The Damage Of Labels
by Patrick Worth
As I think about how we label people, I think about my life as a young boy and how a label took away my identity as Patrick Worth. I was not known by my name, I was known by the label "retarded".
Because of this label, my parents and a lot of professionals thought that I could never learn in an inclusive environment and I was put in a segregated school where I didn't learn the things that I wanted to learn, such as reading and writing. Also, I was never really able to dream as a child. We all have dreams about what we want to be when we grow up but, we are not given that chance when we are given labels and when we teach people in society about a label instead of a human being.
I still remember getting on that segregated school bus, waving goodbye to my brothers and sisters and watching them go to their neighborhood school with their friends. I remember sitting on the porch at night and just watching the kids play street hockey, wishing that I could be invited to play, but I never got invited.
Do you get angry at the kids for their own ignorance or do you get angry at the parents who teach their children that we are too different?
When people are stereotyped, people in society come to know the person by a label. Our identities, our gifts and our strengths are never recognized. I remember how, sometimes, at night I prayed that Martin Luther King would come and rescue me. He took the courage to talk about his dreams and his ambitions. My dreams were all locked inside a label.
It's important to know that this label followed me from childhood to adulthood. I lived in a group home between 1976 and 1984, and then started going to a day program.These were all segregated systems that were based on the practice of labelling people as not being able to do anything.
I want to talk about two of the labels used today that I think are just as harmful.
High Functioning & Low Functioning:
While attending an international conference on the health of people with disabilities in Norway, I learned from people representing their own countries that this is the number one language that is most used across the world today in identifying people with disabilities.
This is truly sad. I have been told many times that I am an exception and that others will never be able to reach my potential. I find that ironic when I look at my past as a young boy who was not supposed to be able to learn anything, when, I guess, I was classified as "low functioning". Now all of a sudden I am "high functioning". I am neither "high functioning" or "low functioning". I am who I am! I am Patrick Worth.
Nobody has to reach my potential. Everybody should be recognized for their own potential and have the right to dream about exploring their own gifts and not be hold back by a label. The universal label of High Functioning & Low Functioning, which is holding a lot of people back from finding out about themselves and what they are capable of doing , is still used very often today to institutionalize people with disabilities.
Developmentally Delayed:
Developmentally delayed! Not all people have the same kind of thought process. We don't have to stereotype people because they don't think the same way as we do. I think all of us feel sometimes that we do not have a clear thinking process and we have to struggle with difficult problems and decisions, while those around us seem to have no problems in solving similar problems and finding solutions. In such situations, we would not want to be labelled in some way just because we don't think as well as other people do.
These are just two of the labels that I hear today but they have some of the most devastating effects. When I think about these institutional labels, and I do call them institutional labels, I think about extreme poverty in so many different ways in a person's life.
Before I started working at Options and running my own business, I was sitting at home just waiting for that disability pension to come in. I had been doing public speaking for a long time but for free and that was because people really could not understand why they should pay someone who has been labelled . In a way, I was still being labelled because I was not valued for what I was offering.
The labels that people with disabilities have had to wear are institutional poverty labels.
Although I had friends, I was very disconnected and I felt institutionalized in my own home because of a poverty label. My life became a real life when people from my circle started getting together to talk about how I can start running my own business, which is called Worth Consulting. Now, I travel to many different parts of the world delivering keynote speeches, facilitating workshops and so on. I also work at Options part time as Network Facilitator in the very unique role of self advocate to help individuals to pursue their own goals in life. This is a great change in service providing systems across the world.
When I think about freedom today, I think about a world without labels. When you really think about it, at one time or another during our lives we all have been labelled in some way. Take the time to think about how it felt for you when you were labelled and try to imagine what your life would be like if you had to live with that label every day of your life. Good strong relationships are usually developed when people are seen and viewed as equal to each other. I dream that some day, we will all be able to see each other by our true names and for who we really are, in a world without labels. What a Real Relationship!
