to rely on my dad for my transportation needs? What's stupidly annoying about these kinds of situations is that our questioning of others' intentions or attitudes may be viewed as unwarranted. Maybe one of us gets pushed enough to ask "do you think my dad drives me everywhere?" And maybe the answer is "I was just wondering, relax." Then suddenly, we're the assholes who need to change because we're the ones with the problem.
Ultimately, what do I care about what a receptionist thinks? I don't, but it doesn't mean I can't feel degraded because of what's being said to me. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me" is a load of horse feces. Words carry a lot of weight and meaning behind them.
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