Tom's Diary

From audio journal episode: AJE-2002-01-03-21-40.

I’ve been so afraid to ask for help over the years because it might make me look weak and therefore, less credible at work as well as at home.  Yet I moved back to Altoona with the understanding that this must change.  Indeed I must ask for help here, for transportation especially.  So by moving here, I’ve created a necessity to learn to freely ask for help, and so I’ll either sink or swim.  In fact, my problems at work seem to stem in part, from my reluctance to ask for help and delegate effort.  So maybe by throwing myself into a less accessible community and then learning how to cope in that environment, I’ll help myself at work as well. 

Indeed, I’ve harbored much resentment within my soul because I must ask for help on things that most others effortlessly do, without assistance.  When I was much younger, the bullies teased and shunned me for possessing this level of neediness.  In fact, they sighted it as a grave inadequacy that I ultimately should learn to get over, but predicted that I never would.  They accused me of faking my low vision or excessively exaggerating its impact on my daily life.  These verbal assaults really struck at my core, as they were clear attacks on my personality and character. 

Further complicating the issue is that there’s no way that I can really prove to them the level of difficulty that I’m truly experiencing.  That is: I cannot connect my weak eyes up to their brains, allowing them to see what I see (or do not see well).  So my bullies will never be able to verify and thus, never really know first-hand the degree of my limitations, as most never have, nor likely ever will acquire similar eye problems themselves. Sure, they could wear blindfolds and walk around for a day, and get a taste of what lacking distance and detail vision is like, though I do see better with my glasses than someone sporting a blindfold.  Indeed, my vision far surpasses the state of having none at all, and I’m highly grateful for that.  Indeed, to better simulate my visual acuity, they could wear the wrong strength lenses in a pair of glasses.  While this would not completely blind them, it would blur their detail vision over long distances, as is what I experience with my vision. Still though, a perfectly accurate simulation would be difficult to create. 

That said, being that it’s impossible to fully relate to another with my words the true depth of the low-vision experience, hopefully, they can pick up a glimpse of what I go through every day.  This understanding in turn might encourage them to demonstrate compassion to those like me. 

Many of the children and adolescents I’ve known, are quite unworldly.  They know of their immediately-surrounding environment (their world) and God forbid anyone that’s different from entering; particularly as the child enters elementary school.  Already, formation of their world concepts has begun.  But when they encounter somebody that’s different, some of these people of truly limited vision relentlessly tease and bully.  Once they get a laugh out of the crowd, other weak souls, emboldened by the lead bullies, join the cacophony. The teased person can really suffer when the crowds support the bullies.  I think that this is what happened to me.  People teased me. 

As I recall my early years, I was much more connected with more people than I am today.  All my friends were fully sighted prior to 1970, and though I never had hundredsof friends at any one time, I believe (excluding my WPSBC experience) I had more in first, second, and third grades than at any point subsequently in my life when I’ve lived among the fully sighted.  I hung out with Joey Moffa, a couple of Scotts, [Chipper], and various neighborhood boys. 

But as the seventies gave way to the eighties, my supply of current friends dwindled because for one, I was humiliated enough times in public when making a stand on some issue that was important to me, that I developed a real phobia for exchanging views with “just anyone.”  So I grew more picky about the sorts of folks that I’d call “friend.”  So here at work, it follows that I do not enjoy working too closely with others; least of all, the fully sighted.  Why?  Because they might see my limitations and judge me for them as the kids in public school used to. 

