Why I've Chosen to Stop Using the "R-Word"

When I first came out with my New Years Resolution, I saw a lot of people who thought it was "stupid", they felt that the "R-Word" is never used in a harassing way. The same type of argument that was used for the "F-word" 20-30 years ago.... "Oh well I'm not saying it towards an actual gay person".... "Oh well I'm not saying it towards an actual mentally disabled person".... this is not a valid excuse, it wasn't for the F-word 30 years ago, and it isn't for the R-word now.

The reality is, mentally disabled people are still greatly abused and harassed with the R-Word, if you're under the impression that they aren't... then you're under the wrong impression. I think that people do not hear about these stories enough. So, with my siblings permission, I wanted to talk a little bit about how they have been abused with the word.

My sibling is on the spectrum, this has given them hardships in life beyond what I or any of us "neuro-typicals" could even understand. During their adolescence and teenage years, their biological father was extremely mentally abusive to them. He would repeatedly call them a r*tard, and say things like they wish they were not theirs. There was also a time in school, that my sibling had been in "regular" classes and raised their hand to answer a question, and one of their classmates laughed at them and called them a "r*tard"... this day still stands out to me years later, my sibling came home from school extremely upset by it... and ultimately transferred to all "special education" classes because of this abuse.

We cannot keep living under the guise that this word isn't triggering for some people, that it isn't abusive. Regular use of this was normalizes it.... causing even more harm. If anybody has experienced harassment from the R-word, or has been given permission to tell somebody else's story that has been harassed by the R-Word... please feel free to comment in this thread. I really want to bring awareness to how the R-word is used to be abusive and harassing, since many seem to believe that it is not.

Thank you for reading!

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