Before I Knew Who I Was

I was born on August 18, 1980, at 2:59 p.m. in San Antonio, Texas, to Joel and Pam. My parents were both in the military at the time. My father was 19, and my mother was 20. I was their firstborn child.

Texas wasn’t home for long. We left before I turned one, and my childhood became a series of places, homes, and transitions. Looking back, my earliest years were not defined by one particular hometown. They were defined by movement, memories, and experiences that I wouldn’t fully understand until much later in life.

I remember living in Louisiana, although I can’t remember the city. What I do remember are the magnolia trees, the flowers, and their smell. Those sensory memories have stayed with me even when the details surrounding them have faded.

I remember living in Germany, on base, and I remember the Halloween costumes. I remember Minneapolis and Radcliffe, Kentucky. These places are pieces of a childhood that, in many ways, I can only reconstruct through scattered memories.

Some memories are beautiful in their simplicity. Others are much harder to carry.

A Childhood Without Much Stability

When I think about my childhood, the words that come to mind aren’t exactly comforting.

Chaotic. Unpredictable. Distant. Unwelcoming.

I often felt like I was too much for the people around me. Too needy, too different, too difficult, or somehow never quite what anyone wanted me to be.

I was diagnosed with severe ADHD when I was only three years old. Autism wasn’t something the adults around me recognized or understood at the time. Instead of having someone help me understand how my mind worked, I grew up being treated as though the behaviors and struggles I couldn’t control were things I needed to correct.

I remember being overmedicated with amphetamines. When I showed behaviors associated with my ADHD or what I now recognize as autistic traits, I was told to take my medication and stay in my room until it took effect.

Eventually, I stopped coming out of my room.

I don’t think people understand what that does to a child. When you’re repeatedly made to feel that the way you naturally exist is a problem, you begin to withdraw. You learn that being seen can bring criticism, frustration, or rejection.

I wasn’t being given the opportunity to simply be a kid.

The People I Remember

There were people in my early life who mattered to me.

My paternal grandparents, Pat and Fred, were important figures in my childhood. My maternal grandfather, Roland, was also someone I remember. He died when I was twelve.

Those relationships are part of my story, and I don’t want them lost among the harder memories.

My relationship with my mother, however, was complicated from very early on. I know she was a survivor of prolonged sexual abuse by members of her immediate family. I recognize that her own experiences were part of her history, but I also have my own history of rejection, mistreatment, and eventually estrangement from her.

I cannot speak for everything that shaped her or explain every choice she made. I can speak about what I experienced.

My relationship with her became increasingly distant, especially after I was abandoned at twelve.

My father was different. I believe he did the best he could with what he understood at the time. He didn’t have the information or awareness to recognize what I was experiencing neurologically, and I don’t hold him responsible for knowing what wasn’t understood then.

One thing I have always appreciated is that my father supported me being gay. When I came out at thirteen, he was the person who stood by me in that part of my life.

My relationship with my sisters was never particularly close, and we still don’t really have a relationship today.

The Child Everyone Thought Was Different

For the most part, I was a quiet child.

I tried to make friends. I wanted connection. I wanted someone to play with, someone to talk to, and someone who genuinely wanted me around.

For whatever reason, that never seemed to happen easily.

I was often seen as the weird or odd child. I struggled socially, and I knew I didn’t seem to fit in with the other kids.

I noticed that difference, but I didn’t have the understanding or vocabulary to explain it.

I knew I was different. I just didn’t know why.

Today, I can recognize many of the social difficulties and experiences from my childhood as traits associated with autism and ADHD. Back then, I simply thought that was how I was. And honestly, I hated feeling that way.

I heard the messages from adults around me that I was too much, too needy, or unwanted often enough that those messages began to become part of how I saw myself.

I didn’t feel understood by the adults in my life. It seemed that everyone struggled to understand me, and I had very little opportunity to explain what was happening inside my head.

I was a lonely child.

A World Inside My Head

There were things I loved, even when the world around me felt difficult.

