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Blind and Visually Impaired Community

Full History - 2019 - 01 - 21 - ID#ai8d9d
2
How do you deal with a childish blindie? (self.Blind)
submitted by estj317
So this is sort of blindie drama but not. Usually I deal with people fine. But this person has some issues.

So he’s 63 years old but sometimes I feel like he’s not anywhere near there. Sometimes he’s mature and at others he requires hand holding. He has this thing where he likes to call people out for not being mature and sometimes I wonder about him.

So the latest we had an argument whether popcorn is junk food. Apparently he doesn’t know what is healthy or unhealthy food and had a 5th grade yes no argument with me when I tried to bring him facts. He claimed popcorn is corn and theater popcorn is different somehow than store bought ones. I am trying to help this guy lose weight and keep his diabetes in check.

Also a little bit of inconvenience or pain it’s the end of the world, has a melt down and needs to be babied his hand needs to be held, why doesn’t Jesus come rapture his church now! Hahaha!

The most interesting one is exercise. He’s started exercising in the last two months. And everytime he finishes he complains and even after two months of it that it’s the end of the world all his limbs will fall off. He will fall down and hurt himself, if he pours himself a cup of water he will drop and spill it, so people should baby and feel sorry for him because he’s so very sore and in pain. We all know after exercise you get sore, a day later, or after some rest you’re going to be dandy. That’s been the case. If you ask him in a day or the next morning he’s not in pain. If he was legitimately in pain okay whatever, right? Then there is a problem. Exercise less, maybe we can find a solution right? Nope, he’s fine. He just wants attention. He can do the same ammount of exercise the next day. Yes he gets sore but then he sleeps and then he’s perfect.

If he has a little mishap in the road he gets all hurt and has this meltdown effect. Something going wrong. Yeah, sorry it’s a bummer but it’s also not the end of the world. I had once felt like his mother and trying to get him calmed down and told him maybe he could get some rest.

He claims he knows his city but apparently walking five blocks is difficult and he couldn’t call the medical center to tell them he would be a few minutes late he was trying to get there. He called a lyft for 5 blocks. Apparently they denied his insurance and then he had a melt down. Something simple like that. He claims he can map out his city too.

That is the pattern sometime handholding, I call him and I calm him down. But it’s unusually trivial.

What else should I do besides ditch a blindie like that like a bad habit??
brimstone_tea 8 points 4y ago
What do these things have to do with him being blind??
You don't like him, that's alright, but how could anyone here help you?
[deleted] 1 points 4y ago
[deleted]
jrs12 7 points 4y ago
First question, what world do you live on that "blindie" isn't an offensive term? From your post I can imagine how this man may really be struggling yet feels judged at every turn by you. Maybe it's best for him if you do ditch him because it certainly doesn't sound like you are in a good mental state to provide him with the help he needs right now. The biggest red flag I see is that it sounds like you are treating this man like a child because you feel like he's acting like a child. Still, it sounds like you are only a child yourself. Try giving your elder a little bit of respect for his years of experience on this earth instead of needing to be right all the time regarding what's best for him.
WhatWouldVaderDo 5 points 4y ago
In some social groups where blindness culture is more prevalent, the terms blindie and sightie are more accepted as descriptive rather than pejorative terms. Anecdotally, I’ve seen this culture more associated with groups of people that attend blindness centers, such as those run by the NFB.

OP, I don’t mean to be harsh, but it seems that you are here to seek validation for your low opinion of this person. Most of your post is pointing out his flaws using a tone of derision. Keep in mind that laziness, drama, and hypocritical opinions are not exclusive to blind people.

Looking at your post more constructively, it seems that you want advice for how to deal with this person. It isn’t clear to me whether you are just a friend or a service provider as well, but I suspect the former, so I’m going to proceed with that assumption. As a friend, you need to ask yourself what are your responsibilities. Are you the type of friend that wants to try to correct the behavior that you perceive to be wrong, or are you the type of friend that seeks to support without enabling? If the former, you must have patience with your friend, since your definition of correctness may be different from his, for a variety of reasons.

Basically, decide what kind of friend you want to be, and don’t let his opinions and behaviors get to you. Either be there with a positive attitude to try to support him, or take a step back, and focus on the things that you two have in common.

Good luck
GoBlindOrGoHome 1 points 4y ago
Unrelated but my fiance and I call people walking with white canes "blinders", because I'm legally blind, but they're probably blinder. I don't think colloquial terms are necessarily offensive!
estj317 [OP] 1 points 4y ago
Hahaha! Blinder. Can I steal that? Hahaha! Well that is funny and clever. It’s difficult to offend me. I think as a blind person you need to be tough. Especially if you want to overcome. The big goal I think is to overcome your disability.
quanin 2 points 4y ago
> The big goal I think is to overcome your disability.

Incorrect. The big goal is to overcome people's perception of my disability. I don't suffer from blindness. I suffer from people's complete and utter inability to exercise common sense the second my blindness looks like it might pose an issue. I've been this way for 30+ years. I think I might know just a wee bit more about being a blind person than you do. Shut up and listen.

More related to the OP, what we have here is a failure to adult. His eyes not working has absolutely nothing to do with the fact he's a crybaby. That just gives him something more to cry about. Were it not that, it'd probably be something else. The fact he's doing that and he's in his 60's tells me no one has ever enlightened this man on precisely why that's inappropriate. That's neither your problem nor your responsibility. If he hasn't learned to do for himself by now, he's not going to.
Sudsy613 1 points 4y ago
I don’t have the time to dissect your entire post right now, but just wanted to say, as a partially blind person, I don’t find the term “blindie” offensive in the least, and use it fairly regularly myself.
I’m also not one of these blindies who gets offended at every little thing though; so there’s that.
We have much more important things to worry about in the world.
estj317 [OP] 1 points 4y ago
Yeah, exactly the word blindie isn’t supposed to be offensive. If I said the word blink maybe different story. I agree. I don’t usually get offended easily. This situation I am in just gets to me with some of these less capable blind people or more delicate ones shall we say.
jrs12 3 points 4y ago
I think weather a word is offensive or not depends a lot on context. If your friend were calling himself a blindie, or he were in this conversation to defend himself or have a say in what he was being called, that would be different. Let's replace the word blindie, with 'old fart'. I would call my dad that to his face in joking terms without a problem. He may call himself that if he makes a silly mistake. If I'm complaining about how inflexible, slow, and annoying he is to a friend though and call him an old fart, that's mean. My bigger problem with this post is that it seems as though you are coming here to complain about a situation and using the word 'blindie' as a cheap shot at your friend.
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