On mother's day this year, a mother killed her 3 year old daughter. The daughter was autistic.
I cannot control the bitterness I feel when I think about this child and the mother who ended her nascent life. There is no distance I can maintain to study it without becoming enmeshed. I am a mother, an aspie, the parent of an aspie. I have experienced great sorrow, depression, and anguish (mainly in regard to my own assessment of my parenting abilities, not about my son) and have contemplated suicide (in the past). There have been times I wished some alien spaceship would abduct my boys, or that I could sell them on ebay (a recurring fantasy), but I cannot fathom ending their lives.
I wrote this poem mainly for myself--it is an attempt to channel the anger I feel and perhaps come to some peace with the pain.
---
If she were not autistic would she be wearing
a new dress today instead of the plastic bag
you slipped over her head? Her two year old
sister will grow up wondering. "If I am bad,
mother might kill me too." I am trying
to understand whose suffering you meant to ease.
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2 comments:
...I know an autistic person who really did grow up with that fear, for that reason -- autistic sibling murdered for being autistic, surviving autistic person grew up knowing if they were 'too autistic' or something they could be next.
There really are horrible things in this world.
Thanks Lisa---I'm reading and rereading and thinking and shivering.
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