My disabled 19-year-old daughter was shopping in the U-District.
Knowing her, she was probably walking around with her purse partly
open, in spite of my frequent reminders about how risky that is. Before
she left the U-District, she realized that her wallet was gone. She had
about $50 cash, her ID, and her cash card from Social Security and
DSHS. I bet that you used it for meth, coke, heroin, or whatever you
use to indulge your worthless lowlife body.
I want you to know that my daughter had a stroke two years ago. She
has right-sided partial paralysis, memory loss, speech deficits, and a
lack of street smarts. Since she’s 19, she’s legally an adult, so she
can come and go as she pleases. Cognitively, she is somewhat regressed,
with typical rebellious teenage behavior, but not equipped with what it
takes to have the independence she desperately craves.
If you are able to read through your drug-saturated fog, chew on
this: Karma exists. I hope that one day you suffer a massive
coke-induced stroke. After tons of intensive rehab, you’re able to
walk. You go out, shop, and thanks to your damaged frontal lobe, you
mouth-off to the wrong crack dealer. He beats the crap out of you and
heaves your bleeding broken body into a Dumpster to die. I hope that no
one saves you, because you’re not worth the time and money that
Harborview would have to spend on you. Even your drug-ravaged organs
wouldn’t help a transplant patient.
I look forward to reading your story, then I’ll thank karma for the
payoff. 
How do you know she didn’t just lose it? I’m not disabled, and I lose shit all the time.
Part of going through “typical rebellious teenage behavior” is making stupid mistakes… AND LEARNING FROM THEM. I’ll wager that your daughter will zip up her purse and keep an eye on it from now on.
Consider it a relatively benign life-lesson. Bonus lesson: she now gets to take on the adult responsibility of changing her locks, cancelling her credit cards and replacing her i.d.
The world is full of people who want to take what you have, whether they be junkies or multinational corporations. Learn to navigate or be lost forever.
Anon, so sorry to hear about what happened to your daughter. It’s tough when the law says she’s an adult, but cognitively she’s not quite up to being as independent as she wants to be. But maybe there is some agency or organization in your area you can go to for advice or help?
Depending on where you live, you might even be able to get legal guardianship, so you can better protect her. Maybe it’s worth talking to a lawyer about it?
goog point leggomyeggo..it’s hard to tell with gimps these days…sigh.
I can think of a zillion worse things that can be done to someone who’s disabled, like punching a blind woman on the bus. And wasn’t there a crime a few years ago where some thieves pushed a woman out of her wheelchair and stole the wheelchair? Who’s to say that this thief knew the daughter was cognitively impaired?
@2: She has fucking brain damage, you judgmental asshat. She might not be able to learn.
wishing a stroke on this accused thief is a bit ironic. maybe childish. maybe. maybe not.
bottomline; pick pockets exist. have for quite a long time. they really don’t discriminate. they don’t go get a resume of their victems prior to the crime.
she’ll learn from it. be much wiser for it. i wish her luck.
@6 If she can “rebel” she can learn. I’m sorry that she had to learn the hard way, but my comment stands.
Great avatar, BTW.
Coke induced stroke? Is that what happened to the disabled girl? Maybe she spent the money on coke again and made up the story about getting ripped off. Disability does not cure addiction.
How does the mom know the perp is a drug addict? Does the daughter leave home to find drugs in a specific drug infested neighborhood?
I’m bored of parents who wish horrible deaths on individuals who commit small-to-medium infractions against their children. Boooo-ring.
I’m not saying that robbing your daughter doesn’t make that guy (girl?) a douchebag (at best), or that your daughter deserved it, but really? Especially if the guy’s a pitiful drug addict. Given that chemical dependence is widely recognized as a neurological disease, you would think that Anonymous would have a tiny bit of sympathy for them. After all, most people don’t resort to petty theft because they’re evil–they do it because they’re desparate.
Again, not condoning the crime. But this country has entirely too many bloodthirsty, torso-for-an-eye reactionaries like you roaming around and calling for vigilante justice (or “karma”).
Happy Thanksgiving. Be thankful she is still able to go out on her own, and to the jerk who stole her wallet, What gives yo?
Well, I don’t believe in karma, at least not the way most people who use the term seem to. A petty thief deserves a drawn-out, painful death for stealing something from your daughter’s purse?
Really? I would have settled for the thief going to jail and my daughter getting her money back.
