The Words I Needed When I Was Young Sometimes, I stay up late writing the words I needed when I was young. The world goes quiet, and for a few hours, I can finally hear myself think. I imagine a kid, an autistic kid sitting on the floor with a tablet or at the table next to their parent. They stumble onto my blog, scroll for a bit, and whisper, Hey… they’re just like me. That’s who I write for. The kid who feels everything too deeply. The one who tries to fit in but always ends up standing out. The one who’s told they’re “too sensitive,” “too honest,” “too much.” When I write, I pour everything out the confusion, the sensory overload, the loneliness, the beauty I see in details other people miss. At night, my mask is gone. I don’t have to filter it. I just let it spill out the way it really feels. Some nights, it’s messy. Some nights, it hurts. But every time I let those words out, I feel lighter. Like I’m making room for something softer. If my writ...

There’s a simple phrase from Lilo & Stitch that’s always stuck with me: > “Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind.” It’s such a small line, but it carries so much weight — especially for someone like me who’s always felt a little out of place. What really hits me about the movie and the TV show is how they show a broken family still trying to hold itself together. It isn’t perfect. There are fights, mistakes, and moments of pain. But there’s also love that doesn’t go away, even when it’s messy. I see myself in that. It reminds me of my own life and the struggles that come with wanting to belong somewhere, even when everything feels complicated. The aliens in the story almost feel like a metaphor for being different. Being autistic, I know what it’s like to feel like an outsider — like you’re from another planet, trying to figure out how to live in a world that doesn’t always make sense. Watching Stitch try to understand how to be part of a family hits me deep, ...