When Ignorance and Bigotry Merge

Autism is a serious matter. It's something that takes daily focus, concentration, guidance, and support from friends and family. As most know that have to deal with Autism, that for the most part, there are NO medications to help curb the side effects that leech into everyday life.

Unfortunately, when people are unaware of the difficulties faced every day by the person with Autism as well as friends and family, and they become more concerned with their own comfort level is when things can go seriously wrong.

Anyone who has Twitter or browses the web knows of where I'm going with this. For people that don't know, however, I'll explain.

I saw this myself on my Facebook page that a good friend of mine posted. The title was disconcerting and while I hoped it was some sort of sick joke, my friend's reaction to it told me it wasn't.

Apparently, some days ago, an anonymous woman slipped a note under the doorway into a house where a young man who has severe Autism lives with his mother. The note itself, while having no profanity, was horrendously vile and cruel in the way that make profanity look like the "Queen's English".

I'll post a link to the picture of the letter below.

 Woman's Incredibly Offensive Letter

In the letter, the use of multiple exclamation marks might make it seem as if it were some child playing a prank. But once one delves into the words being typed, it's hard to imagine anyone being this cruel.

Lines like:

 "You selfishly put your kid outside everyday and let him be a nothing but a nuisance and a problem to everyone else with that noise polluting whaling he constantly makes!!!"

And

"It scares the hell out of my normal children!!!!!!!"

Expresses how much she values her form of "normalcy". These lines are hurtful enough. However, the lady, if one can even call her that, doesn't stop there. Instead of trying to treat this situation like an adult, she turns her venom onto the parents and tries to "explain" her... "logic".

"He is a hindrance to everyone and will always be that way!!!!! Who the hell is going to care for him????? No employer will hire him, no normal girl is going to marry/love him and you are not going to live forever!! Personally, they should take whatever non retarded body parts he possesses and donate it to science."

This woman doesn't seem to have a rational bone in her entire body.

People with Autism didn't ask to be this way. It's not a choice that happens. Hell, it's not even something that was the parents fault. Parents who were healthy their entire lives can just as easily give birth to a child with Autism just as much as parents who have smoked or drank or had multiple surgeries in their life time.

There are amazing people out in the world who have started up their own businesses that are autistic. Video game creators, artists, musicians, and even scientists. There was even a young girl with such severe autism that she couldn't function half as well as the boy in this story who loves color and painting. Now, a library has seen her work and hangs it in their library and they are bring sold on the internet to help fund her treatment and well being.

And yet, here we have this woman who rages against someone that has never harmed her or her children in anyway. Instead of showing her children the value of compassion and understanding, she makes a suggestion on how this young man's family might ease HER fears.

"Go live in a trailer in the woods or something with your will animal kid!!"

And there it comes. To her, his is nothing more than an animal now. Not worth anything to anyone. A burden upon society. A blemish upon the normal fabric of the nation.

Seems to me like this woman needs to look in the mirror at herself and her life before deciding who really is a burden upon the people around her.

If all the rest of her letter wasn't enough, she ends her letter of hate with the most offensive words that anyone could say about a HUMAN BEING...

"Do the right thing and move or euthanize him!! Either way, we are ALL better off!!!"

Excuse me... EUTHANIZE HIM? What is the matter with this woman. If one of her children were born with a disability that didn't reveal itself till later in life, would she kill her own child just to be rid of what she currently considers a burden?

Part of me fears for the children living under her roof and the things they are being taught about people today.

Will they be the ones glaring in scorn as a disabled person being pushed in a wheelchair passes them down the sidewalk as they give him or her a wide berth?

There is more than enough hate in this world without adding to it by taking out our anger and disdain on others because they are different or because we don't know the whole story.

We all MUST learn from each other. We need to see that everyone no matter who they are needs not only to be called a human being but also needs to be listened to with an open mind and a open heart.

And even though this woman might never see this post, I want to send a message to her and her family.

I will say that I pray for her and her family. I will pray that God will open her eyes to what she has caused to happen and the pain she has caused to another family. That she should know that while eventually when hate cools that in my own heart I will forgive her for her actions but I will certainly never forget her and her actions. That while I might be an unemployed 28 year old woman with a disability, that in the here and now I truly feel more sorry for her that she feels like she must express her anger and disdain in such a way. I can only hope that she can confront the issues that are causing her to lash out against her fellow human beings and come to terms with her own inner demons.

If you want to see the article and news broadcast about this event, follow the link below and I hope that one day soon, all of this can be just a memory of what used to be.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/the-incredibly-offensive-letter-sent-to-a-mother-with-an-aut

Communication

Communication.

There's a topic for you when dealing with someone with Asperger's Syndrome.

From personal experience up to trained doctors and psychiatrists, I know for a fact that most people with AS tend to be bad with communication.

Being able to write things out or think things through from anywhere from 30 mins to a couple of hours before being able to voice how I feel is typically the norm depending on the situation.

Through the blogging medium, I'm able to think and write at the same time in a way of just writing what comes into my head in a place that's like an online diary but with the possibility of people actually reading it. While public speaking terrifies me the majority of the time, the thought of people reading my thoughts on a blog isn't as scary.

Why?

