Something awareness ought to mean

Here’s a thing that happens:

A kid has a disability. Or is otherwise substantially atypical.

And the adults in their life don’t want them to feel different and suffer for it, so they don’t talk to them about being disabled.

And then they grow up without basic information about their body (or brain).

And then every description of how people work is different from what the kid experiences. And it’s confusing and isolating, and hard to even realize how things are wrong.

Because fish in water don’t know they are wet. It’s hard to know that the descriptions are wrong when you don’t know it’s possible for them to be right.

And then, sometimes, people who grow up that way eventually find out that they actually are different. That there is a word for the way their body and mind works. That there are other people like them, and that the world makes much more sense than they ever realized.

That’s something that awareness should mean. Kids need to know how their minds and bodies work; atypical kids need accurate information just as much as other kids do. They just don’t usually get it.