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Someone Left Her Daughter a Rude Note for Using a Handicapped Spot. This Was Her Response.

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Harley Jo Skorpenske, a student at Ohio State University, found a note on her car windshield after stopping into a CVS in Cleveland, Yahoo Health reported.

Evidently, a person left the note after seeing her park in a handicapped parking spot and then walk into the store unassisted. It read:

You should be ashamed! When you take a handicapped spot, an actual disabled person suffers. You were not raised as you should have been.

What the note-leaver clearly didn’t understand is that Skorpenske lives with lupus,  a chronic autoimmune disease that can attack any part of the body. It ranges from mild to life-threatening and affects 1.5 million Americans, according to the Lupus Foundation of America.

Despite the disease’s debilitating potential, it has no outwardly visible symptoms.

In response to the upsetting note, Skorpenske’s mother, Corinna Skorpenske, posted a photo of the note on top of her daughter’s handicapped parking pass to Facebook, along with an open letter.

To the person who left this on my daughter’s car,” Skorpenske wrote. “Wishing so much for you to have stopped and talked to this amazing person before leaving this. If you had, you would have known that my daughter has a disease. Since she was 16 years old she has been suffering from lupus. Basically, her immune system thinks her body inside and out is something bad and attacks it. It started with her joints swelling and the pain being so bad she could hardly walk… Please don’t judge a book by its cover!”

The message also details the many physical hardships Skorpenske has lived with and reminds the note-leaver that not all disabilities and ailments are visible.

We never know what burdens people struggle with,” Skorpenske told Yahoo Health. “Often we are so quick to judge or make assumptions, but if we just take the time to ask them, they are often very willing to educate them on it. Their pain and discomfort is real.”

Originally published: April 14, 2015
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