Reflection on Ageism Awareness Day: I'm 73. Do You See Me?

For Ageism Awareness Day, Dr. Joe D'Ambrosio, director of behavioral health at the Trager Institute, reflects on his experience with ageism and how the Trager Institute works to build age-friendly care and communities. 

Recently, while spending several weeks in New York City caring for my older sister, I discovered something I wasn't expecting. People don't always see me anymore. 

At restaurants and stores, I sometimes watched employees acknowledge younger people around me while seemingly looking right through me. 

I am reminded of a placard a colleague gave me for my desk years ago. It said something like, “You are talking to me. Do you see me? I’m invisible.”

It had nothing to do with aging. It was simply a humorous observation about those moments when we didn't want to be seen. I laughed at it then. At 73, those words have taken on a meaning I never anticipated. There is a difference between choosing to be invisible and discovering that others may no longer see you.

Ageism does not always announce itself. Sometimes it may be found in whom we notice, whom we listen to, whom we make room for and whom our eyes simply pass over.

Perhaps one of the challenges of aging is learning what to do when the world no longer responds to us in quite the same way. Do we become angry? Do we withdraw? Or can we acknowledge what has changed without allowing resentment to define our relationship with younger generations?

While walking in New York, with sidewalks filled with young people going about their lives, I could suddenly see them as old, and I felt compassion. They were not really so different from me. They simply haven't gotten here yet.

This raises another question: What kind of society do we want to be as more of us grow old?

This is one of the reasons I value the work we are doing at the Trager Institute. Much of our work begins with a simple premise: older adults deserve to be seen. Not simply as patients with diagnoses or as people defined by what they can no longer do, but as individuals who continue to have relationships, goals, abilities, wisdom and something to contribute.

That idea extends beyond health care. Through age-friendly care, research, education and community partnerships, the Trager Institute is working toward communities where people remain valued and included throughout their lives. That includes confronting ageism and strengthening respect and social inclusion for older adults. 

Making older adults visible means listening to them rather than simply talking about them. It means asking what matters to them, not assuming we already know. It means recognizing that aging is not somebody else's issue. If we are fortunate, it is where all of us are headed.