Why this one is personal.

I have autism and ADHD.

It took me longer than I'd like to admit to be able to say that plainly. No joke afterward to take the edge off. No explanation to make it easier for whoever was listening. Just the sentence.

Before that, I did what a lot of us do. I got good at passing. I learned what people expected a room to sound like and I gave them that, and then I went home with nothing left. From the outside it looked like I was handling everything fine. It cost more than anybody could see.

Here's what nobody tells you: finding out doesn't fix anything. It explains it. Every place I'd struggled and couldn't say why, every thing I could do that other people found hard — it all finally sat in one shape. I wasn't broken and then repaired. I was the same person with better information.

What changed is what I stopped apologizing for.

I'm not from here. I was born and raised in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, and I came to Texas late — old enough to know exactly what I was picking. Which means I've had to think about belonging a lot harder than somebody who never had to wonder.

Texas has a reputation for one kind of person. Tough, loud, doesn't flinch. I love it here, and I'll tell you the truth — that picture is too small. Some of the toughest people I know are carrying something they've never once mentioned. Some of us are wired differently. Some of us got here late. We still show up. We still do the work. We still belong.

That's the whole reason these shirts exist.

Not to turn a diagnosis into a personality. Not to sell you the line about it being a superpower, either — I've never cared for that one, because it asks you to be exceptional before you're allowed to be accepted. Just to put the plain thing on the front of a shirt, big enough that somebody can read it across a parking lot. Different isn't less. Every kind of mind belongs.

If you're autistic, or ADHD, or you're still working out what to call it — this is for you. If you love somebody who is, it's for you too. Wear it somewhere people can see it. That's how it gets easier for the next person who's still figuring out how to say the sentence.

I'm proudly autistic. I'm proudly Texan. Turns out there was never anything to choose between.

I have autism and ADHD. This collection is about being proud of how our minds work—and making room for every kind of person to belong.