I like to think that I generally try to see the positive in things and even try to be positive most of the time too (although that is often a fail)… but I’m having a harder time with it lately.

To maintain my positive aura, I didn’t speak out against huge tragedies just because.. well, they’re huge tragedies. I probably should have but it’s really hard for me to do.

Murder

I didn’t say anything when one parent killed their autistic child, Glen Freaney.
I got a little sick to my stomach when another parent killed their autistic child then herself too. Her son’s name was Ben Jensvold.
Then I heard about George Hodgins, a 22 year old autistic who was killed by his mother just before she killed herself too.
Shortly after that, Daniel Corby, another innocent autistic child killed by his parent.

These aren’t even the first, not by a long shot. These are just some of the latest that I’m aware of.

It’s a disturbing trend.

Torture

Then came the video… an alarming news story from the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Massachusetts. This video shows trained professional therapists using electro-shock therapy on a young autistic (teenager) simply because he didn’t want to remove his jacket.

When he refused, staff electric shocked him and he tried to hide under a table. They dragged him out and tied him facedown to a restraint board where he was kept for seven hours without a break, and shocked a total of thirty-one times.

While he was being tortured, he cried out for help… they laughed.

Is this humanity? Is this the world that I try to be positive for? Is this what I’m supposed to be excited for my children to grow up and be a part of?

What came next

There’s more though. As if this isn’t enough to make me give up on the human race entirely. Tragically, there’s more.

The media and even worse yet, the people who comment on those stories, all feel pity for those parents. They show their compassion by explaining how hard it was for them, all the heartache they felt, how they had nowhere to turn and no one to talk to….  those poor poor people.

Really? I realize they’d never condone the killings but really? Compassion? Pity?

If I had lost my faith in humanity because the murders happened, I gained disgust in humanity due to it’s reaction.

Murder is not ok. It’s never ok.

Child, adult, easy, hard, happy, sad, struggle, celebration, special needs or not… murder is not ok.

There is no pity. There is no compassion.

They killed someone.

Not just someone. Their child.

The rule is supposed to be that the child outlives the parent. Autistic or not. Special needs or not. That’s how it’s supposed to work.

Sometimes it doesn’t work out that way but generally, that’s the rule. There are no conditions to the rule. There is no “unless in the case of” exception to the rule.

Is that where humanity is now? We kill our children when life is hard? Humanity is ok with that now? Because if it’s supposed to be human nature to say “it’s understandable, their life must’a sucked”… then I want no part of it.

The world lost some beautiful souls and that is the news story. Not the troubled life of the parent. Not the struggles they faced or had yet to face.

If you skimmed the 4 links above, please go back and read one more time. Read the names. They are the victims. They are the real stories.

Which brings me to the video of torture. It’s not therapy. It’s torture.

What disgusts me more than the fact that it happened?

The fact that it happened 10 years ago and we’re just seeing the video now.

That’s what disgusts me. That’s what humanity is doing now to disgust me.

Somehow, those animals were able to not only torture kids, but able to have courts not tell anyone about it for 10 whole year.

How did this happen? Red tape? Bureaucracy? Politics?

I don’t even care what it was or why. The fact that it’s taken this long… I can’t understand it.

And what’s been happening during these 10 years? Have the animals stopped torturing kids? Or have they just learned how to better cover it up?

Speculation aside, filling my head with thoughts too unbearable to think aside… 10 years.

Someone, somewhere, decided not to put a stop to this. Someone, somewhere, decided not to share this with anyone.

I may have been wrong

My son has autism… and I fear for him. I fear for his life, I fear for his well being, I fear for his sanity… as he gets older, this is the “real world” that he will be faced with.

I do not fear for his humanity though.

Because if this is humanity; torture, murder, justifying it, sweeping it under the rug…  this is not the type of humanity I wish for my children to have.

If this is humanity, I don’t want them to have any part of it.

My children will grow up to love each other and others, to try to prevent harm from others not to inflict it, to value life, not take it or damage it and to do what’s right, when it’s right to do it.

Because that’s what I have faith in. That’s what I will never be disgusted by.

I used to think those characteristics were the traits of humanity.

I’m starting to think that I may have been wrong.