Disablism

After careful consideration I've decided to unregistered, the support I've got from other users here has been fantastic but i can't sit back and be a part of a site which is run like this.

What has happened over the last few weeks is inexcusable and several times MNHQ have just sat by, fully aware but let things continue. They've thrown each and every one of us in the lions den.
All this while at the same time claiming to support Mencap's survey on attitudes towards learning disabilities, have they seen their own threads and biased attitudes?

I can't be a part of this.

Yes Dixie, i also think that was absolutely disgusting.

Doubt they will comment again, they still don't feel they've cocked up and they don't care that they've cocked up.

What more can they say, they've made it clear there is no problem and they agree with the people who think we are getting annoying now.

I think as we're all quiet. deregged, or still licking wounds we're out of sight out of mind and they're hoping that it'll all blow over.

Has anyone heard anything from MNHQ, or are they still 'looking into it'?

Oh goodness yes. Its like being a new parent twice. DS1 was born with a stiff neck, couldn't suckle, all sorts of little things. DS2 was a little limpet. DS1 had/has mobility issues, DS2 is a monkey - climbed, jumped, scrambled and loves all outdoor activities.

DS2 at 10 has discovered pokemon go and is allowed out with my phone to the nearest half dozen stops (advantages of living in town, its only a few hundred yards). DS1 at 13 is yet to confidently open the front gate and walk through it without an adult to great him the other side.

i also don't think there is anything necessarily wrong in someone saying 'wow, that must be hard' or some such.. because it IS hard, but DS is also my first child and i don't know any different. Its nice that people recognise that, as long as its not pitying me.

I've actually found it harder raising my NT daughter because i've had to re-learn HOW to parent, as she doesn't need the same kind of input and i've had to work out how to let her be independent long before i will ever be able to do that with DS!

Maddy I agree, pity was a poor choice of wording. I too gain strength from empathy.

flouncing, i think its the difference between sympathy/empathy and pity.

i dont want to be pitied, but i find strength in someone sharing some empathy with me for my son and my situation raising him.

I like the article but disagree, quite strongly, with one element. The doing damage by offering supporting words to family/ carers of disabled people.

My eldest is Autistic. He is bright and engaging and wonderful. He however, needs more than just a few adaptions to navigate life. He will most likely always need carers. I can't envisage society adjustments that would make him able to function fully independantly.

His world is so different to the mainstream one we actually live in that it is really challenging to be his carer and plan every meticulous detail of life, then manage the traumas when invariably things don't always go to plan. Its also very challenging to be him. I don't believe the two are mutually exclusive.

I'm open to learning but why is it derogatory to him if someone allows me a moment of self pity?

Great post Goose highlights many ways Disabled people and families are blamed by society. Even if it's in small drip feed ways, it's constant being aware your existence is a nusience or at best tolerated. That you cost society money, that's in short supply so you should be greatful for what you get.

Any tiny wins you do get you are not allowed to keep yet constantly have to assert your rights over, Accesable toilets, bus spaces says no more it's fight fight fight all the way. Then no one wants to be friends with that disabled child or child needs more support, or live next to that supported housing all very suffocating.

I'm also very close to leaving over this. It's not a supportive or enjoyable place to be.

I really hope mumsnet understand that for everyone person complaining, there are 20 others feeling just as bad, they don't voice it because they are worried their lifeline to others with disabled children will get cut.

I'm out too. MN is fast becoming an unpleasant intolerant place to be, and life is too short (and frankly too complicated) to have to wade through disablist rubbish here as well as in real life. I've been on MN for years under various names, but I've been taking longer and longer breaks lately due to this. It's just not pleasant or enjoyable anymore.

Bishops will you pm me please
I am not allowed to pm you and I am worried about you
I don't want to talk about anything on here (for everyone else's paranoid benefit)

Bishop it makes uncomfortable reading but I can all too well relate in my own way. I can remember just lying in bed wishing that I would sleep and wouldn't wake, that the world would just stop. My balance was tipped by a particularly insensitive troll (this is going back maybe 10 years) i didn't even know what a troll was. I'm not a contentious poster and got caught in some cross fire and found myself feeling like a complete fool online (one of only a couple of deletions I've ever had) and failing in real life particularly as a parent with DS1's behaviour violent and sleeping/toileting/schooling headaches. As a single parent i'd only just moved to a new area before XH moved out and was truely alone, financially sunk and for good measure HMRC decided to do a full investigation of my financial situation and freeze my tax credits.

I really feel sad for those who have deregged, I understand why. I also don't want to have to continually beg MNHQ for scraps of dignity and the odd nod to stopping disabilism.

I know that there have been times that this has been my one lifeline. An existance beyond a way too trying real life. I hope that those who've felt forced out aren't now too isolated and even more vulnerable.

Its just such a sad situation all round. I'm normally proactive at finding productive ways to move forward. Right now I'm a bit stumped. No amount of polite talking appears to be helping sway things but I don't want to become agressive or disruptive to make change either.

Well MNHQ just popped up to delete a thread about gay marriage so they are here, they are reading.

And I can only take from that that they genuinely don't give a fuck.

I'm out.