“Everyone is different” is not always a positive message. Because, yes, everyone is different and unique and special. And that matters. But not everyone is equally different.

Sometimes, kids grow up knowing that they are very different from everyone they’ve met, and that this difference is stigmatized. And sometimes, they have no words for it. And they can feel that it’s not at all the same as just everyone has their own uniqueness.

And they don’t know that this major stigmatized difference is *something that they have in common with other people.*

Sometimes, they don’t need to hear once again that everyone is different and that it’s ok to be different. Sometimes what they need to hear is that there are other people like them.