If she had a stroke two years ago, when she was still a minor, I’m sure you’ve had a battery of tests to determine the extent of the damage and her capacity for recovery. Since she is “legally an adult” I can only conclude that the tests showed that, though diminished from what she was before, she still has the capacity to legally act as an adult as well.
So start treating her like one. I imagine her “rebellious” behaviour is due to over-protective parenting. So let her make mistakes. She’s young. She’ll learn.
Understand that karma is not some sort of metaphysical, moral boomerang. Karma is the psychological result of thoughts, intentions, and actions. The more you live your live attached to greed, ill-will, and delusion, the more attached to those things you will continue to be, which will only cause you suffering. In this case, the REAL karma is wishing ill-will upon some anonymous person for an action that may or may not have even taken place. The more you look upon the world like this, the more you will suffer. THAT is karma. I’m sorry to hear what you are going through with your daughter, and I’m sorry that she lost her wallet, whether it was actually stolen or not, but the only path to freedom for all parties involved is compassion. Sorry to be all preachy, but I felt I had to say it.
That is: “The more you live your LIFE.”
Sorry about the loss, but wishing a horrible death on someone over material loss? Isn’t that a little extreme? That person is probbly living through their own personal hell right now so let it go.
Whoa, whoa. What if the person robbed your daughter to support *their* disabled daughter? Or the robber was also developmentally disabled?
Agree with @13. Death upon a petty thief? Over-the-top.
>Especially if the guy’s a pitiful drug addict. Given that chemical dependence is widely recognized as a neurological disease, you would think that Anonymous would have a tiny bit of sympathy for them. After all, most people don’t resort to petty theft because they’re evil–they do it because they’re desparate.
@10 –
That’s a bunch of bs. It doesn’t become a “disease” until you’ve already done something stupid. You become a drug addict by abusing drugs that most people already know are addictive. There are some people who never use drugs and only drink alcohol in moderation (or not at all). You CHOOSE whether or not to engage in behaviors that put you at risk for addiction. In other words, you become a drug addict by making stupid choices in the first place. It might not mean you’re evil, but it does mean you’re stupid. A stroke is something you can’t prevent or control. Therefore, a stroke victim is worthy of much more sympathy than someone whose “desperation” is self-inflicted.
In any case, if an addict is that desperate they could choose to get help instead of steal. Other addicts have done it and gotten clean, so it must be possible.
>If she had a stroke two years ago, when she was still a minor, I’m sure you’ve had a battery of tests to determine the extent of the damage and her capacity for recovery. Since she is “legally an adult” I can only conclude that the tests showed that, though diminished from what she was before, she still has the capacity to legally act as an adult as well.
You assume too much. That’s not how the law works. A great number of homeless people are homeless because they are mentally ill, usually schizophrenic. But the law says they can’t be institutionalized without consent unless they are “a danger to themselves or others” which is usually interpreted to mean suicidal or homicidal. Plenty of people who test at a cognitive level of a child are legally adults UNLESS they have a relative with a GOOD lawyer in the right state who can successfully win a court case declaring themselves to be guardians over that adult. That’s what I would recommend this person try to do, but it is not easy.
the pickpocket (if there even was one) could have easily been a non-cokehead teenage girl. It’s more difficult to wish a horrible death to someone who is not so different from your daughter.
@17 – I think you are right on target about chemical dependence. I do not believe chemical dependence is anything at all like a neurological disease, nor does it even resemble one. (Cerebral Palsy is an example of a neurological disease, as are ALS and Parkinsons, I believe.) Based on my experience and observation, chemical dependence is a scenario brought about by the making of certain choices, the exercising of free will. It is a conscious, (and, in this day and age, an informed) CHOICE people make to behave in certain ways.
There’s nothing more pathetic and impotent than someone shrieking threats about eventual personal retribution through “karma”
I’m not a mother but can understand her wrath. It’s really not about the person ( if there was one) that took her daughter’s wallet, but the writer’s feeling of powerlessness to protect her offspring… She’s as pissed at herself as she is the offender.
@13: Actually, Karma IS “some sort of metaphysical, moral boomerang.” I think we Westerners need another word for “you get what you deserve” because Karma happens BETWEEN lives, not WITHIN lives. So if you rob a disabled girl in this life, you’ll come back as a goat with cataracts in the next life. Karma’s one of those afterlife promises designed to make people feel better about powerlessness over their shitty lives, but even the Buddhists new better than to suggest you’d get your payback while you were still alive.
