Thursday, September 5, 2013

Empathy, Familiarity, and Murder

This is my current thoughts about the latest tragedy in the autism community. I am not meaning any of it sarcastically, or rhetorically.

When one person commits a heinous act of murdering her child we scream "Nail her to the cross!"

But, if someone we have kind feelings. and positive associations with does the very same thing, society gathers to defend said person.

I am trying to understand how the two are different.. How is the action, the result, the crime committed, the pain inflicted different between person 1 and person 2?  How did the facts change? Is it just your view that changed? If so, should people be treated differently with different consequences due to how we *feel* about what they've done, and less by the  the action itself?

I have sat all day thinking on this issue, and trying to find reasoning in it, but I just can't. I am not a cold callous individual. I don't believe in the concept of good, and evil. I think sometimes when someone does something as unthinkable as trying to kill their child there are mitigating factors. I'm not an unreasonable person. As a matter fact, I'm a very logical person and today's reaction from the autism community to the tragic news of a mother trying to harm her child is not making sense in my head. If a stranger harms another being is it still not the same amount of harm being inflicted if it is your best friend doing it? Does the harm amount to less if it's a familiar person? If the harm is the same, then why should punishment be any different? Why does one scenario have almost all of the autism community saying in unison that lack of services is never a reason to kill your child, but today that is different? This case is different, because...?

This isn't me talking about disability rights, or who could have, or should have done what. This is me trying to make sense of the social concept of empathizing with a murderer/attempted murderer, because this person evokes familiar feelings of love, and care. I am not as angry as I am confused. How I feel about the action of the mother in this case is another post entirely. For now, I am lost in what appears to be a social custom that I cannot wrap my head around. Others are free to hold their own opinions. I'm just trying to understand them.


*Please keep comments respectful, and read this before you blame my autism for not understanding your POV. Thank you.

11 comments:

  1. As far as a familiar person is concerned, I think there is always a degree of "What could I have done? What should I have seen?" I didn't know this woman (read her blog a time or two, but not recently) so I think for me personally, I have more sympathy for the murder-suicide than I do for a straight up murder. While both are hideous, awful and should be avoided at all costs, in the case of a M-S it isn't someone who just wants to be done with a person so much as a person who just wants to be done with life. To me that is more pitiable than a vicious stabbing murder where the mother walked away. Just my 2 cents though.

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    1. The mother in the other case did make a feeble attempt at suicide. It seemed not very genuine of an attempt to me, but it there was an attempt at her own life.

      I sympathize with Izzy. That is about it. For me personally, I'm unable to give a pass at a fellow blogger, and with all those connections she could have asked for help. She could have said to any of her close friends that she had had enough. She could have chosen to take her own life, and leave her daughter the chance to live without her, but she didn't make that choice. Thankfully, Izzy may pull through, and my thoughts are with her at this time.

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  2. I am struggling with this, too. I am glad you shared your thoughts--it helps me gather my own.People often band together for emotional support. I have always been about the facts. Emotion distorts. Thank you.

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    1. Thank you for your comments. I knew I couldn't be the only autistic person out there upset with not just another autistic child harmed, but the double standard in which it is being viewed though.

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  3. i am shocked by the news and yes the fact that so many of us had come across the mother's blog, seen Isabelle's pictures, maybe even the unfortunate videos her mother decided to post make this a closer, more intimate experience than those of other, recent cases whose families were in the media only after the act.
    like you i feel a need to understand, if not the mother whose attempted murder suicide is for me a crime, motivated possibly through psychosis rather than premeditation but nevertheless a crime, then at least all these other parents, her 'online friends' who now blog along with the media about it. i want to know if they too felt that there was something toxic about the way Isabelle's mother was going about in her battle for support, in her battles for suppression of aggressive behaviour in her daughter.
    i want to know if there is data on the recent cases of parents killing their children and if psychologist have researched the real motivations, the tipping point, the typical behaviours we could watch out for, in others, but also in ourselves. when the battle for your child becomes a battle for yourself, for the 'cure', for the 'cause' and in the end, there is abuse, neglect, total disrespect to privacy or even murder.. then i have no admiration for these 'autism warrior parents'. i feel sadness for the child and for the entire family. i see only pain.

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    1. I can't say I have ever read her blog, but when I did a Google search of Izzy's name for this post, so I could link it to a news story, I did notice how much the mother was always vying for attention/support/help ect... She used their full names, videos, and pictures. I do talk a lot about my kids on my blog, and on my blog's FB page. But, I use pseudonyms for my family, and typically videos, and pictures are deleted after a day or 2. I just don't feel comfortable having my life out in public like that.

      PS. I HATE it when people call me a 'warrior mom'.

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    2. i have similar feelings on the publicity of it all. the videos are particularly painful.
      there is too much 'war' in 'warrior mom'.

      (as i am writing this just got an email about my son hitting a boy in school. argh.)

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  4. "If a stranger harms another being is it still not the same amount of harm being inflicted if it is your best friend doing it?"

    Yeah, it seems like when someone you know does it, it's suddenly an act of love? When a man murders his wife, is that an act of love also? Apparently moms have a special waiver to kill our kids whenever we want because we "love" them? Because they sometimes kick, hit or bite us? That makes it all right?

    I don't get it either. And I hope it's not just because I'm Autistic, but just because sh*t like this doesn't make any sense. Ugh!

    We should have seen it coming from a mile away. The blog was called The Status Woe, for crap's sake. She was all "woe is me" from the get go.

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    1. I noticed the name, too. I was not familiar with the blog. Seems that I ran into before, but it wasn't my cup of tea.

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  5. It seems to me it should be MORE heinous if it's someone close to you. After all, when you're close to someone, you're expected to trust them and believe they care about you, so when they do something like this, it's a betrayal of the trust and faith we're expected to assign to them.

    There's no excuse for harming anyone who isn't trying to harm you. Period. When the person doing the harming is someone the rules say the victim is supposed to trust, that's not merely a physical harm, that's a psychic harm as well. That makes it more heinous than any random stranger harming you, by far.

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