However, I acknowledge that this attitude has cost me.  It’s irrational to think that I can really get ahead in the corporate world with this work-alone approach.  I get that.  Still though, it hurts intensely when a fully sighted colleague finds a weakness in me or my work and points it out.  It’s hard to know if they’re just making constructive criticism or if it’s their prejudice talking instead.  I get defensive however, as thought it’s all judgmental brow-beating, and as though whatever weakness they’re citing is all my fault.  But I know nowadays that it’s not a question of fault per se.  Rather, my strengths and my weaknesses are just a product of my genes, upbringing, and generally, the things I’ve been exposed to.  Heaven knows, I’m working a lot today and have worked very hard, consistently, for the past fourteen years.  I’ve worked a lot to become an expert at various technologies, and I’ve spent countless hours reading and reading and reading some more.  The I programmed, and programmed, and programmed some more.  Then I read again and again.  Now I realize that even thought I’ve done all this sort of work for so long, that the body of knowledge out there is just entirely too vast for me to master completely, and even if I could know everything in that body today, the body of knowledge itself is forever expanding.  Clearly, though I might know everything today, I’d certainly not know it all tomorrow.  Of all the different technologies present in the software development discipline that I’m working with right now, including UNIX, Windows NT, Java, database stuff; I mean, there’s just no way any one person is going to be able to master all of that.  So it’s foolish of me to expect myself to have done that.  I think though that sometimes, when my coworkers point at what could be construed as a weakness on my part, that I believe deep inside that I shouldn’t have that weakness.  Perhaps I didn’t know something that they thought I should, and their thinking that I should, makes me think that I should have known it as well.  Thus we have a major trigger of my frustrations at work.  Working so closely with others forces me more often to feel inadequate because the more closely I work with them, the more fault it seems that they find. 

Now according to the REBT philosophy, when you start using that phrase, “you should have,” or, “you should not have,” you really should view such statements with skepticism because, by whose standards should you or should you not?  Whose standards would I evaluate my actions against?  Whose are the right standards to use?  Well, the employer sets the standards to a big degree, and if I don’t conform, I’d probably lose my job.  Thus, I need to conform to a degree, and work in a collective, in order to be successful in a corporation.  I realize this.  I just find it intensely painful to implement.  It can work to your advantage at times, yes.  Conforming well, or being able to encourage conformance by others, can get you far there.  But I don’t do it just to please them.   I’m doing it for personal gain.  I’m doing it for me, so that I can get ahead, or at least, to maintain my position, and to make my remaining time there over the next few years a little easier; no, a lot easier. 

I must give up this notion that if they see something wrong with my work that they’re going to think that I’m weak, and then they’ll tease me and hold it against me.  Even if they do, first of all, such actions aren’t so terrible that they’d severely devastate me.  Even if they do, it isn’t such a bad thing.  I can live with it.  Even if I get no raises over the next couple years, my plan is in place, and I’ve ensured that I’ll still have all the money I need to do what I like.  The point is that I don’t prefer any longer to worry so much about whether someone is going to beat me up, whether that be physically or emotionally should they see something that I’m dong which they disapprove of.  So this realization in and of itself may help me get more motivated, because it will make it easier for me, as I won’t feel this horror about working with [the junior member in the group], and [the senior members]   as well. 

Okay now, there’s a corollary point to this.  That is, here’s the scenario: The tech lead calls on the phone, and the two of look at the screen faces that we’re developing for the current project together.  Then, he asks me to look for something that I subsequently cannot find.  When this happens, as it has happened many times, I get very frustrated.  So, let’s talk through this scenario more thoroughly. 

I get frustrated because I’m worried that he is going to perceive me as less of a technical person (less competent) than I am.  Of course a lot of how well things go at work has to do with perception, and if you’re not perceived as you are, you’re going to be in trouble.  But my fear is that he’s going to perceive me badly because I’m a little slower, and in some cases, quite a bit slower at finding the items he wishes me to examine.  Maybe he’ll think I’m not proactive enough, because it might sound to him on the phone like I’m just sitting here  doing nothing, when in actually I’m scanning the screen .  Well, here again, I’ve always attempted to hide my visual impairment where possible, and we’ve already talked about how irrational that has been and how it’s cost me.  But nowadays, I think I must expose the handicap, in all its gory detail.  I must let people know what’s going on, and if that tech lead displays frustration at me himself, then I have to let him know that I’m not finding what he’s asking, because I’m not seeing the screen very well.  I don’t have to live with the agony of others running by me all the time.  You know, there’s nothing wrong with saying, “Hey, slow down!  Slow DOWN, because I’m not seeing what you’re doing very well.  But I do want to better understand what you’re saying.  So please.  Slow down.”  I’m going to start doing that more.     