@23 You have a right to your opinion and beliefs, but I completely (though respectfully) disagree with you. I was essentially paraphrasing the Buddha’s teaching in my earlier post. It is absolutely NOT about an “afterlife” or “payback” according to my understanding and interpretations of the teachings. He was concerned with what happens in the mind, and his karmic teachings focused on that.
This week I found a wallet, with about $250 cash, 4 credits cards, and ID. For a fleeting moment, I thought–“yay, I really need this money!” Then I decided keeping that wallet was the kind of bad karma I didn’t need, and how would I feel if I lost my wallet? I was surprised to find it only took 15 minutes to find the person’s phone number and call them to return it. They didn’t even thank me, but I think it was worth it anyway.
I had a stroke at 19 and I know where you are coming from as a parent. Even though she craves that independence, YOU CANNOT GIVE IT TO HER!!! Legal adult she may be, but a child she still is, and you cannot just leave her to wander public places with a skewed view of reality. You are lucky its just a stolen wallet this time, but, if she is disabled enough to be robbed, then she is disabled enough to have something much worse happen to her. Be a parent.
I agree with 12, your daughter may be disabled, but that doesn’t mean she can’t learn. If she really is legally an adult, and tests have been made to say that she is, treat her like one. I for one, think that if you don’t give her independence, she can’t learn to live for herself. What about when you are gone? Parents teach their children to be independent, do they not? And how can you tell she isn’t equipped for it, if she has never been allowed it? Judging from this, it seems as if she is learning that she can’t be trusted to make her own decisions.
Disabled, you of all should know, doesn’t mean stupid.
it sounds like it was gangstas. don’t judge them, mugging old people and the disabled is just how they celebrate their lowly way of life
Anonymous,
Your daughter lost her wallet. Why assume somebody picked her pocket? You say she leaves her purse hanging open. It could have just fallen out. You, yourself, admit she’s careless and behaves irresponsibly. She lost her wallet and some cash and had to cancel her credit cards, she wasn’t mugged, pistol whipped, or raped. If she still had the capacity to learn from her mistakes, she won’t be irresponsible with her purse again…unless of course, you bailed her out of financial trouble. Then all she’ll learn is “If I screw up, it’s not my fault and mommy/daddy will bail me out!”. Wishing permanent injury, misery, and death at somebody who hit a small jackpot in a bad economy was a way over the top response.
Does robbing someone who is disabled worse than robbing a healthy person, or one who is only moderately unhealthy? What if you’re sick with more than one disease? Would you place robbery against someone with brain damage as worse than robbery of a terminal patient?
I’m wondering so I can tell the next pickpocket I see to ask before doing it so he can assess which one in the crowd he can rob safely.
No matter what happened, I think you should know editorial director of this paper, Dan Savage, calls people like your daughter “tards”. I wonder how that makes you feel? Maybe he was the robber, for all the “respect” he gives th differently abled. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…
@31.
Yes, he does.
And you call people such as myself (even though I’m Bi, not Gay) f*gs, in almost every comment.
How many examples of the pot calling the kettle black are there in this f*cked up universe?
At the very least, take another venue to espouse your hatred of Savage, or have another person say it. Much too hypocritical.
@32.
It was 3 weeks of taking the polite way, and when people obviously don’t give a flying fuck, you do whatever gets the most attention and hurts the most to rectify the situation. These comments are only directed towards Savage, not anyone else, so we’re extremely clear. If it kicks up a stir, so be it, then I can get back to supporting the gay community after I’m finished with Savage. How long do you think it would take to organize a boycott of his paper? How many people would even support it, seeing as using “retard” is okay in the mass media. I’ll take this route happily, thank you.
#3 said: Depending on where you live, you might even be able to get legal guardianship, so you can better protect her. Maybe it’s worth talking to a lawyer about it?
I wouldn’t think this is very good advice. When I was finishing my undergrad, I worked as an ABA therapist with autistic children for four years. Autism isn’t quite the same thing, but I will say this nonetheless. I believe with disabled children, you really, really want to strive for normalcy. Babying this girl will do her no good; you want her to realize, as you would want any 19 year old to realize, that she is an adult now and has to start taking responsibility. If this mother were to follow her child around 24/7, making sure she is safe and has her purse zipped up, she will never learn on her own. That is the same with any child or adult, low-functioning or high-functioning. You always want to give as few prompts as possible throughout their day-to-day lives. If this girl can go off shopping on her own, and find her way back safely, than I say let her go off on her own. Following her around all the time will only result in her regressing.
