An Open Letter From Emily Morrison To Trina Dastinot

An open letter to Trina Dastinot

On the 1st June, you shared a meme on the internet. The meme consisted of a stolen, photoshopped image of me, designed to mock my disability.
On Sunday, I woke up to multiple messages from friends and work colleagues, asking me if I’d seen the picture of me that had gone viral. Sharing that meme will have taken you seconds, but in a matter of days, it was shared by over 46,000 people, commented on by thousands more and then made into a Tik Tok where even more people shared and commented. The original photo had been stolen from my Instagram, which I use to share and blog about disability, accessibility and equality.
I can’t describe the effect that your actions have had on me. In the past few years, I have lost the ability to walk and endured multiple surgeries… But nothing compares to being looked at and laughed at by thousands of strangers. On top of that, I was subjected to overwhelming levels of hatred found in the comments on your post and I had to read that people think I should just ‘wheel myself off a cliff’ or that someone should ‘take one for the team’ and murder me in my sleep. I have spent the last few days battling with really dark thoughts about myself and my life because of what these people have said about me.
The post has now been removed by Facebook, however Tik Tok are yet to respond to multiple requests to remove the post from their platform. The intention of this letter was never going to be to ask you to remove the post. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter – I’ve already been scorned at and mocked by thousands, what’s a few more?
I wanted to write this letter to raise awareness of the consequences of the actions of internet trolls and of sharing memes including personal pictures. Ultimately, there’s a human being on the receiving end of these posts. This time it was me. Actions have consequences, and it’s about time you, and others who share posts like these; realised this.

With love,
Emily