The more I am around people who are not handicapped, the more I realize that there is no place for me in the ‘normal’ world. I have never belonged and I never will. I want others who are handicapped, no matter what that looks like, to know, yes, I know how it feels to be an outcast.
I know how it feels for people to treat your handicap like it is an inconvenience to THEM. I know how it feels to have someone mistreat you because you have a handicap. I know what it feels like to have someone intentionally do things that target your handicap and cause pain or discomfort.
I know what it feels like to have people make certain you know that because you are handicap you are a second class citizen and have no right to ask for any accommodation or help.
I know how it feels to have someone make you feel like you should not be around or even alive because you have a disability. Like you should be put in a box somewhere so no one can be bothered with you.
Yeah, I know how that feels.
Sure, part of it is just plain ignorance; they don’t understand the issues that come from disabilities. But a lot of it comes from being selfish and self-centered. They don’t care about other people and are insensitive to the needs of others. All they care about is what they want when they want it. No one else matters to them.
This is the antithesis of a Christian attitude. Many so-called ‘christians’ will help people – until it infringes upon their own comfort or desire. Then it is game over. The evil comes out and the devil gets glorified. The hate I have observed and experienced in my life by ‘christians’ in response to disabled people is horrifying.
So, no, real Christians follow Christ’s teaching and reach out to help others. They operate in love and bear good fruit.
But these others bear nasty, rotten fruit and they are so bound up they don’t even know it.
They never stop to think beyond their own small, self-centered world to realize that handicapped people go through those ‘inconveniences’ every single day. In their world it is all about them and no one else matters.
Every day I make accommodations for the ‘normal’ world. Yet when I ask for one simple accommodation I am labeled ‘inconsiderate.’ I am inconsiderate because I try to avoid severe pain and discomfort.
So, let’s talk about that.
Let’s talk about the inconsiderate person in a wheelchair who is slowing you down.
Let’s talk about the inconsiderate blind person who bumped you with their cane or dared bring their service dog into the restaurant where you are eating.
Let’s talk about the inconsiderate deaf person because, well, if you don’t know sign language you have to write notes in order to be understood.
How about the inconsiderate autistic person with sensory processing disorder who cannot tolerate bright lights or glare or loud noise or strong odors because it sends shooting, electrical shock like pain through their entire body?
But, hey, as long as YOU are comfortable, right?
Leslie Ephland said:
I am also feeling that acceptance in the normal world is just hopeless. It helps to realize that that attitude is not the fruit of the Spirit, and it is thought provoking to examine my life for selfishness and complacency toward others. I am convinced that Jesus really means it when He says He will evaluate the fruit of our lives based on our treatment of other people.
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mrsmayberry said:
I am learning to walk away from those who don’t accept differences. I have walked away from these boorish people and my life is so much more peaceful.
I have always tried really hard to be kind to people, encourage them and support them – I know what it feels like to not have those things. I don’t want anyone to feel that way.
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Leslie Ephland said:
Yep. I too, am having to drop some stressful contacts. Jesus said, “I was a stranger and you took Me (or not) in.”. There are serious consequences for how we treat other people. I can’t get over how church often seems to be one of the last places where people realize this.
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Sabertooth said:
One advantage is gained by this. It makes it easier for us to not get too attached to this world and its ways, which Jesus wanted all along…
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mrsmayberry said:
You are so right! It does allow us to separate from the world and be in it, not of it.
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Pam Shannon said:
Hi I think that sometimes the issue is with my Aspie husband and I is not that I feel impatient with his Disability. I have my own physical issues, but that the way he understands things and the way he expresses himself and puts his views forward. I feel exhausted and sometimes almost traumatized. I don’t want him to go away because he is disabled but need distance because I’m hurting.
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mrsmayberry said:
I can understand that. My husband is an NT and I know that as hard as it is to be an Aspie trying to live with an NT, it must be just as difficult for an NT to live with an Aspie. The problem is, when I am hurting or upset, I usually either don’t show it at all or I have a meltdown. He has all of these beautiful variations of being upset, like levels. That’s something I can’t relate to.
I have trouble accepting things or behaviors that I don’t understand or that don’t make sense to me. They seem so illogical.
I think some conflict comes from that.
My husband says that I have made him a better person. LOL
He said living with me has made him more patient and more aware of the differences in people, the different “languages” and the different ways that they express love.
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leslieke said:
I have heard autism described as being socially naked. The subtltees of normal successful social interactions are incapable of being programmed into our brains. We don’t understand how normal people feel when being bombarded by our constant upfrontness with everything we are. It might be difficult for them to retain a sense of their own personal integrity in our presence. Perhaps many of them fail to discern between a need for space to think , and an intense desire for us to go away and leave them alone.
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mrsmayberry said:
I agree. When my husband gets very, very frustrated with me (which is quite rare now, but was very frequent when we were first together) he will tell me to just go in the other room. He will retreat and I have learned that that is his coping mechanism. Just as I have to process his hostile, confusing world, he has to process mine.
So I try to give him space and time to process.
He also doesn’t understand how I can compartmentalize things. If we have a disagreement about one thing, say, what we will do on vacation (we hardly every argue so I can’t think of anything right now), it isn’t going to affect how we talk about anything else – to me anyway.
NTs seem to have a way of allowing a disagreement in one area to bleed into everything else and it breaks down communication.
I don’t understand that. It is completely illogical to me. We didn’t disagree on anything else so why are we not talking to each other about other things? It makes no sense.
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