Aspies For Freedom

Well... I do feel a great sympathy for what the mother went through, and in her old age she would be scarcely capable of such a task. BUT!!! I have no doubt that she she drove the circumstances to such extremes herself.

The behavior of this man escalated into violence against himself and others. Any time that happens, many factors, including both reason and law, demand he be given up to the custody of an institution... or at least that's how it works in the US, I'm not so sure about the UK.

Even so, insisting on keeping custody of someone who's behavior had reached such an extreme is not only irresponsible, it's quite possibly stupid.

A single elderly couple is simply not capable of caring for someone like that. And institutionalizing this man, which is demanded by law (in the US at least) given his behavior, is an option they never even considered.

About the sentence, or lack thereof. I'm not qualified to judge something like that. But I will reitterate that this woman drove circumstances to such an extreme through her own choices.

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I have to agree with that.  The publicity focuses on the potential autism, and that it does so is unquestionably dangerous.

The point I was trying to make was more tangential, actually, but you will see I've deleted the content of my posts, above.  I believe that is for the best, and I hope you will do me the courtesy of deleting replies that quote or repsond to my erased posts.

Thanks.

I was supposed to KNOW that I was going to give birth to a baby that had less need for sleep than I did?  I was supposed to KNOW that I was going to have severe post partum depression?  I was supposed to KNOW that I was going to become virtually deaf as a result of pregnancy, when it is such a rare side effect it took the doctors 5 years to figure it out?  BALONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  NO ONE could have known; no psych test could have figured it out.

Every single friend of mine that had children told me I was going to be a great mom.  I couldn't wait, and they were sure I was going to love every minute of it.

Well, guess what, life is full of surprises.  I do think I'm a good mom, but I have to recognize and accept my own limitations in order to be sure that my kids really are getting the best from me that they can.  The worst thing I could have done would have been to fail to see what was happening to me, and to fail to understand the difficulties I was facing.  It is exactly that pressure from moms who haven't been there that keeps those experiencing difficulties from recognizing them and adjusting their situations as needed.  After all, it's the ultimate failure, isn't it?  Go ahead and feed into that mentality, for it isn't helping.

Can you tell you struck a nerve?

I have a dear friend who was a top nanny for 15 years before having her own children.  She was FANTASTIC with children.  Until she had her own.  Gradually, she is adapting her life to be her best again for her own children, with help from understanding friends like me, but it was a huge shock to her system to find out that everything changed when it was your own hormones, twins, and 24/7.

I came here tonight to get out of this thread.  It hasn't been healthy for me and it's taking me mentally in places I dare not go.  Fortunately, I know how to conduct my own damage control, and my children are not in danger of me freaking out and doing something horrible.

I can have the discussion in this post, and maybe we should elsewhere, but I cannot have the discussion in this thread.  I should never have opened it.

PS - it's rare for me to rile up like I did with this post, but hopefully you can understand where I'm coming from.  OK, today, I've just been in a bad place, and I am ending that best I can, but I still said some things in this post that I think are important, even if I got over strong in language.  I'm not afraid to admit my failures, and doing so I will try to speak for those who are afraid.

Amy, I only got riled up at the suggestion people should know if they might get stress and depression issues trying to raise children, before making the decision to have them.  I wasn't riled about the topic in this thread, but I do believe I need to be out of it completely, for personal reasons.  The whole discussion was taking me places in my own head that I do not want to go, and the only way out of that for me is to remove all traces of my own thoughts from yesterday from this thread.  I am sorry if that is something you don't understand, but I do ask you to respect it.  It is for the best, you will have to trust me.  I do know myself on this, and since any point I was trying to make wasn't being understood anyway, I don't see that the board loses a thing.  You as mod can clean it up by permanently deleting the posts, if the blanks bother you.  Sorry, I was hoping I wouldn't have to explain it, since the only other time I've done something similar on a board the mod's understood what I was trying to do do right away.  I'm not sure I can explain it any further than I have; you will have to trust me.  This is for me, personally, and me keeping my head where I need to keep it, and coming back in a few days would only return me mentally to the place I do not want to go.  It all has to be gone.  It's the best way I know.  My brain doesn't work like yours, remember.  Perhaps this is one of the negatives to how my brain works, but it is what it is.

And the effect those posts have upon others?  Can you blank that?

Tell you what, Dogface.  If someone was upset by something I posted, they are free to see my deleting the upsetting post as a full retraction of it.  It was a discussion I should never have been in.  Read that any way you want.  I'm done.

On the flip side, if someone secretely wanted me to continue ... well, they, too, can read my actions as they need to.

I have left the bad place I was in yesterday, and I refuse to go back.  My family comes first, and they need me where I am (mentally) today.

I really am done!

It's not whether or not it's a deterrent.  It's that people who murder or abuse disabled people, especially people with socio-communicative or cognitive disabilities, are given preferential treatment.  

I agree, no woman who would kill her child is fully rational.  But if the child is normal, they will be punished, if the child is not, they get off much easier.  That's why this is so upsetting.  So outrageous.  

It doesn't matter how much more difficult it is.  Giving preferential treatment  to our killers sends a message that we are worth less because of our difference and only serves to strengthen society's prejudice against us.  

There was a time when it was completely legal to kill a black man.  Even after it was outlawed, murderers of blacks got off relatively easy.  And could expect to get off easy--if they were convicted at all.  Caselaw continued to formalise a distinction between the worth of a black man and the worth of a white man, even after the letter of the law said they were the same.  

It took work to change this, and that work was not done with sympathy.  The emotions a white man of those days felt on seeing a black man acting "uppity" certainly were not rational, certainly very strong, strong enough to cloud judgement, and certainly lead to the criminal act of the white man.  That doesn't make it justified, or understandible, or excused, or of any lesser depravity.  

The emotions are different here, there causes are slightly different here, but they have the same result.  

Murder is murder is murder.  That is a fact.  We cannot sympathize with the emotions of killers simply because the victem belongs to a specific devalued group of people.  We cannot continue to formalise the difference in perceived worthiness of any section of the population.