Whenever a parent murders their disabled child, the narrative is always the same: Those poor parents, under so much stress, having to care for someone who couldn’t care for themselves. When describing the murdered child, there’s usually the same litany of physical limitations. They couldn’t walk. They would have needed to be bathed, toileted, dressed for the rest of their life (had they been allowed to have one). They were on oxygen or would have needed to be eventually. They weren’t even able to eat on their own; they were forced to use a feeding tube. How horrible.

On average, one disabled person a week is murdered by a parent or caregiver. The articles that cover those once-a-week deaths as mercies are, for all intents and purposes, describing me. Hard not to let that get at you, even if you’re able to articulate the many fucked up angles of that particular argument. Even if you believe all those arguments are particularly fucked up.

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