I’ve encoutered police officers a whole lot of times. All of them when I seemed to wander around. Most times, it was just neighbourhood folks who just saw a blind girl who seemed lost (ie. indeed having lost her orientation but trying to find the right way again) and believed that was unsafe. The general public seems to think that blind people can’t find their way on their own - I even once had an encounter with the police when I knew my way and a woman was just worried, I don’t know why. This night, things were different. It was at around 2:00 AM. I wasn’t blind - well, I am of course but I walked round in the role of a behaviourally disturbed person, not a blind person. Get the idea? I mean, I’d left home cause I had a quarrel and I felt sooo bad. No-one could see that I was blind, cause I’d not been able to get my cane. So I just walked on trying not to bump into things. I had planned to go to the 700s block of my street (we live on the 400s block). I knew the way and it all went fairly well. But of course I walked oddly - I always appear to do so to strangers cause my O & M skills are not too great, but without a cane it’s even worse -, so it was no wonder that a police officer spoke up to me: “Police.” Oh no! He asked if I had something with my name on it. I didn’t (I know my own name, of course!). By the way pretty stupid that a policeman would assume I could understand what he said but would need a piece of paper with my name on it. He apparently never encountered people who were so retarded that they couldn’t communicate their own names. He asked if I lived at Schuylenburg (an institution for retarded people). No. Then he asked if I’d used drugs or something. I hadn’t. Actually, I wanted to show my intelligence and capability with some clever remarks, but I’m always afraid to do so to policemen. I told the man I lived five minutes away. He wanted to know my address. I named the street, and he wanted to know the number. I named it to get him to quit asking. He told me I was at the 700s block. I knew and I could find my way. He left and I walked to my block without difficulty.
So, everything turned out to be OK? Of course it didn’t. As I said, I was in the role of a behaviourally disturbed person. Who on Earth would run away at 2:00 AM while feeling fairly weird, not having her cane and appearing as if she was retarded or had used drugs? My own behaviour astonished me. Somehow, I was in a state of mind to do all this. When I arrived home again, Dad laughed at the policeman’s remark, saying that apparently policemen are just average people - pretty stupid (compared to him and me). For Heaven’s sake! I was acting stupid! This encounter with the policeman was a real call to realise how abnormal it is how I behave! Dad didn’t understand. He says he loves me and doesn’t like my behaviour, but if it’s part of me so be it, sort of. He seemed to just take my behaviour, to have given up on me ever becoming “normal”. I can’t accept that. But I can’t find a way to become “normal” either.
I feel so bad… I’m an idiot! The only thing I have is some cognitive intelligence… which I hate! But apparently no-one sees that I’m 18, and a normal 18-year-old isn’t like that. Maybe therefore no-one believes how idiot I actually am. All everyone thinks of is cognitive ability. That’s what defines whether someone is considered retarded, and so that’s what defines whether something is wrong with me, according to my parents. Dad said I should use my cognitive ability to find out what I’m missing in those other areas and find a solution for that. Apparently, I’m not clever enough for that. All this has been an issue for me for six and a half years. And I don’t want to just consider myself disordered (like I did with the ASD stuff), i want to become normal! I can’t accept my issues. I can’t go on like this. My parents can throw me out of their house and insist I find a room for myself, when they get tired of my issues. I can’t, cause it’s me that has these issues. And I can’t accept to just go on like I’m doing now. I’ve been just pretending to keep on for so long and I can’t hold on for another I don’t know how many years.
Astrid