What I’ve done heretofore is: I sit and stew when people pull ahead of me, and while stewing, I’m not listening to them.  I’m angry, and as noted before, anger is not a valid emotion anymore.  I won’t permit it.  I won’t allow myself to get angry in the first place.  There’s no reason for it.  It does nothing except cause pain and heartache, and ruin relationships.  So I don’t do it anymore.  I no longer excuse anger for any reason.  There’s in fact, no excuse for it.  That is: I can’t say anymore that because the situation warrants getting angry, that I was right to get angry.  Getting angry is never right unless under thread of death.  In fact, in my life, there is no excuse for anger, ever, anymore. 

So why would I keep my handicap a secret?  It goes back to what I was discussing a couple episodes ago, in my younger days, when I would get up and assert myself, take a stand, or even just to small-talk and be friendly with people.  I got teased because of my thick glasses, and heaven forbid, if I would mention that I was having trouble seeing, this heightened the teasing and ridiculing I received; it did not reduce it generally.  I got beat up all the more.  There was this ingrained conditioning that taught me that if I’m going to avoid undue, unjust, and unfair hardship in life, that I’d just better keep this defect quiet.  This turned out to be pretty smart advice, in elementary school especially.  It kept me from having my nose bruised, bloodied, or broken on many occasions. 

But now, this attitude is outdated. People have grown up.  We are adults, and so, I don’t need to be afraid anymore of letting people know that I am handicapped and that I require some special accommodation; especially in the work environment.  They’re not allowed to hold it against me.  That’s not to say that they will not in fact.  But officially, they’re not allowed and hopefully, most will follow that anti discrimination rule. 

If I could get into my own business, I’d have to worry much less about particular people accepting me with my limitations.  If I can create an end product that people want, with my writing, then it’s not going to matter whether I’m handicapped or not; they’ll still read it, if it’s written well. 

I learned today that [KC] is a great source of encouragement, and so I want to keep her in the loop on this, as my writing career unfolds.  She said that I write very well, and I believe her, because at least several of my college professors told me the same.  So I’m gong to make the writing work somehow.  I must make it work.  I so desire to make some form of business work, where I’m not directly accountable to a single person, and writing seems the best way to do this, for me. 

Okay, so I’ve avoided speaking too much about my limitations because people in earshot will think I’m weak.  But I don’t care about that anymore. Trying to keep that stuff inside for the most part, and not telling people about it, even when I probably would have benefited by telling them about it, is a neurotic, destructive behavior of mine.  So I’m going to stop it.  I’m going to tell all about the handicap, and I will start speaking up anytime people start drawing too fast on white boards for me to get the data.  Whenever I talk to that tech lead again, I just won’t be concerned that he might be a little impatient.  After all, I must wait on him to understand things sometimes, so he needs to return the favor, and do that for me also. 

Plus, I can defend myself with the best of them, and now, I won’t have any problems doing it when someone hurts my feelings by neglecting my needs in their mad haste to get a project released.  So if he ever mentions that I’m slow to my manager, I’ll shoot back that I am handicapped, and that some slowness needs to be tolerated by them therefore.  I’m allowed to be a little slower.  Further, it’s not fair to hold me to exactly the same standards as my fully-sighted colleagues.  I’m handicapped.  I’ve got limitations that these others do not. 

I want to work this issue a lot more.  What this means is that if I can get past this notion that it’s a bad thing to reveal my handicap to others, then working with others very closely might not be such a big deal.  If I’m truly not concerned that they’re going to see my weaker side, I won’t be creating this façade anymore of this really strong person – this exaggeratedly strong person, when in fact, I’m not really that.  In fact, I am what I am, and I need to put my natural foot forward, as I used to discuss with   [Lynn]   a couple years ago. 

Okay, I think I talked that point into the ground.  So I’m going to put this recorder away for now, and perhaps check out a little television here.  I’m getting a little sleepy, and so I want to get my brain to calm down, and I will try these new lessons and see how I feel at work over the next few days.  If I still experience stress, I’ll seek to find out why, and I’ll revisit this topic again if I have to. So keep up the good work, Tom.  Keep losing those pounds, and avoid those refined carbs, and I’m going to continue identifying any other neurotic behaviors I have this year, and then work to eliminate them, and understand why they should be eliminated.  Hopefully when that happens, they will disappear just by virtue of my discovering them.   So let’s see how it goes.  I’ll talk to you later.  Bye bye. 

Tom