I found out I was autistic three years ago. Before that, I just thought I was a jerk.

I grew up in a house marked by masking, alcoholism, and disconnection. My mother explained sensory sensitivities as family allergies—wool, cigarette smoke, turtlenecks somehow. In eighth grade people started offering me substances, which became how I socialized and chose friends.

By 25 I was married, owned a home in Miami, and was strung out and being abused. In rehab I was told I had Borderline Personality Disorder. Going in and out of twelve-step became my framework for living. I thought one day I would be able to do the steps hard enough to get everything AA promised.

I built multiple lives for someone else. I did stand-up comedy for a decade even though I hated so much about it and never understood the politics. I made a career of self-abandonment—performing opinions I wasn’t even sure I had because I was too afraid to have my own.

It all fell apart when a doctor offered me free liposuction I didn’t need. I said yes because performing worthiness was all I knew. She botched the surgery and burned my back down to the muscle. The wound wouldn’t heal because I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. I just thought I was a witch and a Virgo.

My death anxiety after my second surgery led me to the word autism. Everything clicked.

Finding out I was autistic deep into life was like thinking I had a useless plane and then finding out I have an excellent truck. The first year was learning what a truck even is, the second was learning how to drive it, and the third has been about where I want to go with it.

What helped me wasn’t therapy. It was autistic coaching—being seen by someone who got it. It helped more than decades of traditional support ever had. That’s why I became a coach.

I started writing poetry again—something I’d wanted since childhood but was always pushed away from. I came out of the closet. I let go of friendships that required me to abandon myself. I started stimming in public. I’ve gone no contact with every member of my family.

Looking back, I realized I’d already been doing this work. All those years as a sponsor, the people I guided were undiagnosed autistic. I just didn’t have the framework yet.

Now I do. I’m not so worried if other people like me anymore, because I finally do.