To the Girl at Target Whose Mom Apologized to Me

I wrote this post twice, but something about it was off. So I rewrote it when I realized the first time I was talking to the wrong person.

At Target, I stood behind a lady and her daughter. Her daughter was bouncing and talking to me. She seemed hyper, but not too out of the ordinary. Her mom then said, “Sorry.” She apologized and explained that her daughter has autism.

This hit me. It hurt my heart. Not because the little girl was autistic, but because her mom was saying sorry.

When I first started writing this, I was talking to the mom. Now, I want to write this to the little girl:

You are awesome. What you are doing, this hyperness, is awesome. Find ways to use this hyperness for something you really want or need. I use mine to clean and to write. Don’t find one passion, find a bunch of them. Make them all across the board and be random. You aren’t a mistake — you are a fantastically strange human, but that’s a good thing. We need you in this world to make it better. You might wonder why I’m telling you all this. “How do you know?” you might ask.

I have the answers to these questions. I’m autistic, like you. I have a disorder in my brain that for some reason makes me different from the rest of the world. Now your mom, she is doing her best, but she is just saying sorry because she because she might not know you understand her. But I saw your eyes. You got it. And I know if you are like me, you’re going to go over that moment and try to figure out what you did wrong.

You didn’t do anything wrong. Your brain is just different, but you’re fantastic. You’re fantastic because you can think differently and because you do things in different ways. You can change the world, you can and will. Just keep trying and don’t give up on yourself.

I know people will look at you weird, but when you have an overload of emotions just let it come. Get it out, cry and scream, and let it be. Let yourself feel the emotion.   

Your parents and family won’t always understand you, but try not to let that bother you. Let yourself be OK. Try to find what makes you happy and what you’re passionate about. For example, I love taking photos. I love older people and children. I like the color purple, but don’t wear it a lot. I love things and I hate things. I have a list in my head. 

When people talk like you’re not there, just act like they are talking about a panda who lives on the moon. Believe me, people will talk like you aren’t there. Be happy with yourself. I like to tell myself that no matter what, I can’t do anything to change the way I am, so I accept who I am and embrace it.

Don’t let everyone tell you how weird you are or how they can cure you. I know things will get hard, but that’s OK. Keep pressing on. Keep going. You are fantastic, you are funny, and you make everything better.

A version of this post originally appeared on ShayWeasel.

The Mighty is asking its readers the following: Describe a time you saw your disability, illness and/or disease through the eyes of someone else. If you’d like to participate, please send a blog post to community@themighty.com. Please include a photo for the piece, a photo of yourself and 1-2 sentence bio.