I think people are scared to ask. Suppose you ask and the person wants something you can't give? Or they get mad at you for some reason? People have to learn to use their words. Listen. Ask for what you need, offer only what you can do. If those things don't match, try and work it out.

Offering help is a skill. Accepting help is a skill. I'd say they are skills that everyone needs to learn and practice.

Thanks for bringing this topic up.

On one hand, I agree with this in a vacuum. On the other hand, a lot of the posts I see here that aren't just farming free labor for us are people with loved ones with new vision loss. They literally have no idea what they don't know, so googling isn't an option. Many eye docs don't give a shit to spend 15 minutes to give information, and it becomes the newly blind person's job to find out things they don't even know how to research.

I'm fine with those people coming in here and asking for help. I know my instruction was rigidly geared toward mono-disability, neurotypical people with only minor grief towards blindness, not someone with a rainbow of disabilities who has to do things differently.

If I can stop someone from being convinced by professionals, like I was, that the only solutions are using pins to mark clothes and a billion labels in braille on everything around the house, then I'm glad as fuck that a sighted person posted here. If I can keep people from having the same experiences I had with feeling like a failure because my damaged brain didn't jive with JAWS, then I'm glad. 🤷

Stereotypes and sincere ignorance

You don't want a magical hack that will save you hours in the kitchen? that's on you, that doesn't mean that everyone has the same idea. I would love for things specially in the kitchen to be as accessible as possible and that would allow me to do more things by myself and ask people less, and yes I'll gladly pay for them provided that they're not overly expensive.

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Isn't coming here and asking about what can a person do for BVI people a form of talking to them? Or asking them to participate in a study or whatever.

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The way I see it, people are just trying to help in the way they can.

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I really hope I'm missing something here.

A lot of the time I see children asking for their parents who may be elderly. I still get your point, asking for help for someone who isn't being included in that conversation is a bit of a dick move given you essentially bulldoze over any actual desires this person might have, but on the other hand I think it's also true that many new disableds in a sense just have no idea what to ask for. So to me it depends on how the gained information is conveyed.

If you just start buying stuff for someone else here without talking it over with them, I'm sorry but imho you're doing it wrong. You're asking on somebody else's behalf, cool, but then go back to the person and tell them that you asked XYZ and you got XYZ answers, and then decide on what this person actually wants to try. Just getting your blind dad a braille display because it would be so wonderful and people say they like it might be completely useless if said blind dad has no intension of learning braille, which ... I would say is a bad idea, but then if you;re 85 years old I can understand you might have other priorities.

So yeah, OP, I get where you're coming from but I think it's a bit more nuanced on either side.

Which do you think is more efficient, talking to people (which I'm sure still happens), or asking a group with almost 15,000 members? Sighted people also are always being asked what they need by companies so they can produce products that they will actually want and buy. The technology being developed is really going to enhance the lives of people with vision issues.

There are groups in which people who are blind or visually impaired can share their feelings. There are therapists. that's a different issue.

There’s a reason the number one thing I tell every sighted person is “ask; don’t assume”. (If I have more conversations, I refine that to “ask about what we need, not our medical history “) Asking here is a good first step, but it’s only the first step. You can take that information to inform your conversations with your blind friend or family, and find out what they need. I agree, it shouldn’t be, “I bought this for you because blind Reddit told me it was good” without checking with the person first. Whether that’s Braille things for someone who doesn’t read it, or a talking watch for someone who doesn’t wear a watch, or a liquid level indicator for someone who isn’t going to use one.

It definitely does feel weird for people to be asking us, especially when it’s someone who has probably been blind for a while. “How can I help my blind neighbour?” as opposed to “My mother is losing her sight; how can I help her?” Because someone who’s just losing their sight doesn’t know what’s out there. They’ll know some things that’ll help, but will be completely unaware of others. Someone who’s been blind for a while probably knows exactly what they need, so why are you asking Reddit about them instead of asking them directly. Of course, from the sighted person’s side, it’s probably easier to ask faceless internet people what you’re worried is a stupid question, than asking those questions face-to-face. In the end, at least they’re asking questions to someone.

I always try to look at this from both sides. Yes, to you and me it's pretty simple, just ask me, but I spent the first many years of my life with perfectly good sight and I would have hesitated then to walk up to a blind person and ask that kind of question. I know better now but it's very awkward if you're in that position, and I think we should recognise that.

I hate to get political but the forces of critical social justice are not helping here. They often encourage people to become easily wounded wallflowers whose first instinct is to scream about micro aggression on social media any time someone walks past and coughs, let alone asks a direct question about disability. It instinctively seems like a nice idea to encourage everyone to be kind and gentle to one another, sure. The problem is the crazy extremes to which people now go makes it seem more and more risky to have this kind of conversation for fear of being accused of something.

As such I would be very careful about using phases like white knight. I would assume good faith and that people are genuinely trying to do the right thing. The last thing I want is for people to consider me weird and difficult to talk to because someone was rude to them on twitter when they were probably trying to be helpful.

So yes let's just have a conversation like anyone else would but let's stay very far away from criticising people when they were probably just trying to help.

I appreciate these questions but I also agree with toy, just go up an ask. I suppose if it's all new then maybe even the b/vi person doesn't know what they need.

I'm also imagining alot of non VI people maybe slightly presume VI are in need of way more additional help than sighted and what they really want to ask the neighbour, aunt, client is how can I help you with your vision problem ? Instead of how can I help you

RANT away!

I know, I don't understand it either, particularly when it comes to gifts. I just wish there was a thread at the top telling people not to ask here about what they should get their friend/coworker/family member who's blind. People like different things, sighted or not, disabled or not. What I like as a 24-year-old female is completely different from another 24-year-old female, and I like the same things blind as I do sighted (clothes, makeup, tea, body/bath stuff, anything cute). Just because I'm blind doesn't make me any different.

It’s hard, I enjoy this community because it includes other blind users… But it’s about 99% resource management rather than “I tried baking cookies and my kettle nearly exploded, what are your funny accidental sighted Ness stories?“. I would really like to see more of a community on here then maybe these types of interactions could be more prevalent!

I was told from when I was very little that if I want something from someone I have to ask because people aren’t usually around visually impaired people and I’m sticking to it and I’m fine ..

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