Hate Mail
I started this blog to give me a place to get my thoughts out. To share my stories and to hopefully help, even one other person who was going through the same types of things that I was. I knew that by opening myself up, I would eventually face some kind of adverse backlash. I’ve gotten a lot of email over the last few months. The majority of it is nice. Kind words, honest questions and great advice. Unfortunately, taking in the good leaves you open to undoubtedly receive some bad.
It started out small with a random email every now and then. I couldn’t tell if it was from the same person or not. I’ve mentioned before that the ladies I speak with online are harassed daily by a group of internet trolls who think that it’s funny to send hateful emails to parents of disabled children. Why they do this always eluded me, but I’ve recently found out that, while some of them may just be trying to rattle some ones cage, the majority of them truly believe in the things they say. They really do think that our children would be better off “if we’d decided not to have them”. In the emails they send, they seem proud of themselves. They seem like they would stand behind their words as solid truth and stick up for their right to say it until they were blue in the face, the only thing that contradicts everything they claim is the fact that they send the emails anonymously and are too cowardly to even sign their real names to their ignorant words.
The latest email, I will admit, got to me a little, but not in the way that the sender intended. I can’t repost the email in it’s entirety simply because the language is offensive and there are so many spelling and grammatical errors that it makes some of it total gibberish. Out of the whole four paragraph tirade, only one was actually directed at me and other parents.
(PLEASE EXCUSE SOME OF THE LANGUAGE I AM ABOUT TO USE… these are NOT my words)
“…people like you make me sick. You just walk round with retarded kids so people will feel sorry for you give you money and so you can get attention. You and other bleeding hearts have to get it in your head that they are barely even people. They practically soulless and do nother but scream cry and mess stuff up. It war your choice to keep it so why should I and everyone in public have to suffer for your choice by hearing your kid scream and have tantrims and knock stuff off shelfs at the store. You wan people to believe that they have feelings and can love but they can’t. You just want them to. These people are nothing but a burden to the people they end up with. The eat up money time energy and leave nothing for the other people in ther family. If I ever had a retarded kid I would refuse to take it home from the hospital. There is no way I would give up my life and dreams to the maid of a mindless kid that would suck up all my energy and I get nothing out of it. You are not a martyr no matter how much you want people to think you are. Retarded people just end up in homes when the get old enough then become a burden to the state and the taxpayers who have to pay for them. I shouldn’t have to pay for your kid. The retarded people cost millions of taxpayer dollars and you don’t even care because you “love it”. Survival of the fittest would mean that your kid shouldn’t have survived and hundreds of other useless people who will never do anythign to help society. Hop your happy.”
(my auto-correct actually changed a lot of the spelling mistakes, but this is ALMOST word for word. I had to edit a few lines that didn’t make sense and cut out some of the more offensive words)
Like I said, the email wasn’t signed and the address it came from led me to a website where most of the people posted anonymously. I REFUSE to put a link to this place on my blog, but if you google “I hate my autistic sister/brother” you can find the sites these people use. Based on what I did find, this email could have simply been sent from a teenager who has a disabled sibling and is feeling resentment towards them. Taking it out on someone else is common. However, after I read just enough to make me angry, I noticed that some of the people commenting weren’t siblings, they were just hateful people who think that if another person isn’t exactly like them, then they just don’t understand how they could enjoy their life and function at all. It’s repugnant the things they say and what’s worse is that they really believe in the things they think they know. Their information, not just about autism, but about a lot of other disabilities is so grossly incorrect it’s almost shocking. (and on a slightly less serious note, their grammar, spelling and sentence structure is wildly close to that of third graders.) I’ve sat on this email for a about a week now going back and forth from incredible anger to sheer amusement. See, I’ve dealt with my share of bullies. Very few people really know what I dealt with in school. It took me a really long time to see that these people that harassed me everyday simply had nothing better to do with their time. They spent a lot of their waking hours thinking about me. The only thing that I really regret about it all is that a lot of people back then didn’t get to see the real me. They got to see the version of me that had been beaten down from years of verbal and emotional harassment. However, I did learn to always try to see the positive in any situation that comes my way and this is no exception.
What I realized from reading these emails and the things that they say on these websites is that they simply aren’t strong enough to handle what I (and so many other mothers) deal with on an everyday basis. When you make the conscience choice to have a child, you can’t predict what could happen. There is no test that can tell you that you’re child will have autism. So by the time you find out, you’re child is already nearing two years old. A parents love for their child is unconditional, so if you find out they have a disability at two years old, you still love them AND you do what you can to help them. It’s not perfect and the days can be hard, but a child is not a faded sweater or a toaster that doesn’t get as hot as it did before… you can’t just return it for a new one because you don’t like the way it’s working anymore. These people, to me, are saying that they would refuse to raise a kid with a disability because they couldn’t… not because they didn’t want to. They don’t think they should have to put some of the things they want on the back burner to give their children what they need. Well, to that I say, you’re definitely not ready to be a parent. ALL parents have to sacrifice things for their kids. Most of us know that when we decide to have them. I would tell them that they are selfish and cowardly and based on the things they have no problems admitting to, don’t deserve the honor of being a parent or having a child with special needs. I don’t think I’m a saint or a martyr, but I also know my child isn’t soulless. I would tell them to do some research and educate themselves because the things they think they know about disabilities make them seem pretty damn stupid. Lastly, I would tell them that if they have a problem with me, my kids, my family or my friends, they can find a good position behind me and kindly kiss my ass.
And I would at least have the stones to sign my real name.
