Why the fuck don't you listen? ("Good Samaritans" who force help on me)

The BBQ Pit
1

I get so sick and tired of Good fucking Samaritans. When I tell you “no” in response to you asking me if I need help with what I’m doing, I mean it. It’s not ok to simply chuckle at my answer and just go ahead and “help” me anyway. It’s not ok to fucking ignore me like I didn’t say anything and “help” me anyway. It’s definitely not ok to say “well I’m going to help you anyway” and “help” me anyway (yes, this happened).

I deal with this shit day in and day out and for the most part, I just let it bounce off me. But two recent interactions I’ve had with people out in public have really irritated the fuck out of me. There is a significant percentage of Good Samaritans who offer help to disabled and/or who they simply view as below them who do so not for the disabled person but for themselves. So they can reassure themselves that they are a “good person”, or simply for a smug sense of satisfaction.

I was visiting a business establishment yesterday and in order to get to the front door, I had to travel along a short sidewalk in front of the business. As I had just started out, I saw a guy who I had seen come out of the business as I was pulling in. He saw me as I passed by on the sidewalk and yelled out “Do you need a hand there?” I tried to be as emphatic as possible while remaining polite. I shook my head and waved my arms in a criss-cross “no” as well as said “No, thank you.” Well that should be adequate, right? No, this guy shut his car door and started jogging towards the door (the door that I was only a few feet from).

Goddamn it, I thought. Why does this shit happen? I told him I didn’t need help with the door as clearly and firmly as possible. It didn’t faze him at all. As i saw him approaching the door, I repeated myself, only quite a bit louder and more urgently. “I said no man, I don’t need help! No, stop, please!” His amazing response: “Well, I gonna give it to you anyway.” :eek::confused:

At this point he had made it to the door and I stopped just in front of him. “I just want to make it perfectly clear that you are not doing this for me. You are not interested in making any aspect of my life easier. I told you repeatedly that I did not want or need your assistance, yet you continued. You are only doing this to make yourself feel good about yourself. It’s not me you’re doing this for, it’s you.” At that point I just wheeled thru the door and that was it.

Fast forward to today and I had a similar encounter while working out at the gym. I needed an incline bench to do the exercise I wanted to do and there was this guy picking up weights from the closest incline bench to me. I asked him if he was still using the bench and he said he wasn’t. So I said thanks and I started moving the bench around just a bit so that it was in the desired position. Keep in mind I was only rotating the bench, not even moving it to a different floor spot. If I had been left to do this unencumbered, it would have taken me less than 20 seconds to complete.

Well, the guy who had been using the bench and was now just over at a flat bench right next to me leans over to ask me if I need some help. As he asked this, he started moving forward as if he was anticipating a certain “yes.” Of course, I recognized this and hurriedly told him “No Thanks.” Well that didn’t faze him and he continued on and I had to basically shout three times in quick succession, “I said NO!”
But why?? Why do I have to resort to angry tones of voice just to be listened to? Why can’t I just be heeded the first fucking time?

I can only hypothesize as to why these people do what they do. But sometimes I wonder if these people think my declining their offers of help is because I am too proud and stubborn to tell them yes but I really do need the help. Or because I don’t want to be rude? I don’t know but sometimes I just hate people. I know it’s an irrational feeling, I mean, I’m only interacting with a tiny tiny fraction of people but fuck. Why?

2

I don’t know. It’s something that I noticed too, in the brief time I used a scooter. I had to repeat myself on more than one occasion. Yes, I looked very awkward getting the scooter in and out of the van by myself, but I needed to be able to do it by myself. I was normally alone when driving around and I needed to be able to do it for my own safety. The repetition helped me in multiple ways.

I know people mean (and meant well), but I completely get how it’s irritating as hell. It’s also patronizing, like you don’t know your own mind or capabilities.

3

Most people mean well. There is no way on Earth that the guy who forced his help on me with the door meant well. For these people, “helping” is a self-serving act.

