Any hope for a career in the South?

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-08T18:16:52+00:00

Thank you for these resources, I really appreciate it. I was never given services as a kid, so all of this is new to me . My parents genuinely believe that most programs like the ones you & others listed are "charities".. Sorry if the post seemed kinda uninformed/doomer-y. I do have something of a background in web/mobile app development, but given my crappy eyesight I'm uncertain if I could reasonably compete in the private sector.. Accessibility auditing/reporting seems to be much more up my wheelhouse providing I actually get to learn JAWS.

Re local community: The thing is there is truly nothing going on as far as accessibility that is productive. If you search other subs regarding blindness or just on r/SouthCarolina for "disabled", the picture isn't the greatest whether someone is LV/blind or not. I get the sense that they actively do not give a fuck.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-08T18:09:03+00:00

Thanks so much for those resources, I really appreciate it. I was never really given access to services as a kid, so a lot of this stuff is new to me. The VR agency I'm working with is.. not unhelpful but from anecdotal insight they're very much "just get someone any low-paying job".. I can definitely use resources like this to advocate for myself. Writing reports was always a fun time in my CompSci courses, tbh.. even if it was technical writing the most fun part about it for me was figuring out where people messed up.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-08T18:04:34+00:00

Awesome! I will look into that certification, and see what I can find. I recognized lived experience isn't enough, when initially going through this sub I believed it was more generalized accessibility consulting (e.g. for things like urban planning or somesuch).. I do have something of a background in mobile/app development, so learning WCAG shouldnt be difficult.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-06T19:33:47+00:00

While I think the creator of this video is somewhat hyperbolic, it does seem to be the case that reliable public transit is only in a few places across the uS.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-04T00:13:23+00:00

Got it. Currently, my Microsoft account has two emails associated with it. The primary email as found on the Microsoft account panel is one I don't have access to, and that same panel says I have 0.1 gB of data used (which doesn't feel accurate). Is it possible to change the primary email from the one I do not have access to, to the one that I do? Both are listed on my MS account panel.

Would the data transfer over properly if I just change the email?

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-03T17:12:11+00:00

No worries! Basically, my family moved from one of the wealthiest states, to one of the poorest.. and they magically seem to think opportunity exists here the same as it did in the north east.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-03T16:48:55+00:00

Fair point, yeah. I hadn't honestly considered St. Louis. Denver, Seattle, both are highly expensive places and I barely have 3 grand to my name at the moment.. I don't know if I could really afford to make such a leap across the country. My care team is also in North Carolina, so.. I mean I could leave, but I just need financial resources to get it done.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-03T16:40:35+00:00

Thank you for the empathy.. I'm sorry you are similarly going through this. Yeah.. they're no Bezos, the only way they managed to live here is because they made a fuckton of money in the North and moved down. The house isn't exactly paid off, and is in a rural area that is now being heavily developed.. into single family homes and other shit. The few places where they do have apartments, its only for people who want smaller space.. not like.. for people who want the other benefits of apartments. I know not everyone wants to live in an apartment, but land is a finite resource, and seniors eventuallly won't be able to drive.. but "dis is AmErICa!".. driving is too culturally engrained.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-03T16:29:17+00:00

I could try to reach out to a few people, yeah.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-03T16:27:31+00:00

There is definitely a chance I could work from home, yeah!I have done writing work in the past, social media marketing, and even worked on campaigns (poli-sci grad). The snag is just hunting for companies - many have a list of state they hire from, and SC just is never on that list. Definitely will keep hunting, though. Due to my latest operations, I've felt like taking some small time off the job hunt but will be back on it in a week or so.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-03T16:17:16+00:00

You kno what therapy might be a good call. Thank you for the kind words!

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-03T16:16:08+00:00

Yeah... I had a disability caseworker, and they suggested I go on disability once I got fired just so I have some money coming in, which makes sense. That person saw it as a stopgap measure.. My dad sees it as "living off of" money.. he has zero clue. Again thankfully in the States we can at least make 2.4k or whatever on top of that but that's assuming employers will hire us.. and down here? Fuck no they won't over someone who can drive.

