Justine Van Den Borne was simply enjoying an outing with her daughter when a complete stranger made an assumption that ruined her day.
The 41-year-old based in Melbourne, Australia, was experiencing a rare few hours of respite from her severe multiple sclerosis symptoms. She decided to make the most of it by visiting a local shopping center with her daughter. But when the pair returned to their car, Van Den Borne discovered a cruel note someone had written insinuating that she was not disabled and as such should not be using a disabled parking pass.
Van Den Borne shared the note on Facebook, explaining how humiliated and discouraged it made her feel.
“On the day you saw me I was having a good day,” she wrote in an open letter to the person behind the note. “I was walking with my daughter unaided having a nice day. Thank you for ruining that.”
Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disorder that damages nerve sheaths in the brain and spinal cord, causing a range of physical and mental symptoms. It is a chronic, degenerative disease for which there is no known cure.
Van Den Borne shared that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of 35, which put tremendous pressure on her and her children. Van Den Borne will eventually be wheelchair-bound, and hopes to make the most of her mobility while she still can.
In the Facebook post, Van Den Borne urged others to be more compassionate and open-minded when it came to other people’s limitations.
“Before you ruin another persons day remember you don’t know everything,” she wrote. “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.”
See Van Den Borne’s full Facebook post here.
(SELF reached out to Van Den Borne for comment, but had not heard back at the time of publication.)
The post A Woman Had A Powerful Response To A Cruel Note Someone Wrote About Her Disability appeared first on SELF.
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