Charming.
She tearfully told City News: “Who would do this to a child?”
The letter also tells Karla that she has a “retarded kid” and “should deal with it properly”.
Go here to read the rest. As the father of an autistic son, Larry, who I loved more than my life, and who died on May 19, 2013, I can imagine quite clearly the pain of the parents who received this hateful diatribe. The author is a true spiritual descendant of the murderers of the Third Reich who gassed autistic kids. In this vale of tears we all have travails and tragedies to endure, but none are more terrible than the petty hate that so many people carry within their souls. Those are the humans that are truly handicapped.
Hopefully the writer of this expressive note will be identified and named. No one who does such a hateful thing should be allowed to hide behind their anonymity.
The “author” of this letter must have gotten confused. This garbage is what I frequently see in comboxes -on those rare times when I take a deep breath and “click” to read the vitriol contained therein. I hope, and pray, she has an epiphany and realizes how ugly her statements were and seeks forgiveness.
“Go here to read the rest”? Why in the world would I do that? Nothing would make me do that, and I’m sorry that you did.
There are several equally frightening possibilities WRT to this letter:
1. It was written by an actual parent (“pissed off mother!!!”) living in that neighborhood.
2. It was written by a teenager with a really, really bad attitude, sick sense of humor and penchant for bullying who posed as a “pissed off mother”.
3. It was a hoax composed by the parent of the autistic child, or a friend or relative, as a way to get attention and sympathy, or to cast suspicion on a neighbor she doesn’t get along with. I know that sounds cruel, but such things do happen (staged “hate crimes”) and the possibility has to be considered.
All that said, I’d put my money on #2.
[…] Sage Advice – God and Caesar Can You Love Your Spouse Too Much? – Lisa Hendey, Catholic Mom Euthanize Your Autistic Kid! – Donald R. McClarey, TAC Christian Homes in Egypt Marked With Black X’s – Dcn. Nick […]
I also have an autistic son, so no flowery language will do; this a-h@1* really pissed me off. However, because of His infinite mercy, when we step back and let God back into the driver’s seat we do receive graces.
When I read “noise polluting whaling” I immediately got a visual of my son, out in the yard dressed as Captain Ahab, yelling “…to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee!”
That would indeed ruffle the neighbors.
Thanks be to God the Father of Mercies that I can now regard the author rightfully – as a pitiable wretch who is tremendously more in need of prayer and Christ’s love than of scorn and derision. I can only imgaine what he/she must have gone through to create such a hateful soul. Were it mine to do, I would create whatever conditions necessary for he/she and I to spend a day volunteering at a special needs school. Or a week. Or a lifetime.
St. Joseph Cupertino pray for us.
I hope this doesn’t turn out to be a hoax.
I’m autistic myself, and I’ve been dealing with this attitude, quite common among neurotypicals, since I was 5 years old, a quarter century before I was diagnosed, long before anybody knew what was wrong with me.
I’m now a rather successful (well, if you can call any computer programmer “successful” , this is not the most stable career in the world) 42 year old adult, and not on government assistance. I did this by taking advantage of my OCD and learning to make money with it.
I see this as the logical outgrowth of the hidden eugenics in North American (both Canadian and USA) culture. Neurotypicals in general are superficial bigots, it is not surprising that given legal abortion and euthanasia, that the attitude of “if you aren’t useful/profitable, you should be killed” is becoming disturbingly common.
A hoax and/or some variation of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome does seem the simplest explanation for this. I’m not sure if believing that makes me more jaded, or less.
Assuming the letter is genuine, it seems to my untrained eye that there is something organically wrong with the writer, to the extent that they are literally in genuine need of medical care. That being the case, I can understand why such a person would be insecure and hyper-sensitive (as opposed to more understanding) regarding any perceived assault to decorum brought about by those who are mentally challenged in other ways.
(Then again, it is certainly possible to be pitiably and clinically pathological, and also just plain evil, not to mention stupid.)
One of the worst tragedies of our time is people’s unwillingness to accept tragedy along with its redemptive possibilities. Few systems outside the Christian faith make sense of tragedy and find purpose in it.
So, will this angry anonymous letter writer demand “euthanize him!!!” upon encountering an atheist?
…was a long, difficult trek from capitalism all the way to capitalism.
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On Dateline NBC a few years ago, they showed a case where
the police were investigating similar notes being received
by a teacher at a school (and the notes were designed
to look as of they were sent by another teacher).
It was later found that the ‘taunted and tortured teacher’
had actually sent the notes to herself as a cry for attention
and public sympathy due to feeling overwhelmed with her
life (and no other ‘teacher’ or ‘outsider’ had sent it to her).
Also, a couple of years ago a man claimed that he began
to receive ‘religious hate mail’ our of nowhere from “an
unknown neighbor” (even though there was no history
of any of the neighbors having harassed, disliked or
shown bigotry or hatred toward his family before) and
within a few weeks his wife ended up “attacked by an
unknown stranger, possibly the “neighbor”, and killed”.
It was later found that he felt his wife was a “burden”
and had composed and sent “the mysterious letters”
himself as a set up and cover for the crime he was
planning in order to “set himself free” from someone
that ‘he’ (not his neighbors) saw as a “burden” in life.
In both cases, entire innocent-communities (even if
it were seen as just ‘one’ phantom-person within that
community) were placed with suspicion and blame for
something that they did not do and would never have
even thought of doing — simply because someone who
felt they wanted to ‘escape’ their own “burdens” in life
were setting up both the communities and the family
member from whom they wanted to be set free.
In addition, there have been story after story of
late of the many parents and caregivers of autistic
children who — feeling overwhelmed with taking
care of a person with severe needs and yet also
wanting to gain public attention, pity, sympathy,
support, and a type of victim and/or hero status
— have plotted for weeks, months and even years
to ‘get free of their burden’ in such as way as to
look both innocent and pitiable (and this is often
done by pointing-the-finger at innocent-strangers).
My point is that — UNTIL the police investigate to see
IF this “mysterious note” is actually LEGITIMATE —
this community should NOT be seen as having
some sort of hate-monger living in it’s midst.
This ‘mysterious note’ seems to have a far “too personal”
touch to it to have been composed by any ‘man’ and / or
even by ‘woman’ who would have been a ‘stranger’ or
a ‘near stranger’ to this family — and, until it is PROVEN
that it IS IN FACT from “someone in the neighborhood”,
it seems unreasonable to assume that the neighbors are
not (possibly) being set-up just so that someone who
may feel overwhelmed with life can literally ‘script’ a
situation in which to garner both pity and attention.
It’s not that I’m not trying to be ‘sympathetic’ toward
the family to whom the memo was directed … it’s just
that … the situation of “setting things up in order to
get public sympathy and attention” has been found
to have occurred so frequently in the past number
of years that — unless someone has a video of
a situation occurring — many times it should be
considered as possibly “one of the usual suspects”.
http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/munchaus.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_playing
http://www.salon.com/2008/06/04/exhausted_caregiver/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/08/20/letter-telling-ontario-family-to-euthanize-autistic-son-not-a-hate-crime-police/
http://www.post-journal.com/page/content.detail/id/609417/When-Feeling-Overwhelmed–Caregivers-Should-Seek-Help.html?nav=5208
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