Because I'm not having to stare at a large group of people and keep my thoughts in some rational line of thought. I can literally jump around from thought to thought on a blog since this is my place to lay out how it really is.

While most people might wonder how would I get people to understand my ramblings and understand Asperger's in this manner I might counter that this is the very heart of my point.

This site is about showing what Asperger's is really like. Not just the good but the bad as well.

To know how the mind of someone with Asperger's is really like helps one to understand them and find the means of how to communicate with that person in a better way so everyone can understand.

People with Asperger's need that communication, as much as they can get.

Even myself where I'm sort of the high end of the middle of the pack of high functions AS people need to have clear communication so we know what to expect.

Having muddled, vague, incomplete, or no communication only serves to increase the amount of stress and confusion in my mind for sure and makes it even harder to function in a day to day environment.

Sure there are times when things can change without warning.

These are times when people with AS really need someone there with them to give them a hand or allow them a sort of "grace period" or "breathing room" so they can process this sudden burst of new information and formulate a logical and appropriate response.

For some, this becomes even more difficult when they are in the range of those that can't pick up what are called "social cues". Those little motions, movement, or body language that says when they have crossed a line.

In this day and age of the internet, body language has become a thing of the past. Things like emotes or text speak have become the only form of body language to let the other person know what sort of tone or mood their sentence is being said in.

Let's take the word "okay" for instance. Since we are on the internet "okay" on it's own can have a variety of meanings: happy, disinterested, sarcastic, even angry. Imagine going through a normal day interacting with people and not knowing what mood they are in because you don't have the necessary body language to tell you.

That's what part of being someone with AS is really like.

Then, if they manage to navigate through the lack of understanding body language they may run into another problem: low self esteem or image.

I can personally say that when I was growing up, I always felt like when I tried to reach out to do something social that I was rejected or not allowed access to it by someone or something because I messed up in someway due to the Asperger's I didn't know I had.

Since I was locked away from being social the majority of time, save for with certain "approved" people, I went into my college years feeling more of an outsider or outcast than I ever did in high school and now I was utterly on my own in a state I'd only visited on rare occasions.

While I did manage to interact with the scare few people around me, more often than not my conversational skills were limited enough that I merely sat and listened as they talked amongst themselves and I'd nod or smile or give one word responses till we arrived at a topic that I was more comfortable with. This didn't happen often.

It took me moving to a community college that was more relaxed before I was able to open up to anyone.

At the time, I was on meds for ADD. That helped with my stress in meeting new people, though later we discovered that ADD is actually enmeshed in my personal brand of AS.

What it taught me, even after I stopped taking the meds, was that people weren't going to "bite my head off". Generally, they were really nice people and I shouldn't be afraid to talk to them or to speak my mind. Even just saying hello to the one other person on the elevator with you can allow you to meet someone that you wouldn't have met otherwise.

It was an amazing epiphany to me before I even was officially diagnosed with AS.

It took me till nearly the end of my college career before I had enough confidence in myself to look at the people I had surrounded myself with and really see what I had done to myself. No one around me really knew me at all. I was just tagging along because I was afraid to be alone because I spoke out against one of them. They didn't share my interests. They didn't even care what they were. Only one or two ever did ask and they graduated before I did so I lost that connection once they moved away.

Cutting myself off from those people became so much easier to do once I knew there was no longer a reason to hang onto them anymore. Sure, I wouldn't have someone to go hang out with on the weekends and I knew I'd be up for some days where I might regret this decision but in the end I knew now that I'd be giving myself the chance to find people that truly got me as a person.

I was alone but I was happier than I had been in my years of college surrounded by people.

I was right of course. I've had days where I would sit and cry because I was alone and I didn't have a friend to even go to a bookstore with or just goof around with. I have a great friend that lives in Texas that's like the other half of me. But by living in Texas we can't just hop up and go to the movies anytime we want to together.

Sometimes that hurt to think about as well. But I would eventually tell myself that I would do something about this. I'd find a way to have them move closer to me or vice versa.

However, despite my many personal accomplishments in this area, living around others who didn't share my similar views into things like this made things harder.

I knew how important it was to communicate what I was feeling because they didn't understand but being an AS person or they my elder in some shape, form, or fashion. I was either ignored, looked at oddly, or told it wasn't my place to say.

These moments happened time and again leaving me with a familiar impression. That despite doing so many things so well that I was pushed back to square one again. Feeling self conscious and not being able to do anything about it this time. If I was always told to keep my mouth shut yet to stay upbeat and do as I was told then...where is my life?

What happens to my thoughts? My dreams? My happiness?

I believe in always doing my best to be who I am instead of trying to squeeze myself into someone else's mold.

I can't be like everyone else because I'm just me. If it effect my life then it is my business. While I'm not in the later years of life, it doesn't mean that my thoughts and opinions don't hold merit and value and should be smothered and ignored.

Sometimes an outside opinion, even from someone like me, can show those around them the flaws in their thinking and make them rethink the path they have gone on.

And really...that's just what this blog is about.

Don't close yourself off because you think you can do better alone. Everyone needs someone else to point at them and really make them see where they are and help them back if they didn't mean to be there in the first place.

Stay open.

Stay willing to listen, to hear, and to learn. Always.