Mom of Autistic Child Finds Offensive Messages Left on Car Window
SANDY, UTAH – July 16, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) – A Sandy woman whose five-year-old son suffers from autism is taking a stand today after someone left disturbing messages on her mom’s car window last night.
Eliese Livingston first noticed signs that something wasn’t right in her son’s communication skills at around 18 months. Just before Kyler turned two, he was seeing a speech therapist and when he was two-and-a-half he was medically diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, mixed expressive/receptive language disorder, and an unspecified sleeping disorder. Last year he was diagnosed with disruptive behavior disorder.
In support of Kyler, Eliese’s mom has a sticker of awareness on her car that says “Autistic child may not respond to verbal commands.” Eliese’s mom had been visiting with her and Kyler on Tuesday around 6 p.m. When Eliese’s husband Donald arrived around 7:30 p.m., he noticed someone decided to send a message of their own about Kyler.
Written on three stickers and placed just around the autism sign that was on the vehicle, were the words “undisciplined,” “unetitled” [sic] and “spoiled brat.”
“My first reaction was anger,” said Eliese. “Then I started to think about the other autistic children that come to my home who are older and can read. What would they think if they had read those messages?”
Her next reaction was of concern for the safety of her family. “It felt like an intrusion on my privacy, the car is parked right up next to my front door. The thought of having those people come to my home and I didn’t even know it is kind of disturbing,” said Eliese. “We are talking about getting motion detected lights outside our house and maybe a camera.”
Eliese decided to do some investigating on her own. She went door to door asking neighbors if they had seen who had placed the stickers on her car or anything else suspicious. No one saw anything.
Eliese then decided to seek support in the court of public opinion. She started by posting a picture of the offensive stickers on a private Facebook page for other moms with autistic kids named “BigMAKS.” The response has been overwhelming. Not only is she receiving love and support from those in the social media networks, the main stream media is also taking notice of her story. Elies says the attention is worth it if it helps raise awareness about the challenges autism poses to millions worldwide.
Eliese already does a lot to help ensure her son gets the best care and education possible. She is the treasurer for the Kingree Autism Center, where her son goes to school. She’s also part of a group which lobbies state legislators on issues concerning autism. “Not only am I constantly trying to raise awareness to those who are uneducated when it comes autism, but I am part of a larger community that supports one another,” said Eliese. “Although autism awareness has become huge over the last four years, there are still people out there that have no idea what autism is or how it affects someone.”
Eliese, and her husband, Donald, moved into their Sandy home just one month ago. And while they are angered and perplexed by the recent turn of events, they’ve decided to embrace the adversity. “We received an idea from my sister to start a Facebook page for our neighborhood that would help raise awareness, for not only my son, but for other kids that have special needs around here.”
Isn’t it something how Autism see with innocent eyes and a mind with full understanding sees so much evil!!! I’d rather have an Autistic mind that does not see a bald head when my wig was removed, only me. He just said “are we still going fishing
I wouldn’t care much about these stickers…the writer could even spell.
One of the problems with Autism is, that the child ( or grown up) show no real signs of disability, yet acts out in ways that most deem socially unacceptable. Plus there are so many different levels. Knowing a young boy for over 11 years now, he is now a big teenager who runs into people’s houses, needs to have locks on every door, including the refrigerator and kitchen cabinets, needs 24 hour supervision. Sometimes he doesn’t sleep which means his mom doesn’t sleep. He wears a diaper still, and he weighs nearly 185 and is 5 foot 10 inch solid mass of muscle. He is only 14 years old. He doesn’t speak. He screams to communicate. His mom is a close friend of mine. To see the level of decline she goes through just to take care of her son is too much to stand. Although she has case workers who come into her home a few hours a day to help ( he has to wear a safety belt around his waist so the worker can grab him is he bolts when outside) she can’t work a regular job. It’s summer now so he doesn’t go to his special school now, but sometimes he gets sick and she has to stay home with him. She doesn’t have a car, because she doesn’t have the money. She spends her entire life watching and trying to enrich her sons life.
A simple trip to my house used to require a total sweep of all the jars, coins, shampoo, and everything else he could possibly ingest. Even then, he ate an entire jar of Vaseline and another time drank a brand new bottle of shampoo. And we were watching him. Turn your head for a second, and his life could end in an instant.
So ponder on this…and think twice before you judge a child acting out in a store, or hear a kid screaming or running. Because honestly, I know Autism. And I don’t know how these moms do it. And my friend is a single parent. Oh. And it goes without saying, she can own nothing. He can destroy everything..and does.
And don’t bother saying ” there are government agencies” to help, because they don’t help all that much. It’s too sad to witness. So let this sticker wielding vandal live a day in an Autistic home. I bet they wouldn’t last an hour.