And that's sending the message that disability is equal to someone who is less than or broken or incomplete and that's not the case.

[Things people living with disabilities wish you knew]

I have Cerebral Palsy.

It affects me pretty much from the hips down and also just like fine motor control and things like that.

So I have Tourette Syndrome which is a neurological disorder which means I do movements and noises that I can't control.

I have Cerebral Palsy as well left Hemiparesis and Nystagmus which means that my whole left side is weaker than my rights.

I have a very aggressive form for Lupus.

And I have a blood clotting disorder associated with my Lupus and four years ago I had a clot in my foot.

And then this happened and over eight months and 11 surgeries, this was the end.

"I don't feel bad about myself."

I... love having Tourette's.

I love that I'm four foot, seven.

I love my obsessive compulsive disorder.

And I think that's the case that many of us have embraced our disabilities.

I've had my disabilities since I was born and it's a part me.

My brain is quick and witty and wildly inappropriate.

And it also has Tourette's and at some point I decided not to just love parts of my brain.

"Let your kids ask us questions."

A lot of times I see kids staring at me.

That's okay with me.

I welcome it, kids are curious.

But what I struggle with is when a parent shushes them or quickly pulls them in the other direction.

When a child is hustled away from a person or hushed, it stigmatizes even just asking the question.

Because kids then associate disability with feeling ashamed.

If they've never seen anything like this before they're gonna look and if they have questions, let them ask.

There's nothing wrong with that.

So instead I hope that parents say things like: "How cool that we all move differently and walk differently and talk differently."

More than just like normalizing disability but celebrating it.

"We date."

We date, people with disabilities date!

And not always other people with disabilities.

Just because I have I disability doesn't mean I have to be paired with somebody with a disability.

Direct message to everyone in my life but if you're gonna set me up on a blind date please have more criteria than this guy also has a disability.

"Not all disabilities are the same."

Not every single person with a disability is in a wheelchair.

I am not in a wheelchair.

I've never been in a wheelchair.

"My disability isn't your inspiration."

If one more person calls me an inspiration after just meeting me, I'm gonna burn your house down.

We aren't inherently inspirational or brave because we are disabled.

We're just kind of the idea that people think about what when they say that.

It's okay to call me an inspiration once you know me or know something about me.

But genetics does not make me an inspiration.

Let me earn that word.

There are people who are actually doing amazing, brave things out there.

Whether they have a disability or not.

But it comes across to a disabled person as: "Wow! I'm so happy that I'm not in your shoes."

"Ask me if I need some help."

I get a lot of strangers trying to help me.

Up the steps by grabbing my arm or my waste or something.

And that's extremely inappropriate.

You can say, "Hey! Do you need some help?"

Rather than just either forcing my chair or ignoring me.

"I'm a 'person living with a disability.'"

It took me a while to actually call myself a person with a disability.

But I'm a person first.

Being an amputee is secondary.

I rather have somebody say I'm a person with a disability rather than being disabled because of the whole control and ownership issue.

I hear "differently abled".

The word is disability.

They used to call myself like differently abled and some people didn't like that.

And I'm just like, but I am different and their like no you're not and it took me a while to actually see that I was using very able-bodied terms.

It should be a descriptor.

Just like I'm right-handed, I have a disability.

"Be more open."

When we're talking about disabilities I hear the word that we wanna be accommodating, which is great.

Or we're working on tolerance.

Nobody wants to just be tolerated.

Like I tolerated those three years my sister was learning to play the trombone.

I tolerate going to the dentist.

None of these things are things I like, they're things I tolerate because I know that I have to deal with.

So there's such an important step in communities between opening the door to somebody with a disability and like embracing them and building a community with them in mind.