Cages

Alice Hewitt writes Cages from Tumblr

Trigger warnings for the abuse and murder of autistic persons

I am angry.

On October the 20th a 19 year old autistic boy was found locked in a cage, this was not the first time this has happened.

Sometimes they are not literal cages, sometimes it’s a locked room

or a dog kennel.

There are other things that are kept in cages, in locked rooms, in dog kennels.

Wild animals, dangerous equipment, dogs. 

I am angry.

My mind leaps to Issy Stapleton, animalised and demonised by the media, ‘violent’ they said as if trying to kill your own daughter was not violence. 

'Walk in her shoes' I am told every day, 'sympathise with the murderers'.

But then who is left to sympathise with the children, the youth, for gods sake, the adults who are abandoned and mistreated by those meant to care for them. Who will mourn for them, who will cry for them if not us.

I am angry

I am tired of opening up the news everyday and seeing another sibling, another cousin, dead, or locked up or abused, I am angry at the sights of cold steel bars and police tape that accompany the stories.

But most of all I am tired, no matter how much we shout and scream they do not listen, the list to grieve for keeps getting bigger and bigger. We are losing children.

I am tired.

I am tired of fighting, I am tired of the death and misery and pain, I am tired of screaming, I am tired of being in my own cages, not of autism, because no matter what we say we are not locked inside ourselves.

I am tired of the cages society puts me in, keeping me from going outside, keeping me from getting to school, trying desperately to keep me quiet and complacent.

It is starting to work.

So today, I ask that you be angry for me. I know so many of you are tired and that is all right, but today, today you need to be angry. For me, for Issy, for Vincent, for Alex, for Jaelen, for Melissa, for George, for Daniel and for everybody else out there, murdered and abused and in a cage.