Believe it or not, the last movie that made me actually cry was a kids’ movie — Pixar’s Elio. And before that, it was Lilo & Stitch. Both of them got me. It’s kind of funny that children’s movies would be the ones to break me open, but maybe it’s not funny at all. Disney and Pixar have this way of presenting themes that really touch my heart, themes that carry real lessons — and for me, the ones that always hit hardest are about rejection and belonging.

Elio was probably the most emotional movie I have ever seen. It’s about a kid who feels so alone and so unlovable that he literally wants to be abducted by aliens — because surely somewhere out there, somebody must want him. And Lilo & Stitch did the same thing to me. Stitch was hard to love. He didn’t belong anywhere. He was too much, too strange, too different — and yet he found his ohana, his family, the people who chose him anyway.

These themes wreck me every single time because I know what it feels like to be on the outside. I have always been a person who has been rejected in many ways — because of my mental health issues, because of my LGBTQ identity. I know what it’s like to be the one who’s too much, too different, too hard to love. So when a movie looks straight at that ache and says you are not alone, you belong, someone will choose you — yeah, I cry. Every time.

Maybe that’s why kids’ movies get me more than anything else. They don’t dress the pain up in complexity. They just say it plain: everyone deserves to belong. And I’m still learning to believe that includes me.