4

Lots of people simply see “disability” and not “person with disability”.

5

Yes, I think that’s true as well. They see the device and not the person. The chair or the crutches or the cane.

6

That’s why some people treat me the same way they’d treat an elderly woman using a wheelchair. We’re interchangeable.

7

A lot of people don’t get that someone who uses a wheelchair on a regular basis has 1) been trained to use it and 2) had a hell of a lot of practice. There are tons of people that never occurs to. All they think of is how they would feel if they were suddenly left to cope with a wheelchair (and not a streamlined chair like a regular user has, but a hospital clunker), and they think they would be grateful for any help, because they be doing so poorly.

And they would be. I once sprained my ankle badly, and the hospital didn’t have crutches for me right away, so I spent a few hours in a hospital chair and when I had to wheel myself to the bathroom, it was really difficult. But I know several people who use wheelchairs on a regular basis, and they move around as easily as I do on two feet.

Maybe we need a PSA. “No” means “No,” not “Be a boy scout,” or “I’m to embarrassed to say what I need,” etc.

I would say that when someone imposes help on you, after you say “No,” you have every right to be as obnoxious as you want to be in your verbal response.

8

I am making my own T-Shirt with “No Thank You” across the chest, with a :slight_smile: below it. That way, I won’t even have to say anything. Just point and smile.

9

I think you are absolutely correct here. That’s why I always try to be as genial as I can when I encounter a “helper”. I get annoyed by these people only due to repetition. It’s the assholes who force it that I get pissed at.

10

Then they’ll think you’re mute, and they’ll want to speak for you.

11

Ha! You’re right, I’m sure. :smiley:

12

I’m sorry that people don’t take no for an answer :frowning: As a smallish woman I get offers of help that I politely decline, but I’ve been fortunate that they listen. Now I’m imagining someone ignoring me and, say taking the heavy bag of kitty litter I was carrying from me while I protested. I wish they had the wherewithal to realize that you’ve developed ways of coping with 98% of the things they want to help with.

13

You could have a collection of funny replies, said in a slightly hysterical voice.

“This is a fraternity initiation. You’ll keep me from getting in!”

“I’m on a reality TV show. There’s the camera! <point somewhere> If you help me, I lose $50,000!”

“Have you been vaccinated for trichotillomonaisis? If not, don’t come any closer than four feet, as I’m highly contagious!”

14

I spent a little over a year in a chair when I was 11, and we lived in Italy at the time (zero accommodation). People spoke loudly to me all the time, like I was deaf, and being a kid I had people pat me on the head, and more than once moved my chair (with me in it) to where they thought I should be. It sucked being infantilized and ignored.

15

Not disabled here but I can still relate. Sometimes I just want to scream listen to what comes out of my fucking mouth, quit trying to read my mind because you can’t.

We have a guy at my coffee shop who struggles to get his motorized chair out of the trunk and set it up as well as putting it back when he is done. Sweat is pouring off of him and he is gasping for breath each time. As much as it kills me to watch him go through this I have to take him at his word. He is old with heart problems, I am always tempted to just do it for him anyway but I never really know if it would be the right thing to do. If he was paralyzed but otherwise healthy it wouldn’t bother me as much.

16

I think it happens all the time. And it gives everyone the shits. There are the simpler variants; being told to do what you were just about to do and being told how to do something you know exactly how to do. I used to waste my energy getting enraged about it. I’m old now so I just laugh at my own reaction. Mind you I still momentarily get the shits.

17

I wish more people were like you in this regard. See, many people make zero distinction between myself and this elderly man with a heart condition who uses a scooter. They see us in pretty much the same way.

18

There you go. The next time someone asks you if you need help, say “Yes. Would you follow me around, and punch people who insist on helping me after I say ‘No, I don’t need any help’?”

19

My version is “Oh yes, I have a constipated turd stuck in my ass. Can you follow me to the restroom and pull it out?” :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

20

Yeah. Fighting jerkiness with jerkiness–that works. :rolleyes: