How do you feel about the word ret*d?

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A lot of elite athletes have ADHD. Sport is a great physical therapy.

One of my wife's old friends had a son in special ed with low prospects. He had a learning disability and serious ADHD. She put the boy into an athletics program and he loved running. By highschool he was put in a sports program and he eventually won a sports scholarship to the US and was able to finish (although he did struggle) a business degree over there.

His story is common among athletes in the US.

It isn't very nice to say it to anyone especially someone with a disability. One exception to the word is if you are going to use the word to refer to something such as for example, to ret*d the development of a society, than it is different.

Like it has little to do with my HFA and is American compared to what I heard at school said to other kids.

But I wouldn't use it. I wouldn't say spaz either.

Some SJW types (yes I know I'm close to one lol) hate basic words like 'stupid'. I think you can be stupid on purpose or stupid without a disability. I don't think those words are always inherently ableist and I think it's hard to cut them out.

Words like 'ret*d', '[politician]-tarded', 'spaz', 'spastic' etc are really obviously ableist language which isn't that hard to remove from your vocab. They're famously hurtful to disabled people, people with learning difficulties and stuff like that, I don't think people should use them and I don't use them myself.

People sometimes called me a spaz at school, not for being autistic but for dyspraxic stuff. I wonder if they knew I was clumsy due to dyspraxia & wasn't just clumsy.

In my experience bullies don't really think very deeply about specifics. They see abnormal they just label it. About as complex as that.

I think kids, especially little kids, don't get the actual reason for things like this and just see someone who's "weird". They don't really know any better. Maybe some of them realized later though, I remember some kids who treated me badly in elementary school acted really weird around me (like, guilty weird) in middle/high school after they were around more autistic kids and probably realized I was autistic. lol

I met some people who bullied me in primary/lower highschool in university many years later. Their attempts to be polite and friendly were cringeworthy.

I think sometimes as adults they overcompensate for being little monsters by pretending they have matured.

Some kids definitely overcompensated and were suddenly really "helpful" to me, which is honestly patronizing now that I think about it because some of them acted like they realized, I was in fact, "ret*d" or something. It's certainly cringeworthy now.

Precisely. In my case its because they are now married and have kids and hold positions of responsibility. But NTs have a magic way of compartmentalising their evil deeds into the recesses of their subconscious.

In this video content, I talk about what I truly think of that "R-word" and I consider this word as Profanity.

It continued into secondary school.

The harmless stuff like just teasing was all in what for Americans would be elementary or middle school.

I moved secondary and the kids were really horrible: it was survival of the fittest. But I'm talking about teasing that happened in primary and first secondary from kids who otherwise liked me & just got annoyed during PE cos I couldn't bat a ball properly or catch a ball properly.

Never been called one. In fact quite the opposite. So i feel little to nothing about the word.

Correct me if I'm wrong but in another thread you also said you were never bullied either but you always felt you had the upper hand.

When you say you "feel nothing" I assume this means if the word was used against you rather than feeling nothing about its use triggering other people?

I said i was never bullied up until high school, where i was occasionally bullied but not as bad as others.

Feel nothing. as in indifferent, neutral. Its just a word to me. I believe that f a certain word "triggers" you its because you believe it signify something true about yourself and therefore you get angry/upset. Since i in no way believe myself by any object measure to be "ret*d". It has no effect on me, or any power over my emotions.

Ok but would it be wrong to use it for eg against someone who was SLD?

As wrong as it would be for a adult to beat up a child in a fit of rage.

Hmmm but its ok for adults to beat up adults?

I think the correct analogy would be if an adult ridiculed a child for not knowing as much as they do.