These autistic BFFs are truly amazing friendspiration

Making friends is hard on its own, but when you can’t speak to people, the challenge of reaching out about common interests or activities or even just about your day is an added difficulty on top of that. Which makes the friendship of Skyler and Kreed, two nonverbal autistic teens, that much more incredible — not that they can’t talk, but that they support each other in ways that have no equivalent for abled people.

14-year-old Skyler has Usher syndrome, which affects both his hearing and his vision in the form of deafness and the loss of his peripheral sight. 17-year-old Kreed has medical conditions like epilepsy, and uses a device to communicate with others. However, when he heard about Skyler and his similarly nonverbal condition, he wanted to reach out to the younger boy, and from there, their friendship grew.

The basics of their relationship are remarkably familiar: Eating pizza and watching movies together, aka just a regular night in with your BFFs. But Kreed’s taken the lead in watching out for his friend, even physically, his vision-impaired friend a helping hand when exploring new areas. The support is reciprocated, with Kreed’s mother Erin Polk sharing, “Skyler has given Kreed way more social confidence by having a friend he can 100% be himself with and finally to be able to actually help another peer rather than being the person always helped.”

You and your BFFs know that you can count on each other, but Skyler and Kreed take that to a whole new level. Watch a video of Kreed discussing his friendship with Skyler below, and take some time to text the best friends in your life.

(Image via.)