Double-Edged Words

My last blog only got 14 views, but it had the potential of being a PR nightmare. So do the pictures on my Facebook of Special Olympics of me having purple hair and of me being over-the-top extroverted from there, but I am dealing with the blog loss now to prevent damage control later and I'll deal with the Facebook picture cleansing later. My apologies to those offended and my apologies to those who would've looked at it later. I dealt with it and my hair-raising photos will be taken down later. Without further adieu, 4 words and a set of words that have a double-edge and examples of why that is:
special: I still cringe at this word. I guess it's due to my background living in the group home, in conferences, and being in leadership and gender studies classes. Special can be an ableistic term if used incorrectly, but people who use it this way aren't worth people's time or energy. I should try to embrace the other meaning, because this word can also mean extraordinary or amazing. A correct sentence would be: I'm special because I light up the room with the energy of my smile and the enthusiasm of my voice. I would strongly urge more people to use it this way and to prevent it in the same way that LGBT terms are used by teenagers who don't want to know better, which would be as a substitute for stupid.
weird, crazy, one-of-a-kind, rare breed, unique, awkward, interesting, etc.- there are many synonyms for these words. I tend to think the person who used these words incorrectly the most out of anyone I knew was my roommate on Lucky Lane (or unlucky lane, depending on who you ask). He never was in a good place and is now in prison, so that is not at all any kind of barometer for behavior. Rather, I use these words the same way my friend (or big sister, depending on who you ask) Amber uses these words, as a good thing to express individualism and enthusiastic extroversion and vocal opinions when they are used with people who want to hear them and light up a coffeeshop just by being there due to his or her pure love for people. I tend not to use these words ableistically, because I'm not like that, rather, I use these words to describe how much of a destitute mans eccentric I am and how much I love being around people. And what's the matter in that?
inspiration: sometimes a loaded word for the community of people with differing abilities. but mostly in comparison to famous people (Temple Grandin, Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Cody Marzo, Rube Waddell, etc. for autism, Josh Blue for CP, Vincent Van Goh for depression, Adam Levine and Shane Victorino for ADHD, etc.) as a way of trying to make people lose in comparison and feel bad. That, my friends, is not the point. People like me inspire people by being who they are and that is not inspirational fodder, for lack of a better term. Rather, people who go to college, do leadership, are active, work, are faithful to some kind of community whether social or faith, and can give parents advice are inspirations to those who look up to them and those parents who love them completely and to the friends who like them just the way they are. I get called an inspiration by countless friends on Facebook and countless mentors and people in the field, and it's not because of my autism, ADHD, and depression because even though a lot know, that's not why they call me that. Rather it's because I'm living a full life and am full of joy often enough to offset the bad and I have overcome a lot and am still overcoming and giving it my all. And I totally can own that.
sketchy: kind of self-explanatory for the artists, but this word can mean either to like to draw and do art-type things or it can mean in the way that some of my friends use it to describe me (mostly my ex's ex and his brother, once again, terrible barometers in this context), which is troublesome, dangerous, and wild. I own the art side, because I draw once or twice a week, I scrapbook some, I journal, I take pictures, I do other art projects, and all of this is some kind of art, so, yeah, I am sketchy. But I'm not sketchy in the way that I'm troublesome, dangerous, or wild, I sometimes do extroverted things that could convey that to an outsider, but I'm usually able to control myself.
freak: it can be meant as an insult, like an outsider, which I've unknowingly used it this way before when writing about my experiences as a new Christian (or now as a progressive Christian, I would say making my open declaration of my faith). I've also used it in a similar vein as awkward. I know, I'm not perfect and I will fess up to that. But as Sports Illustrated and my athletic friends and self-advocacy friends can attest, freak can be a good thing. It in a lot of contexts means athletic, unusually gifted in some or many areas, amazing at many kinds of interactions, and overall super fun. For example, I've gotten called freakishly coordinated on many occasions, and given my mid-6' height and my autism/ADHD/depression and my track record for injuries, I would say that's not all the time accurate, but it's accurate enough of the time, and I think of it as a compliment.
So these are some words that can be thought of as ableistic or behavioral if used the wrong way. However, they do not need to be. These words can be used in a great light and in many cases, they are used in wrong contexts. I think as a society, we should be aiming for the right context, if for no other reason than words if used in the wrong way hurt people as a whole and used in the right context can bring a person up tenfold.