Autism is not your enemy

It isn’t misinformation that troubles autistic people most. It’s the subtext that the world would be better without us.

- DANIEL L. REINHOLZ GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. has revived debunked myths about autism.

I ALWAYS KNEW I was different, long before I knew I was autistic. As a child, I was relentlessly curious, fascinated by patterns and drawn to mathematics with its abstract rules and perfect logic.

Rules gave me structure, and I treated them as absolute. Math was predictable; people were another story. They were like a puzzle that I couldn't solve.

I struggled to connect with so-called normal children but didn't know why. My interests were different from theirs, as was my sarcastic sense of humor. Eventually, I made friends with the other kids who were too quirky to be cool. When my family moved twice during my childhood in small-town Colorado, these disruptions made it harder to adapt. New environments brought new challenges, and new bullies. I often felt like I was the butt of a joke but never knew the punchline. I grew disengaged from school, even as I excelled academically.

I finally learned I was autistic in my 30s.

At the height of the pandemic, I discovered a first-hand account from autistic mathematician Michael Ortiz. Reading it felt like looking in a mirror. This launched me into selfdiscovery and, ultimately, a formal diagnosis. Understanding my autistic brain reframed everything; my childhood suddenly made sense. I only wish I'd known decades earlier.