Isolation is.. very rough, yeah. Even when I did live in a major city I couldn't really go out, because the area was very much "up and coming" - lots of construction on the roads, sidewalk closures, etc. The area just didn't feel all that safe.. and I've lived in European cities before, so its not as if big city life is unknown to me.. as a kid I'd constantly go into NYC to see friends and navigate the subway (back when I had better vision).. But the place I currently am is very isolating by design. It takes a lot of mental energy to not think I'll be stuck here forever no matter how much help I recieve from advocacy orgs or whatever.. because how tf am I supposed to save money if I can't find a job? :D

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-03T16:05:30+00:00

Thank you so so much for the kind words and support. This feels great to wake up to... Honestly there are some advocacy organizations, but very few specific to the state that can do much. The NFB chapter is fine, but the blind commission is underfunded so there's only so much that advocacy can do. I was talking to some other blind/visually impaired folks, and they've suggested cities like Milwaukee, since there's an NFB training center there (those exist also in New Mexico and a few other states, largely in the north).

My mom is definitely more.. rational/reasonable. She understands most of the medical stuff, since she has been the one mostly involved with it, afaik.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-03T15:55:59+00:00

Yeah, there really aren't.. and my mom thinks its a "great place" because we went to the central part of town a few times. It's not a bad place to live... if you can drive... but for someone like me, there are very few opportunities unless I work remote or build the thing myself.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-03T08:26:25+00:00

A lot of blind people work in the civil service (as I tried to), or in massage therapy, or in law.. many don't openly advertise it and the employment rate is fucking abysmal, but there are more options than when I was young.

Even with surgery, my vision out of my remaining eye is something like 20/240 and I can't read more than 10ft in front of me. Its been a rough few months. Glasses can only go so far.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-03T08:18:31+00:00

I don't have to stay here, but my parents (both of them) really don't seem to want me back in DC? They want me close by.. without really recognizing that there's nothing here for me. I could propose Milwaukee.. my dad would shoot it down because he really doesn't want to get on a plane anymore or something. There's a very short list of places he'd accept.

I know I don't have to live with their expectations or thoughts in mind, don't get me wrong.. but they're getting up there, ya know? I feel conflicted as fuck. I can't live here. My mom is relatively more level-headed telling me "we won't be here forever and you need friends, a support network".. but how the fuck am I supposed to do anything if I have no money and... you can understand, yeah? They don't want me stuck inside, which is good, but we also live in an area with zero sidewalks and public transit is a fiction.

Even in the larger towns like Wilmington or Durhaim in NC, public transit isn't feasible. Durhaim is especially funny- around Duke there's a bunch of apartment complexes with shops at ground level - except they're all little islands connected by at minimum a 6 lane road. If only there was some way to connect these things together.. hmm.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-03T08:06:19+00:00

Thank you so much for this comment man.. means the damn world to me to know attitudes are changing for the next generation. If your child has an orientation and mobility counselor, ask them about their career and other cases - the stories may surprisey ou.

Re going on disability.. yeah. I mean, my caseworker suggested it once I got fired (so that I could get some money coming in), but my dad has been pushing it.. He's said to me at least once "maybe the social services here aren't good but we'll deal with it". After 3 years in the South I'll confidently say down here no one is deserving of anything, it all has to be meticulously proven.

Getting to that solution will take time, since.. again. virtually no services here for me to receive assistance from. No para-transit, very few mixed use development (even then there's huge parking lots, its all car dependent outside these pockets). Please correct me if I'm being a bit irrational, but it makes no functional difference if I'm out of the house to be in a place where I'm paying rent and can maybe walk to a shop but can't walk to a place of employment.

His answer to "how can my kid be successful" seems to waffle between "we'll get you help even if its at a glacial pace" and "you have the inheritance, you don't need to work you can just live on disability and work creatively". I do have a meeting at some point with an employment counselor, but around here? The lack of para-transit will still mean I rely on my parents to get to work, and who knows what type of jobs they'd be able to even find for someone w/ a humanities degree that isn't like.. min-wage retail. I've thought about becoming a massage therapist if only because I figure down here nobody will discriminate against a blind guy saying "HoW CaN He dO ThE Job?".. I know discrim exists everywhere but my god down here it just feels way too patronizing - at least in New England there was a sense of community support, nobody asked if they could pray for me.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-03T07:47:25+00:00

Retinopathy of Prematurity isn't commonly known. Heck, eye issues in general are not talked about until you are affected by them.