I loved taking apart electronics. I wanted to understand how things worked, what was inside them, and how all the pieces came together.

I also loved video games.

I had a strong imagination and spent a lot of time creating entire fantasy worlds in my head. When I played alone, I could disappear into those worlds and create experiences that belonged entirely to me.

Those private worlds gave me somewhere to go when the outside world didn’t feel particularly welcoming.

School was difficult. I know I was held back in kindergarten and first grade because of developmental and social issues. I don’t remember every detail of those years, but I remember that learning and fitting in weren’t easy.

I was expected to function in a world that didn’t seem to understand how I experienced it.

Knowing I Was Different

There were two parts of myself that I began recognizing at different times.

I knew I was gay around eight or nine years old, as far back as I understood what the word meant. I didn’t necessarily have the language or confidence to explain it to anyone, but the awareness was there.

I came out to my father at thirteen, and his support remains one of the important positive memories in that part of my life.

The other differences were harder to understand.

I didn’t know about autism. I didn’t understand why social situations were so difficult, why I processed things differently, or why the expectations placed on me could feel so overwhelming.

I thought those things were simply who I was.

And when the people around you repeatedly communicate that who you are is too much, it becomes difficult to separate your identity from the criticism.

I also experienced sexual abuse, including experiences in Kentucky and at other points throughout my life. Those experiences affected how I understood myself, my identity, my sexuality, and where I belonged.

There were things I didn’t have the words to process as a child. There were questions I didn’t know how to ask, and feelings I didn’t have anyone to talk through with.

I was trying to make sense of myself without having the support or understanding I needed.

When Childhood Ended

At twelve, I experienced the loss of my relationship with my mother through abandonment.

I also lost my maternal grandfather, Roland, around that age.

By thirteen, I had become a ward of the state.

My teenage years were spent in boys’ homes and foster homes. I eventually left the state’s care at nineteen, essentially having to navigate adulthood on my own.

There is a particular kind of loneliness that comes from growing up without a stable place to call home or the certainty that someone will be there for you.

I had already spent years feeling unwanted and misunderstood. Now I was moving through a system of placements and trying to figure out where I belonged.

I wasn’t simply growing up. I was trying to survive the circumstances surrounding me.

The Future I Never Expected

When I was young, I never really imagined myself living to twenty.

Then I didn’t imagine making it to thirty. Even forty seemed like something that belonged to another person, not necessarily me.

I didn’t have elaborate dreams of success, money, or some extraordinary life.

What I wanted was actually pretty simple.

I wanted a family of my own. I wanted someone to love me. I wanted someone who wouldn’t walk away, abandon me, or eventually decide that I was too much to handle.

I wanted to feel wanted.

I wanted the kind of security that lets a person believe they have a place in the world.

I don’t think that was asking for too much. But for a child who had experienced so much instability and rejection, even that simple dream sometimes felt impossibly far away.

What I Would Tell That Little Boy

If I could sit beside the little boy I once was, I don’t think I would start by explaining autism, ADHD, trauma, or all the things he would eventually come to understand.

I think I would just want him to know that he wasn’t broken.

That he wasn’t too much.

That he wasn’t wrong for being different.

I would tell him:

Be strong. Life is going to have a lot of fun and love in it, but there will be suffering, too. Those are the times when you have to be strong. Never forget to believe in yourself, and always be yourself.

And don’t let the mask become you.

Because somewhere along the way, I learned how to hide parts of myself to make other people more comfortable. I learned how to adapt, how to withdraw, and how to try to become the person I thought others wanted me to be.

But there was always a person underneath all of that.

A little boy who loved electronics, video games, imagination, and the worlds he created in his head. A boy who wanted friends, wanted love, and wanted someone to understand him.

That boy deserved to be understood.

And perhaps one of the most important parts of my story is learning that he was never the problem.

This is where my story begins. Not with the person I eventually became, but with the little boy who was still trying to figure out who he was, why the world felt so difficult, and whether there would ever be a place where he truly belonged.