Dealing with intentionally unkind behaviour is hard.

Thankfully, there are relatively few of these behaviours.

Overall, most people are simply doing their best - just like we are.

Cutting in line

Thinking ahead can be our best prevention.

Or just ignore it. We don’t have to fight every battle.

Please note that this section does not apply to the English.

The English, in addition to being genetically predisposed towards queuing, have all been trained from the age of three to patiently wait in lines. The adorable sight of a line of English toddlers waiting patiently for their pre-nap snack is truly awe-inspiring.

Ok, maybe it isn’t exactly like that. Regardless, however, the English are well-practiced at standing politely in line. Which is unfortunately not the case with all others.

It is quite common to experience other people trying to get in front of you in a line while in Europe. Not in all places, certainly. And certainly not all people. But more than you might at first expect. While this is not commonplace at Disneyland Paris, it can happen. Less so in the queues for rides, but certainly while waiting for parades and spectacles. And sometimes in lines while waiting for food, too. It is annoying, certainly. And frustrating. But, again, the only thing we can control is our response, not their behaviour.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in this situation, however. Although we’re in France, so I suppose 100 grams of prevention is worth a kilogram of cure? That sounds weird. Idioms are strange, I know, but they have so much information packed into them. Knowing that people may cut into line in these situations, we can act to make it more difficult for them. Paying attention to the line and moving ahead as soon as it moves forward will do 90% of the work for us here. The other 10% is just keeping a weather eye out and politely informing people where the end of the line is, if they are looking likely to cut in line and then pretend they had always been standing there.

Or, if that takes up too much mental energy (and believe me, it certainly does for me on many days), we can just ignore it. We can know that it happens and that it is inconsiderate of others to consider themselves more important than everyone else, and we can just let it be. Sometimes this is the best, the only, way forward. We can’t always spend the time and energy on what other people are doing, especially in an environment like Disneyland Paris that takes up so much of our energy already. We have to pick our battles, and by doing so, we can (maybe) have the energy to make a difference in the ones we choose to engage in.

Comments directed towards people who are ‘other’

The daily battles we fight are mostly unseen. And unseeable.

This is, to continue the analogy above, a battle I am almost always willing to engage in.

We’ve talked a bit about neurodiversity being mostly invisible, and that we may receive comments from people who are skeptical of us using the Priority Card or that somehow it isn’t ‘fair’ that we are given the ‘advantages’ that we have. I’m using single quotations here, because we know these aren’t advantages, just actions that help to bring us closer towards a level playing field with others.

We have to remember that these people don’t know us. They don’t know how hard it is for us every single day, let alone how hard it is for us to come to a place that is virtually guaranteed to bring on a sensory overload. And you know what? They can’t know. We can explain and educate (though, not when we receive these sorts of comments – this is not the time), but it is impossible for anyone to understand a life they have not lived.

And so, what do we do about it when these comments are thrown at us? The best way forward is also the hardest way, unfortunately. We have to forgive them, even if only in our own minds, and move forward. In the same way that they don’t know our daily struggles to interact with a world that was not designed for us, we don’t know their lives and what they have been going through. While it is never ok to hurt others’ feelings, there is, perhaps, something in their past that could help to explain why they think the things they do. And, while their comments may have been (read: probably were very) hurtful, if we dwell on them, they only continue to hurt us. The best way to get on with our day and our lives and not to relive hurtful moments is to let them go and refuse to give them any more power over us. Which, as we noted, is easier said than done.