Things Not To Say To A Blind Person
“Does your guide dog tell you things?”
“Can’t you have that laser treatment?”
“From your emails I couldn’t tell you were blind.”
“Does your mum help you get dressed?”
Awkwardly, she still does.
Yes I know, it’s embarrassing.
“Are your other sense heightened?”
Everyone thinks you become Daredevil.
Daredevil.
Daredevil.
People have watched too much Daredevil.
And they’re like, they’re like, can you do echo location? I saw a documentary on it.
“You don’t look blind.”
Urghhh!
They think you’re either blind or you’re not. So like if you’re blind you have to have a guide dog or you have to have a stick or you have to have sunglasses.
They’ll say, “But it’s a compliment!” And I’m like, how is a comment that’s insulting the other 2 million people who live with sight loss a compliment?
I get it a lot in the Paralympics as well. They say, “Well you don’t look like you’re blind so I bet you’re lying. I bet you’re just doing that so that you can run with like, slower people. I’m like, “Well you don’t look stupid but I’m pretty sure you are.”
People think they’ve caught you out on this big facade.
They’ll look at the cane and then they’ll look at my eyes to see if I’m telling the truth.
Even the term blind itself is really misleading because you know, people can be registered blind but still have some vision left, like myself.
It just means that your vision is to the level where it’s not useful anymore. It doesn’t mean that you can’t see shapes, that you can’t see outlines and shadows.
I’ve had literally comments on my YouTube videos where people are like, trying to prove out of some actions that I do on my videos. Like, “You look at those hairclips which means your eyes must work!”
I’ve had it once before when I was walking down the street and someone said, “You’re not f**king blind. Don’t lie.” And it was kind of like, I couldn’t even see where they were to tell them off.
“People talking to the person you’re with instead of you.” Oh my gosh!
They always speak to my boyfriend. They’re like, “So what’s Lucy up to today?”
Exactly.
And then I answer and interject, and they’re like, “Oh she speaks?”
It always happens in shops for me, always. If I’m with someone they’ll be like, “Have you got what you wanted?” looking at the person I’m with.
What I get most is the patronising, “Are you alright?” I’m like, yeah, are you?
I’m not deaf!
Because they automatically assume that people that can’t see are mentally challenged or something.
Everything goes a bit slower and a bit more like, “Are you okay?”
There’s so many times where someone’s come up to me like, “Can she read the bus numbers?”
I have had this so many times. They’ll be like, “Oh it’s amazing how she can read the bus numbers.”
I did have a situation where a friend of mine, someone leant down... he was asking directions, someone leant down and spoke to the dog, “Go up there. Turn left. Take a right.” To the dog. As if the dog could understand.
Oh this is my favourite: “See you later. Oh sorry!”
Urgh. The amount of times I’ve had someone think that I’m going to get offended at the word “see”.
Yeah, they feel like they have to avoid their vocabulary and choose certain words. And in the Paralympics it’s what they do most. For example my friend who has one leg, and we’re having an argument, and I’m like, “Shut up you don’t even have a leg to stand on.”
Disabled people in general are appalling at making disabled jokes. At the paralympics in the lift people had stuck rice over the braille so the blind people couldn’t use it properly.
“What’s the best thing about being blind?”
Disabled badge at Christmas.
You can go free into certain art galleries and stuff and go free into exhibitions and that. You know, I’m winning.
Although when we went to New York I said to the person, “I’m really sorry. My girlfriend’s blind and so am I so-”
“We can’t queue!”
And they were like, “That’s absolutely fine.” We can go to the front. And we just went to the front.
But it was the front to go ice-skating.
I don’t really know. That’s a very interesting question.
Not for me. I wish I wasn’t blind.
People say, “If there was a cure would you have it?” Or, you know, “If you could be cured of your sight loss, would you?” I say no. I’m quite happy in my own self. People are so shocked when you say that.
I would be fully sighted if I could be. I mean there are so many little things you don’t think about. Like, not being able to drive.
The daily stress of being blind, having to plan everything.
Having to plan everything!
And I think they’ll always be a part of me like, I don’t remember my mum’s face anymore, I don’t remember my boyfriend’s face anymore and that’s sad. But if I don’t accept that and overcome that, those fears and worries, you’re just going to be unhappy aren’t you?
And then cue people saying, “You’re an inspiration. Oh you’re amazing because you’re happy to have a disability and it’s like…”
“You’re blind and you’re happy?” Oh my God!