I am me
- 28 Feb 08, 10:59 PM
I am not my disability!
I have had a seriously bad day with labels and boxes; I am well and truly frustrated by it.
Today someone (that should no better) said that me and another visually impaired person, where really alike, we had the same vision, we used the same font size for our work and in fact the biggest difference between us was our age gap, she is 30 years older than me!
The over riding theme of this conversation was that we where the same, have the same needs, the same abilities, the same vision; we don鈥檛
Why do people have to shove me in a box based purely on my disability? I am an individual I am not the same as anyone else, and I can safely say that nobody will ever have the same vision as me; for starters my vision varies on daily basis (sometimes it can change within the space of a few minutes).
Basically anyone that says that me and another visually impaired person have the same needs, abilities, and vision is talking absolute B*s!
Then this evening someone said to me 鈥溾h I no I鈥檝e got a friend like you鈥 Like me what? A student? A teenager? No what he really meant was that he has a VI friend, that is probably our only similarity so that makes us alike.
I am unique, I am me, no one can change the way I am, just because I am visually impaired does not make me the same as other people. It does not mean I will instantly be friends with every visually impaired person I meet; trust me there are some VI people I really don鈥檛 get on with.
I am fed up of people making stereotypical assumptions, based purely on the amount they think I can see, I am fed up of people thinking they understand my disability, they know what it is like, they don鈥檛 and never will.
• Visit
Comments
Well said, its about time people started seeing us a individuals making completely bizarre assumptions. their thinking means that every able bodied is good friends with other able bodied people.