I recall one kid that I worked with, he absolutely hated some plants (no kind of plant in particular; some big, some small, some fuzzy, some prickly … it was totally random if he decided he did not like it). One SCA suggested that we just get rid of all plants in his home and school, that way he wouldn’t be stressed out all the time. We didn’t agree with this suggestion, because the reality is that, we can never make a perfect, safe little world for a disabled child. This child, even though we have compassion for his situation, you can’t let him have his way all the time. What if this kid had a home without any plants, and he were to walk over to the convenient store one day and saw a plant he did not like? He would explode with anxiety. With a child like this, he has to learn the hard way that he must tolerate some plants in the world, even if he does not want to, because they are not going to go away. Same thing with Anon’s little girl; she has to learn to protect herself if she wants to live independently, otherwise she will not learn. I know it sounds cruel, but sometimes you do have to give these children tough love, and really push them through their challenges.
And yes, she can learn … someone suggested that she might not be able to, but that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. People can learn, it just takes some a little extra time.
Oh, and taking drugs or alcohol is a conditioned behaviour. You choose to do it, and you condition your body to continue intaking those drugs. Yes, it can turn into a disease, but at some point, an addict made a conscious decision to take drugs. Yes, I have compassion for addicts; I believe we should help addicts as opposed to throwing them in jail periodically, only to throw them back on the streets. However, the first step in helping an addict, is to disallow an addict to view themselves as a victim. If we tell them their addiction was entirely caused by a disease, than we give them an excuse; we let them be “victims of this so-called disease”. Addicts have to realize that they are responsible for their addiction, and they have to further realize THEY are responsible for getting clean; not their families, not their friends, not the police–they are.
For anyone that has actually known an addict, a lot of their behaviour is a choice. They are a kind of people that never take responsibility for their own actions. There is always an avenue or an excuse to justify why they have hurt someone. I think that, denial comes from refusing to admit they made a horrible decision, and their addiction, in a lot of ways, is their own fault.
@33.
Get back to supporting the gay community after you’re done with Savage? What the hell? You’re insulting him only as a person who is gay. Not as an idiot, nothing else but with a homophobic slur! Would you call a black man who said the same thing the n word? Would you call a woman the c word? A homophobic slur is just that, homophobic. If a guy called me the c word I would take it as sexist, not as anything else. HE says the t word, but if you hate him that much, you’re stooping to his level! Attacking him as a person who is gay just makes people focus on that, not what he has actually done, it makes you seem like a hypocrite. @sshole would have done just fine.
Besides, did other civil rights groups/movements give up because a slur was prevalent? The f word, the n word and the c word have been the same, as is demonstrated by yourself.
God, at least TRY! If anything, more people would actually listen to you, other than dismiss you, if you had something serious going on and weren’t calling people the f word!
@ Hello, regarding number 36, sure, if I thought it would get to them. Thing is, I and a lot of people already tried the “civil” route. People barely responded or cared. It’s been three long weeks so I thought I’d try a different route, and so here we are. This is all I’ll explain to you, as I’m unfortunately here for results, not a dialogue. I actually used to respect that bigoted fuck and enjoy his column, but he NEEDS to wake up.
Yes, he has. But I have read your comments, and rarely, if at all, do you mention that he used the t word. Instead, you simply call him a
“jack*ss STD infested semen hole” “F*GGOT” “you f*cking F*G” “Come on, F*GGOT *ss pussy, where are you now? Passed out on the floor after an all night anal gangbang,” “you filthy STD infested cum dumpster F*GGOT!”
And that’s only 5 of your comments. I see only homophobic insults, never anything else. They became a sea of hateful ink. After a while I felt the need to ask you, how does that help your cause, pray tell? The occasional mention of what he did, and then all of the homophobic crap.
“hope you choke on the baboon cock you’re caught sucking, F*GGOT.”
“sh!t eating, semen bathing idiot”
“piss drinking fudgepacker”
“Or why don’t we just call him a capital F F*GGOT, he obviously doesn’t give two sh!ts about bigotry”
“you f*cking FLAMER”
How many of those did you write to him?
But the last one I will use to prove my point today? Voila.
“F*GGOT felcher? You’re NO better than anyone who’s ever bashed you with a gay slur. Never forget that.”
And to you, the second sentence in that quote, with a bit of a revision.
You are no better than Dan Savage.
Never forget THAT.
*Note, had to block a few letters, in case it wasn’t just a bit obvious.
