Video Transcription

[Music] Call it what you want, but trying to fit in, make friends, find your place, deal with peer pressure, what’s normal, what’s cool, why’d they like that Instagram post but not the other one? Should I wear the brown one? Should I wear the red one? Or should I not even go at all? It’s exhausting.
Yeah, I mean, I just don’t fit in with the popular group and I don’t fit in playing sports.
And what about you?

I don’t fit in at parties. The loud music, it scares me. I don’t feel safe, and I don’t feel like I’m thin.

I didn’t fit in in school. I didn’t know that I had learning disorders or that I was on the spectrum. It physically felt like I was too big or too much to be in the building.

I don’t fit in in crowds. I just have to stop, stand still, and let people walk around me. It’s loud, my body feels shaky. There’s no one to tell, and it can be frightening and lonely.

I don’t fit in in public.

It’s different when I’m around friends and family, but when I’m around people that I don’t know, it’s just… I feel alien. Whether I’m missing a code of how exactly to behave or whether there’s an activity or a place that I just can’t go. And it’s not because I don’t want to.

I don’t fit in with my classmates. It’s different now, but especially when I was really little, I never really had more than one or two close friends. It seems like everyone else found things so easy. They were laughing and smiling, telling jokes. They knew exactly how to act and what to say. You know, it can be so hard, and people just don’t get that.
Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have places where we can just be ourselves, where we fit in, where we feel whole, where we don’t have to worry and we can just relax.
Like when I’m in my room, I feel really safe.
And for me, it’s when I’m surrounded by the people I love, who I know don’t judge.
Yeah, what about you?
I fit in in nature. I can look around at the overwhelming beauty of the trees and the bushes and the grass. I feel like I can go there and all of me belongs.
I fit in with my family. They’re not perfect and they don’t always understand me, but they’re willing to learn and I love them.
I fit in at home. I am myself at home. Everyone knows what I need and what I don’t, and it’s designed to be easy for me.
I wish there were more places I could just fit in.
I fit in where I can be me. Places that have adequate public transport, places that have a quiet room that I can go to if it’s all just too much, and places where not only are there people that accept me and can accommodate for me but places where people stand up for me when I feel like I can’t.
I do fit in with my friends. For scars, bars, pills, or marks, they see me for what I am. Colored, ill, disabled— they champion it all. They empower me.
You know, it can be so challenging belonging to a world that expects us to change parts of ourselves to fit in.
What about when people think you fit in and then decide you don’t?
We can be so harsh in pointing out differences and bringing other people down, but we can create a world where people can be their authentic selves without having to worry about fitting in.
True.
The world can be designed differently. It can change to meet everyone’s unique needs, whether that be a disability or not.
Yeah.
So what can you do to make the world more inclusive?
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