Just Another Label

Today, I’m keeping it simple. My pondering this week has been on a very recent trip, Friday, to be exact, to one of those club stores. You know…you pay a fee annually to be able to purchase bulk items at a discount, as a member of said club. Well, on Friday, my daughter and I were leaving the club, and strangely enough, I noticed a pin on the shirt of the associate checking our receipt to ensure we did not steal anything as we exited.

The pin read:  I’m not ignoring you, I have Autism. At first, I thought, Oh, it’s an Autism Awareness pin. However, having worked in the behavioral health field for almost five years in my past, I soon realized the pin was specific to her. She in fact was Autistic.

My whole ride home, I was upset. After all, I’d gone to this same club on several occasions, and she had smiled at me, checked my receipt, and wished me a fantastic day every time she stood at the exit. I wondered if someone had complained about her. I wondered if she had been distracted by something or someone and someone took it as her being rude and ignoring them. Either way, I was annoyed.

How many times have I been to stores, especially with my children, in desperate need of assistance, and a person I viewed as able-bodied and hearing definitely ignored me in order to assist someone else, continue talking to a co-worker, or proceed toward the breakroom? I’d never seen a sign on their shirts stating: I have a tendency to ignore; please move along. Now THAT would be helpful. I wouldn’t waste a second of my time attempting to gain his/her attention.

But here is an individual who I’ve always seen with a smile on her face, doing her job, and willing to help, and she is being labeled. So what she’s ignored some people…if she’s even guilty as charged. Maybe they were jerks and impolite, as so many customers can be.

I don’t know. It just still bothers me that we so easily label people with one thing or the other: ADD, ADHD, Autism, etc. Granted, some of these may be obvious, so we can deal accordingly. But, there are those who do their best to deal and seek a sense of normalcy. They don’t want to be treated differently due to their disabilities or abilities. In my day, I don’t recall most, if any, of these labels. Children were hyperactive, so you limited the sugar or taught them skills to cope and therefore focus better. Children were fixated on certain things, so you got them in private classes to hone those skills.

Days like Friday make me wonder what’s next. In a few years, what will the new labels be? What drugs will we be pushing on children and adults? How will we be limiting children, or young adults, by telling them something is wrong with them and that’s why they can’t/will never be able to/shouldn’t do such and such? If I saw no pin, I wouldn’t have known that young lady was any different from you or I. Now, even if the pin is no longer worn, every time I see her, I’ll think of it and wonder who else is pitying her or wondering what type of Autism she has.  The sad thing is I know she has Autism, but I have no clue what her name is, and she always wears her name tag.