@31 – Sort of off topic, but Savage started a campaign over a year ago to get people to stop using the term retarded, as in, “that’s so retarded” and to use the term “leotarded”, instead. I thought it was a pretty leotarded idea, myself, but appreciated the gesture.
Even the article itself that uses the term “tard” in the title but not the text was, if anything, somewhat supportive of down’s syndrome.
I couldn’t tell you why he chose the wording for the caption (which I’m not enthused about but am definitely lacking in outrage over), but he’s got a good record and an absence of any apparent malice. I don’t quite see the grounds for this campaign.
“Fuck Bigots”, you’re a total retard.
@40.
Seriously? I just copied that many quotes for nothing?.. Well, anyway, thank you. It wasn’t really the word itself, it was more the slurs that the guy himself (F.B.) used that made me go insane. That’s more what the thing was over from my side at least. I still sounded like a jack*ss, but anyway, that’s where I was.
God I have PMS.
Hasn’t anyone in Seattle graduated from college yet? All your fucking arguing about who called whom what reminds me of the stupidest morons in every fucking political science class I had to take 20 fucking years ago.
funny to try and evoke the metaphysical force of Karma, because that would indicate that your daughter’s disability stems from bad behaviour in at least one of her past lives… maybe instead of ranting online you should spend your time hanging out with the little lady so this doesn’t happen, again.
DEAR EVERYONE:
this is about my sister.
our mother overreacts to literally everything. a week later an old woman contacted us with the wallet. my sister had dropped it at the bus stop. please disregard this article entirely.
THANK YOU.
@45
HA! That’s hilarious. Poor you that you’re stuck with a mother like that. Here’s to hoping you’re 18 and already moved out from home.
Why are there so many insane mothers out there by the way? Fathers are never nutso like this.
nope I’m still a minor. she’s actually a great mom other than the overreactions.
yeah fathers can be too; it’s called abusive.
@ 17 & 20.
there IS such a thing as an addictive personality. meaning whether it’s drugs, gambling, relationships, food, whatever…those people have a biological tendency to “need” something more than a typical person.
having this kind of personality or “chemical disorder” doesn’t just HAPPEN after making a bad choice. it manifests as that choice, as these people are unknowingly searching for their next comfort.
lol, anyways, it doesn’t matter, the girl lost her wallet!!!
@ 48, fair enough, except for the part about these people “unknowingly” searching for their next comfort. I like to give people a little more credit than that…even if they’re feeling withdrawl symptoms or whatever, that doesn’t somehow wipe out the person’s free will, and it certainly doesn’t make them “unknowing” of what it is they are doing. Having an addictive personality doesn’t mean a person doesn’t know what is going on or cannot control themselves. It may mean self-control is more difficult for them to achieve than for the average person, but it doesn’t automatically turn people into brainless automatons unknowingly committing certain acts. It’s like saying addictive people are totally mindless/amnesiac, brain-damaged to the point of having lost all reason and free will. I don’t think that is the case. It’s something else going on. And I still don’t believe that addictive personalities fall under the umbrella of neurological disorders. Maybe it’s just a semantic issue here, though…
its funny that in so many of these articles, the author or someone close to the author will post to this board to explain what happened AFTER this letter was written. usually, negating the whole controversy all together.
at 47’s reply i’m kind of confused by how you think a father’s similar overreactions would be called ‘abusive’?
huh? so if the father had written this crazy letter to the stranger, it would have been abusive? sounds like you’ve got some other issues at home with dad. anyway….
just don’t write a letter to the stranger about it.
it seemed to me that 46 was implying that mothers can be “nutso” while fathers very rarely are so. I was saying that this isn’t the case as domestic violence coming from the father figure of a household is considerably common. I was not equating overreaction with abuse.
and I don’t have issues with my dad; I just know what goes on in our society.
So, if “Karma exists,” I wonder what this lady did to deserve a retarded kid?
Those who truly believe karma exists would also
believe that the disabled daughter *may* have
done something in a past life to warrant
her currrent situation – perhaps stealing from
a disabled person.
I am not sure about this.
Where does karma start?
It has no beginning.
Where does karma end?
*It ends with you right now if you choose to end it.*
I am sure about this one thing: it definitely
is bad karma to wish bad karma on others,
regardless of what they may have done to you
or yours.
I guess it’s not even remotely possible that someone who was merely broke and hungry saw an easy way to get to eat that day. No one can be poor without being evil/lazy/stupid/weak.