http://goo.gl/2mZgsj
Going forward, we need to duplicate the sensitive conversations we were having about the stigma of mental illness, but this time, we need to talk about the stigma of disability. The instinctual responses I saw from people when they learned that Robin Williams had been depressed about being diagnosed with Parkinson’s are part of a “better off dead” stigma that disabled people encounter from others every day. In the Autistic community, we see it played out graphically, month after month, as parents and other caregivers kill Autistic children and adults and onlookers talk about the great difficulty of taking care of Autistic people, the cost, the suffering, the quality of life. So much sympathy goes to the parents who had been “saddled with such a burden” and so little sympathy, outside of the community of Autistics and our allies, goes to the disabled victim.