I worked at a sleep away summer camp for adults with downs syndrome, autism, and other various mental disabilities in the sumer of 2014. All of the counselors were paired up one on one for 2 weeks with a camper. My camper was an autistic, 52 year-old man named Darren. Darren was a bright man who's favorite things in life were practical jokes and helicopters. He built life size model helicopters in his backyard and tried to get them approved to fly. They were usually made out of cardboard covered in tinfoil, materials he believed were the lightest and most cost efficient. Everyone around him always supported him in this and Darren was one of the happiest guys i have ever met. One day this all changed, and I changed.
On a hot sunday the whole camp headed out to disneyland. We were having an awesome day and Darren had seen a few helicopters fly over on the car drive there so he was obviously talking about them nonstop. Anyone walking by probably noticed the way Darren's face radiated as he spoke of these beasts in the sky. Nothing made him happier. After a few hours, we all stopped for a bathroom break and I went in to supervise. There were two kids inside messing around and calling each other names but I didn't think much of it. They around 10 years old and using words such as "poop face" and "butt head". So I let all the campers go in and Darren went into one of the stalls and closed the door to do his business. All of a sudden an older teenage boy, probably the older brother of the two boys came into the bathroom. He saw them messing around and said, "Hurry up, are you guys retarded? Grow up!". I noticed the use of the R word but I didn't connect the dots at that time.
I had been told at the beginning of the camp the importance of never saying the R word but I still didn't believe that it mattered that much.
Ten minutes go by and all the campers finish up except for Darren. I knocked and asked if he was alright and he responded with a "Go Away!" He was crying. I then asked him to come out and talk to me, which he did. He went on to tell me through his tears that he hated helicopters and that he was a retarded child. That teenager's use of the R word affected Darren so much he turned on the thing he loved the most. And it wasn't just for that day, when he got home at the end of the camp I got a call from his mom saying he had destroyed and thrown away his most recent model helicopter. Darren went from the happiest man I knew to the most depressed and discouraged person in the world. This was all because of a single word an immature teenage boy had said.
From that day on I realized the importance of words and how much they can affect someone if heard by the wrong ears.