1. "Just get over it already!" When I started college, I fell deeply in love with one of my professors. Because I am a moral person and he was married, I internalized it and kept it to myself. The problem with this is, as I kept it inside the feelings grew, as did the guilt knowing that I had fallen for someone who according to Biblical standards was off limits. As I believe the Bible is true I knew that I was heading down a dangerous road that would be hard to return from. This was true, and it took me two years to get back to normal. The point of this is that about a year and a half into this was when it hit me the hardest. I spent a week mostly in bed crying and asking God why this was happening. My mom noticed because I would cry myself to sleep every night and it was LOUD. One morning she asked me what was going on and I explained what had been going on all this time. She asked me why I didn't just get over it and got up and walked away. At the time I thought this was heinous. WHY didn't she understand? But that is the point. She didn't understand because she was not in my head. This is what both sides, disabled and normal need to understand. We are not in the other's head and therefore cannot fully understand. However, just because each side doesn't understand doesn't mean said sides don't care. Granted, those with disabilities may care a little less, but we still care. It is just hard to understand when we don't feel what the other is feeling. Be sympathetic, and make sure the other side understands you do care even if you don't fully grasp what they're dealing with.
2. "Why can't you just act like a normal person for once!?" As much as this is tempting for a parent to yell sometimes (just ask my mother), the fact is that it is pointless and will only hurt someone with ANY disability. The simple fact is that we aren't normal and therefore cannot act as such. That being said, yelling at us, screeching, huffing and puffing, or other shows of impatience will not work, it will only make us mad and make us shut down. Once we shut down it is as though we are petulant children with our fingers in our ears screeching "NANANANANA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!"
3. "I told you so!" If you told us something would go wrong with a choice we choose to make, and it does, PLEASE do not use this phrase. Case in point, a friend of mine with Asperger's drives a small car with completely black tinted windows. I told him when I first met him he was going to get a ticket for it, or at least a warning. Three days ago he got pulled over and got a ticket for it. When he posted this on Facebook I immediately became an immature child thinking "I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU SO I WAS RIGHT!!!!" After logging off Facebook for a good three hours in an effort to not post something stupid on his wall, I realized that posting this would only hurt him and would therefore just make him boiling mad. When we do something wrong and people insist on harping that it was wrong after we know said fact, it just makes us mad and sometimes mad enough to throw or break stuff. Please don't say "I told you so," we know you told us so and we feel bad.
I will think of more later, but for now this is a good start.
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