Response to GQ Down Syndrome Slur

http://childrenshospitalblog.org/mock-my-pants-not-my-sister/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+childrenshospitalblog+%28Thriving%2C+Children%27s+Hospital+Boston%27s+pediatric+health+blog%29

Mock My Pants, Not My Sister
July 18, 2011

The following was written by Brian Skotko , MD, MPP, a Physician at Children’s Hospital Boston’s Down Syndrome Program. It’s in response to a feature in GQ magazine that used insensitive language.

On July 15, John B. Thompson of GQ magazine slammed Bostonians as the worst dressed in the nation. Evidently, our beloved Beantown is actually a “bad-taste storm sewer” where all the worst fashion ideas come to “stagnate and putrefy.” He further decries, “Boston suffers from a kind of Style Down Syndrome , where a little extra ends up ruining everything.”

Go ahead, GQ, and mock my blue whale-emblemed Nantucket-red pants. Laugh if you want at the loud argyles that I prefer to wear with my black suit. I don’t even care if you dismiss the sexy pink polka-dotted tie that I like to wear with my blue-checkered shirt in clinic. But, whatever you do, do not mess with my sister.

My sister, Kristin, has Down syndrome, and let me explain what “Style Down Syndrome” really is. “Style Down Syndrome” is smiling when everyone else prefers to frown. It’s spending three summers, in sheer determination, learning to ride a bike because you want the freedom to be like everyone else. It’s singing tunes from Grease at the top of your lungs with your friends. It’s celebrating a third-place victory at a swim meet with as much gusto as the gold medalist.

Style Down Syndrome is strong-willed, persevering, and forgiving—because it has to be.

People with Down syndrome are ridiculed on a daily basis. Although not as obvious as GQ’s sport, children with Down syndrome do not always get invited to birthday parties just because they have Down syndrome. Young adults, freshly minted from high school, sometimes have trouble finding post-secondary opportunities. And, adults with Down syndrome are often the first to be fired when the economy tanks.

All of this comes at a time when people with Down syndrome are achieving previously unimagined successes. They are graduating, working, living and loving within our communities. So, why do people underestimate their abilities? It must be because they do not know someone with Down syndrome. Because, if they did, they would come to appreciate the life lessons that accompany their extra chromosome.

If my friends who are black were mocked, they would not take it. If my friends who are gay were slurred, they would not take it. My 400,000 fellow Americans with Down syndrome have been cheapened, and I will not take it. I invite GQ magazine to introduce its readers to real people with Down syndrome through the My Great Story campaign of the National Down Syndrome Society.

end of blog post

This is me, standing and cheering! You go, Dr. Skotko! Love this! What a lucky woman Kristin is to have such a sibling in her corner. And what a disgrace for GQ to denigrate a group of people with such a ridiculous, mean-spirited comment.

librarianintx

Working on Me

Depression, loneliness, frustration, fear....all can affect your physical as well as your emotional well-being. I feel like I spend so much of my life struggling...worrying...ruminating...being afraid. I am the princess of "what if," "should have," "could have," "need to," and "why can't I just."

So I'm trying to work on all of this. I have spent so much of my life mired in negativity. I stop myself from being happy and having what I want. I don't feel like I deserve good things. I constantly delay joy. I push away positivity. I focus on the bad. I look for life to go wrong. I anticipate it, thinking I will deal with it better if I lay in wait for it, and not let it sneak up on me.

I don't want to use the word "struggle" or "task." Its a daily reward. There we go! A daily gift to myself, to succeed in silencing the critical voice within me, the part of me that makes it her occupation to scare me, worry me, frustrate me, tell me that I'll never have what I want and I don't deserve it anyway, and terrible things are going to happen to me and the people I care about.

I'm always waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

So the first step on the way to change...be observant. Notice what you're thinking, and how its affecting you physically as well as emotionally. Realize that your leg muscles are tight, that your whole body is tight. Notice that you're holding your breath slightly, which can exacerbate and even contribute to anxiety. Listen to your thoughts.

And then do something different.

Re-direct. Focus your thoughts and energies elsewhere. Remind yourself that worry and fear are the two most useless activities you can engage in, and you're not going to waste your valuable time on them. Negative thoughts and emotions have no power of their own; they are only as strong as you allow them to be. They can never be in control of you unless you let them. So you say, "bye bye" and you do something else, preferably something you like to do. Read. Journal. Do something with a friend. Watch a show. Play a game. Maybe even better...try something new. Something you think you can't do. If you don't feel like you have enough mental energy to focus on something that requires brain power, like reading or journaling, then do something physical. Exercise a little. Clean something. Organize.

I know its not easy.
But its important.
And I know it works.
The key...
I have to care enough about myself to make this a priority.

librarianintx