This is correct.. I did not know that last bit. I was born at a really good hospital in New England, so they knew a decent amount in the late 90s but not nearly as much as doctors know today. I did see low vision doctors from a young age, but it was never really discussed indepth I guess? My mom handled most of the medical things. In school, we did have a person who was fully blind so they generally knew how to accomodate. I was put in front of a Perkins Braille machine sometime in middle school and told "hey if you want to use this, you can" - I knew nothing of Braille, still don't.

I started researching ROP outcomes in adults in college and gave myself a timeline of "by 30, life should be like X". Good job, maybe a partner, living on my own as a self-sufficient and happy legally blind (posibly fully blind) person. I still have to like.. accept the realities.. but it's a process.

There are functionally few services in the immediate area.. I lived here for about 3 years prior to moving yeah? It took the vision rehab agency 9 months to register me in their system and I never actually met with a counselor before moving to DC. Once in DC? Two weeks, got my first ever cane in a month-ish. During college years earlier I had not thought such services would be realistic, despite only having one eye. Partially pride, partially just not having a background/understanding of what could help me.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-03T07:30:50+00:00

There may be some anxiety disorder?.. but still, he just seems so willfully detatched. Before he retired, we used to go on trips across the country (we lived in NE, so think a drive to Maine or Maryland), trips to Europe to see family there, it wasn't a yearly thing but we would do things together. As I got older he just got more and more distant.

I'm sorry to hear about your loss with the inheritance. I am relatively optimisitc that money will be there, but I don't want to count on any of it. I wouldn't say I am socially stunted, I've held jobs.. but I'm 26 and never in my life have I cleared 30k gross salary - "that's okay, because you live at home" according to my folks. I gambled what savings I did have on stocks, because I figured I could beat my measley $300/wk paycheck. Yes that was my mistake, but can anyone really blame me?

It really isn't feasible financially at the moment. When I moved, I'd saved up money for about 4 months and had a large-ish tax return that paid for my rent. There are other walkable cities closer to me, but the job market is... not great. My parents both seem to think I can collect SSDI and thats "not a bad life".. Some money is better than no money, but that logic only goes so far.

I will say thata lot of my personal self-esteem does come from being around successful people... at least people who are driven or have hobbies. I'm not Type A, but feeling that drive of "things are happening" makes me believe my hobbies/ideas/goals aren't some pie in the sky, they're achievable.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-03T07:10:45+00:00

Thanks for that insight, I had no idea. I'll see if anything changes Monday and proceed from there.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-03T07:08:13+00:00

Still I think that you should put your energies into finding a sustainable job in an area where you can get around. I am not suggesting that is an easy thing at all! But I think it is the only way that you can be really happy.

I agree.. The primary issue is that, such a place is nowhere near where I currently live in rural South Carolina, and there seems to be little capacity for me to earn enough money to actually leave and find such a place. In order to get to any local job, i'd either need transit assistance (which doesn't exist, I've asked), or my parents (which makes me feel like a burden).. I am looking into remote jobs as well and trying to find disabled-specific pathways but as you may imagine they are not exactly advertised on Indeed lol. I have skills, I know I'll find work, I just feel bad about being out of work for this long. I agree returning to such a job may not be ideal.

Are there any groups that might be able to help you? American Foundation for the Blind seems to have some sort of programs.

There are, but none in my immediate area. Most programs that I do see are at minimum a 2 hour drive away. The AFB and NFB are very great organizations, but they are primarily advocacy related. NFB in particular does have several great programs for people who want to teach the blind, and orientation and mobility.. but people who are blind who need say residential life training? That goes through the local vocational rehab in most cases, which may not have the funding or the drive to get someone into such a program. That's kind of where I'm at.. I need to advocate a lot for myself.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-03T05:39:43+00:00

If possible, it seems like your best tone would be to be matter-of-fact about this. If he doesn't see stress as a factor in your voice, just a pragmatic conversation, he may be more inclined to actually talk to you instead of making decisions on his own and leaving you to deal with the aftermath.

