I didn’t find out I was autistic until way into my adulthood. Before that, like so many others, I just thought I was broken.

I wasn’t a stranger to Autism, my step-sister is autistic, and she’s been in my family since the late 90s. She’s non-speaking (but highly communicative) and has pretty significant support requirements so to me, THAT was autism. Full stop.

I didn’t know how broad that spectrum was; so even though it’s pretty apparent in hindsight, like so many others I fell through the cracks. And it nearly cost me my life.

Research published in 2024 found that even generally mild stress can cause interneuron activity in autistic brains that rivals PTSD; amplifying the person’s more disabling core traits, and leaving as many as 80% of us experiencing significant mental turmoil– even contemplating ending our lives at rates a whopping nine times higher than the general population. Nine.

These numbers are just way too big to ignore. Too big to leave out of the conversation.

It’s so much more likely for neurodivergent folks of all kinds to also struggle with burnout, depression, anxiety, PTSD or other psychiatric issues that I feel so strongly that no discussion on mental health is complete without them.

I’m part of that statistic.

I had no intention of living past my 40th birthday. Thankfully some amazing professionals intervened. After 8 weeks in the psych ward and 2 wrists full of scars, I put back on that shiny showgirl mask and stepped right back into the life I’d been so ready to leave permanently behind.

It would be 7 more years, 2 more hospitalizations, 3 clinical trials, and 11 rounds of electroconvulsive shock therapy before I’d learn where all that depression was coming from. It wasn’t autism causing my despair, no… but rather the agonizing push and pull of trying to force my brain and my entire being into being someone I wasn’t.

If I’d known then what I know now, that my differences were not a character flaw, not a failure on my part… but a feature? That getting to know myself all over again would be the light I so desperately needed at the end of that dark tunnel?

I can’t go back in time and tell her that, but I can help create a better society in which folks like her see options where once only obstacles existed. And that what leads me to the stage now – embracing the showgirl on my own terms, and doing my part to help inspire a future where every mind can find its groove.