The Return To Innocence

This is a topic I've struggled with, as well. The job I worked to put myself through college was working with a girl who had significant developmental and physical disabilities, and her mom was an advocate for parents and children with disabilities. Through that exposure, and now through my own experiences with disabilities, I think I've seen numerous sides of this. I know that the reason S.'s mom was so adamant that people refer to her daughter as a child with disabilities is because S. was treated horribly by a lot of the people around her who were supposed to be providing therapy, education, etc. I learned VERY quickly to use "person first" speech whenever I was anywhere near S.'s mom or anyone who would report back to S.'s mom about anything that I'd been saying around S. When I got home and would talk about my day with my mom and dad, I would relax my speech a little, but then I would feel terribly guilty the next day when I'd work with S. again, so after having that be my environment for quite a while, my thinking patterns changed. However, in my head I think of myself as diabetic, epileptic, etc. I don't think of myself as Fibromyalgic because it's just too dang cumbersome so I do think in my head regarding the FM that I have fibro. But if I say things like this around the people I'm around, I've noticed it makes them uncomfortable unless I switch to "I'm a person WITH diabetes." etc. I'm not sure why that is. I'm really not. But for me, both methods work in my mind, for myself. But with anyone who is not me, I'll use person first speech because of the negative experiences I've had doing otherwise. (And I have no idea if any of this all made sense. LOL I had a point when I started, I really did, and it has flown away.)