A Silenced Voice A silenced voice calls for help: Letter to all beings everywhere. If anyone can hear, please can you listen?  Can you listen now – not next week, next year, or sometime in the future?  Now!  You don’t know me.  I cannot communicate.  I cannot speak, write, articulate my needs or do any of the things you do so easily and naturally. You only know me as ‘intellectually disabled with behavioural difficulties’.  Please can I tell you I am a person, oh yes, a real person who is intellectually challenged, with real feelings, real frustrations, real anxieties….just like you, you know. However, my mind does not work like yours.  My thoughts don’t follow logical thought patterns, like yours.  I cannot process and interpret life and things and situations like you can.  I do not understand this world and how it works, like you can.  I am not able to do for myself all the little ordinary things you take so much for granted…walk, talk, shop, wash and dress myself, comb my hair, brush my teeth, cook, feed myself, smile, drive, socialise, work, wipe my nose and one million other little things.  I even need help to pee and wipe my bum. It is very, very hard to live in this world when I cannot do all these ‘so called’ little ordinary, normal things.  There is no place for me.  I have no place to call home.  No room of my own.  There is no place for me to be, no place to go.  I am a non-productive member of society.  I am unable to contribute in the ways that you value, know and accept.  I am a burden on society.  I need to be taken care of.  I have no legal rights.  My needs have never been adequately met although they have been assessed many, many times by expensive’ so-called’ experts.  They pump medication into me, I hate it, it makes me worse, they incarcerate me in mental institutions, I am mentally challenged, not mentally insane, they even put me in straight jackets sometimes – trying to force me to be like them, behave like them and when I can’t, they hide me away, so I won’t upset others and to stop me harming myself or others. All this they do because I can’t learn in your schools, work in your workplaces and I can’t contribute in the way they think I should.  There are others you know who pity me and that is even worse. According to them, I am not a full human being, I am not an animal.  I have no category.  Some say isn’t it a shame I am the way I am, good for nothing at all.  Others cannot even look in my direction; I cause such fears to arise in them.  They don’t know what to do with me, how to be around me.  They will not even spare me a glance and a smile because I am not the same as them. My parents and siblings love me very very much.  Life is very different for them because of me.  Having me in this family changes everything.  They think about me a lot, care for me an awful lot, worry about me constantly and always feel that they don’t do enough , are not good enough, don’t know enough and can’t get for me what I need.. Please can you find a way to make them understand all I ever need is their love and acceptance, their smiles, their hugs, their kisses and their songs.  They need your help oh so very much, all of you able-bodied, intelligent, resourceful, clever, determined, caring  people.  You see I take all their energy, their time, their endurance.  I and they need you to stand up for me, to get me the services I need, to make the calls, to demand my rights, my medical, emotional, physical, psychological and spiritual needs. They cannot care and fight at the same time.  They are too tired, they cannot surmount the obstacles, do the charity work in the organisations, fight the system, demand better services and help people and the government understand.  Please can you and will you help?  If the big tasks daunt you, could you make a cup of tea, do the washing or ironing, mow the lawn, wash the walls, hoover or dust, get the shopping, bring a casserole or bake a cake, even once in a while, every now and then.  Can you sit and listen and hear their heart cry. Why? Oh Why? I would like you to know I left my home in Paradise and came to earth exactly as I am, because I love you all, each and every one of you, oh so very much.  I choose all this so you could learn what you need to learn on the earth this time, so you could experience the depth and capacity of your own heart.  No matter what happens to me, how I am treated, neglected, abused or ignored I will stay until my job… so called…is done.  I bring unconditional love to the world.  When your priority is to know me, care for me, and all my needs and treat me like royalty, you will know how to create peace on earth.  When you can really see and hear me with all of your heart, when you can cherish my intellectual disabilities, yes that’s right, cherish them, and my unacceptable behaviour, you will know who you are in truth.  We are all children of God.  We are all as God created us:  Infinite, Eternal, Whole and Holy, forever loved and forever changeless.  Everything else is but an illusion.  Thank you for listening.  Be happy, be safe, be peaceful, be blessed. Marion (2004) The above article was sent to the NPSA in 2004 for publication.  Unfortunately, the writer's details were mislaid.  So, to the writer, if you read this, apologies and please get in touch with us!.