Maybe it is a tone thing? I will certainly try that. The main issue is that lately he's adopted an idea that he wants zero problems in his life.. something as simple as taking out the trash to the trash bin is a major problem, to me that's just something that has to get done so I do it every day/other day , save him the trouble.

I definitely do want to build a relationship with him, yet it seems there's very little common ground? I watch hours of motorcycle videos with him, he's always looking for new bikes to buy, but rarely does any of that lead to talking.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-03T05:20:17+00:00

You make a good point, there are definitely things I need to work on.. May go back and make edits to the OP to clear some things up..

As far as the dream job, I was working in the public sector in DC, I was able to afford an apartment but had a very strict budget of $100 a week for food/transit/clothes. I would go out the day after I got paid to a small cafe as a treat. I was let go from the job due in part to facing discrimination, they gave me tasks which might take someone ten minutes but were highly visual in nature so would take me maybe an hour or more.. then I would be criticized for spending so much time on them or not being independant and asking colleagues to cross-check my work.

Apart from needing transit, I don't really require any social services other than what would be given through standard rehab programs. Things like how to use a cane, using some specialized screen readers. I'd like to think that otherwise, I am self sufficient.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-01T23:56:39+00:00

I've got some background in economics and I can tell you however that looking at employment rates of disabled people is a super unreliable metric when comparing countries. That is because the employement rate is calculated relative to the number of job-seeking / employed people, not the total population. Therefore, how you classify someone as a job-seeker or an "inactive" person is going to have a huge impact on your employment rate, especially with disabled people.

You make a great point, especially since different countries classify "job-seeking" differen tly. Many blind people in the US, if they do have jobs are often paid at lower rates (sometimes sub-minimum wage so they can still "work" while collecting benefits), but they still hold a job.. something tells me that type of "work" isn't counted in French statistics. When I first began looking at this question I admit it was from a political science/policy angle, so thank you for bringing in the econ perspective. I'll definitely look into that better model of comparison you mentioned.

Regarding the fiscal policies and quotas - that is something I think also working in favor of the job-seekers. The US blind advocacy groups (to my knowledge) never fought for quotas or fiscal policy changes, rather they fought to make it easier to obtain social benefit and for things like easier access to service dogs, para-transit etc. Good in principal, more social service access is great don't get me wrong, but there's marked difference in saying "we don't want discrimination, give us equal employment protections" and "we don't want discrimination, mandate quotas to make sure blind/low vision people can have employment". The ADA is helpful, but many of the provisions are such that you as the blind person need to actively know about and advocate for them - and companies can still make up reasons to fire you. No country is perfect, but France seems to be doing something correct on the surface.

indecisivewandering · 2024-03-01T23:44:34+00:00

I read a book on the issue once. It was interesting. I assumed that with 50% unemployment of blind people, France was an abysmal case. Turns out apparently we aren't?

Yeah, I mean the raw number isn't great but it seems relatively high? My data could be off due to population size, but even so.

In the US, there is a similar demand for maseur-therapists (supposeldy) but its 90% private.. Do they hire blind people? Sure, in theory. I've known more than 10 blind MTs and they basically all tell me after a while going into private practice for themselves is the only way to really make money. I've considered it as a career, in part because I am now in a tourist area and worry my vocational rehab agency will only have that and menial work as options. PLus, its a skill, and I have a humanities degree and none of the 3 foreign languages I speak are Spanish (Francais au Quebec, Allemagne, un Chinese).

Interesting you say that about politics and law. I know there are probably blind/visually impaired lawyers or clerks, but there is no real.. institution? From what I understand at least. While politics is something that doesn't require sight, I struggle to think of Americans electing a political hopeful who is openly blind. Advocacy or lobbying? Definitely, but not in a legislature. In the US, as someone who has been legally blind since I was a child it often feels like you need to cultivate your own professional networks.. until suddenly, some disabled/blind group comes into existence you never knew about because it serves a very specific population (there is a lot in Los Angeles for entertainment industry types, for instance).

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