Treating others how you get treated

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Has anyone ever treated others how other people treated you without even realizing what you were doing was mean or what you were saying is insulting?

I have done this a lot in my childhood. Treating others how I get treated because I thought that was how you treat others and how you are supposed to act even if I didn't like getting treated that way myself. Then I remember hearing the golden rule by my teacher in third grade "Treat others the way you like to be treated" and it took me a while to understand it. As I got older I started to decide don't do to others I don't like, don't do stuff to others I don't like what others do to me.

Then this year (in 2010) I started to realize things I say to other people is insulting and I don't even know it because people do it to me. "Cheap" for example. Anyone remember that card I wrote to my aunt? I called her cheap in my card because it was something my dad said to me about her and her husband and daughter. Plus how I grew up with that word and I also get called cheap by my dad and husband and even my own mother has called me that so I started saying "I can see why I would say that to my aunt." Then I was in another situation. "Dump." My dad has always said he is dumping me off somewhere like at school or at the mall or bookstore or at work or my apartment. So I said it to a mother on Yahoo Answers about this daycare she checked out and it was a filth so I told her good thing she checked the place out before dumping her kids there. That sure got me a unpleasent email from her. Having running into these situations twice I have no idea what else people say to me that is an insult.

When I was 21 my ex told me my school had dummied up my school work for me. Now if it weren't for my mother telling me it was an insult and what it implied and meant, I would probably have been going around telling parents online about telling their child's school to dummy up the work for them or telling people to ask their college professors if they can dummy up the work for them when I really meant making it easier for them, modifying it so they can do the school work, accomodations you know than saying they are stupid and they can't do the school work and that they are too lazy to do it like everyone else. I might have been asking people online who were in special ed if their work got dummied up in school. I might have been asking aspies that too if it weren't for my mother telling me.

Now I try and not copy other people or use phrases or words others use. I felt I have gotten into enough trouble already, even online. A few times was enough.

I was in that mode for quite a while, just kind of mimicking what others were saying. Not word for word, but being insulting the same way they were being insulting to me. It was like I absorbed it. I had this epiphany after I left high school and started going out of my way to reprogram myself, and to avoid criticizing and insulting others blatantly. It was much like other impulsive behavior. I have to work especially hard and be conscious of routines I find myself gravitating toward. It's the same with how I post on WP. I should be previewing more, but I still haven't gotten into the habit of doing that, so I don't always edit posts before they get submitted.
I have reprogrammed myself in so many ways. Some people call it "reinventing." I think it is possible, in some regards, for someone with an ASD to break what has become habitual behaviors. I can't completely transform myself, but I have been able to change a few things over time.

When i first joined, I was such a raging alcoholic that i attacked anything that moved here. including very nice people, now however i've gotten used to drinking and if i do it anymore i make shure I turn off my computer and drink alone.

When I had roommates who disliked me, someone said that I should have picked up on something being wrong because of how they were treating me. They wouldn't have much involvement with me or show interest in the things I was doing, but they seemed pleasant on the face of it and it's normal for most people not to understand or be interested in the things that interest me. I minded my own business and kept on with my project, and I thought that was the social norm, and that's how I treated them because it seemed expected of me. I was mirroring their behavior. If I had acted friendly enough to put the interaction out of balance, then I would have seemed needy or something.

I got into a lot of trouble for repeating words that people said and I thought I knew the meaning of. Now I pretty much repeat words after I know what they mean. Usually they are phrases that seem to have a pretty clear meaning. At least I think they do.