Dear Diary,

I know I have autism, but autism certainly doesn't have me. I am thankful to God that He made a way for me to communicate with others as well as myself, because that is very important in social life.

Speaking of social life, it used to be that if people had issues with one another, they would talk it out in person and make things work even if it was difficult to do. Not anymore. Now we have Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace to bash people that we don't even like or even want to hurt so badly that we don't even care. It's like if someone calls someone else a "female dog", you can bet your bottom dollar that everyone will be commenting on it and sometimes not even know the whole story. That's why we have to be careful what we air out on social media, whether we have autism or not, especially when it comes to swearing. A lot of folks are swearing like sailors, and when they ride that boat in the water, I know it's a salty taste in their mouths that don't even feel too good.

Let me give you an example about what I am talking about: One of the young ladies I went to school with was complaining about her neighbor's daughter, who has autism. The daughter was screaming like crazy in her room, and the mother tried her best to console her. My friend heard the screaming from her house and actually banged on the other side of her bedroom wall to shout profanities instead of calmly going over to the house and asking the mother to quiet her daughter down even though it wasn't really my friend's say to do that. Moments later, my friend was complaining on Facebook about the daughter and actually called her an expletive I won't even care to write at this point. The varied responses that she got were to get the mother evicted, shout in the mother's face that she needs to control her daughter, the daughter needs to be cured from autism, the daughter's just drawing attention, and yes, even the daughter needs to be locked up in an institution! Can you believe that stuff? I was annoyed by those comments while I was reading them, but I certainly didn't comment on them, even though I sure wanted to. In fact, I wanted to tell my friend that autism does exist, and she certainly cannot tell that mother what she needs to do with her daughter, because my friend's two children are FAR WORSE. (The daughter with autism is well-behaved compared to those two, sorry to say!)

So before you air any gripes about anybody on social media, please do all of us a favor, including yourself: please think before you want to write. It will make a big difference for everyone, and communication will be more effective and positive, too. And whatever you do, please save the drama for someone who really cares about it. I really don't. And I'm certainly annoyed.

Please keep your personal comments about others to yourself especially if you don't like them.