Everybody deserves kindness, compassion, and empathy.
Ableist people also include people that idealize not being ableist. They come up with excuses like, “I’m not being ableist, I’m just giving you hard love!”, or, “You need to do what I say and do it exactly how I say because I care about you!”.
There was a reddit thread on the frontpage recently where many people were dog-piling on a severely disabled person. The person was diagnosed with moderate autism with intellectual disability, a severe heart condition, severe PTSD, and ADHD.
Many people came into the thread to say that OP was making up their disability, that OP should be institutionalized if they can’t comply with the unreasonable (and harmful to OP’s health) demands from their relative, they accused OP of being a troll because their doctor wouldn’t give them bad advice (OP bought $30 dollars worth of alcohol every couple months to entertain with friends with their doctor’s blessing), they shamed OP for not getting a job when they can barely stand up on their own two feet (and OP’s doctor/therapist/psychiatrist say OP can’t work), and so forth.
OP’s aunt was fining OP (who is on a limited income of $1000 a month and charging OP $500 a month for rent) $200 dollars for every instance of them not doing their chores exactly how their aunt wanted and behaving in the way that the aunt wanted. OP was a formal tenant, and living in a split unit and was mostly independent, though unable to do things like take out the trash. If OP reached fines totaling $2000 dollars, OP’s aunt threatened them with institutionalization and/or homelessness.
Commenters said how sick OP’s story made them (the sickness being directed towards OP), how bad they felt for OP’s aunt, they commented how OP’s aunt’s demands were completely justified because her resentment built for many years from “putting up” with OP, they said how disgusted they are were at OP’s “laziness”, and many chimed into to say how they are also disabled and OP doesn’t deserve special attention or care because OP is a grown adult. Most repeating constantly that they weren’t being ableist.
Some people even coaxed OP into detailing their sexual relations with others, while questioning OP about their heart condition.
It was truly heartbreaking to witness an incredibly vulnerable person being abused to that degree by their relative and hundreds, if not thousands, of redditors. OP eventually deleted their reddit account.
I read enough of OP’s comments and looked at their past commenting/post history and it was pretty clear that it was a cry for help. It wasn’t for karma - they deleted their account. OP was nothing but polite and responded to many comments.
Of course, I do realize that there is a lot of junk, especially on the front page.
It’s not hard to give somebody the benefit of the doubt, be compassionate, and direct them to services and resources that can help them. It takes much more effort to be hateful, doubtful, and judgemental.
OP’s last comment was them admitting that they should be institutionalized, they also admitted that they were probably being lazy given the massive amounts of comments accusing them of such behavior.
OP didn’t give off the air of being unable to live independently, they just couldn’t do physical chores, like taking out the garbage, because their heart rate would go up to 200~ upon standing.
If OP just hired a cleaning service - problem solved.