Justine Van Den Borne is a wife and a mother from Melbourne, Australia. At the age of 35 she has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, in short MS, and since then her life has changed drastically. She has to struggle with this illness on daily basis.
The illness has several different symptoms. Some days she feels just fine, like every other healthy person. However, most of the days are real struggle. Sometimes she feels numb and extreme fatigue. In addition, she has problems with vision and slurred speech.
All of these things made the Australian authorities to issue her a handicap parking pass, among the other things. The idea was to make her life easier, but sometimes people make sure she has not easy functioning.
One day, she took her daughter, started the car and drove to the local shopping centre. Since she got the parking pass from the authorities, she pared in the handicap spot and they were ready to have some fun and quality time together. But, someone shocked her by leaving her a rude message.
That day she was feeling well and the expected good day turned out to be a very unpleasant one. Someone left a message on her car saying:
“Did you forget your wheelchair???”
People, obviously, started judging due to the parking spot. The woman on first glance looks very normal to all of us, but we have no idea what kind of pain and problems she is facing with. These kinds of things make her feel even more depressed.
Upon arriving home, she opened her Facebook page and wrote:
“To person that left this on my car last week at Mitcham Shopping Centre – I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis when I was 35.
Not just MS but the worst one that never goes away and is slowly crippling my life.
My kids have had to deal with things that kids shouldn’t ever have to deal with and all of our futures are forever changed. On the day you saw me I was having a good day, I was walking with my daughter, unaided, having a nice day.
Thank you for ruining that.”
“You made me feel like people were looking at me, the exact way I feel when I can’t walk properly. I am sick of people like yourself abusing me on my good days for using a facility I am entitled to.
A disability doesn’t always mean a person has to be wheelchair bound but lucky for you I one day will be.
Right now my focus is to walk into my best friends wedding next September and not have to be pushed. I will be 42. Before you ruin another person’s day remember you don’t know everything and just because you can’t see it it doesn’t mean a person isn’t struggling to put one foot in front of the other.”
This message reached a lot of people in the world. Her post was spread throughout the world. Hopefully, this will help us understand what these people are struggling with and instead of hurting them, we may help them and support them.