Tyler Baltierra has finally be given some answers to questions he’s had since childhood.
During the Wednesday (August 27) episode of his and wife Catelynn‘s podcast Cate & Ty: Break It Down, the 33-year-old Teen Mom star revealed that he has been diagnosed with autism.
“It felt like a big sigh of relief,” Tyler said of the diagnosis. “Then I got really sad and I was like, ‘Wow!’ I just thought about all the things I went through as a kid. I just felt so sad for that little kid who wondered, ‘What’s wrong with me? Something’s wrong, why am I not normal?’”
Keep reading to find out more…Tyler said that he decided to get tested after watching their 6-year-old daughter Vaeda and recognizing behaviors from his own childhood.
“Just seeing so many things in Vaeda that I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I get why she’s doing that,’” he explained. “’Oh my god, when I was a kid, I remember doing that, like, wondering why doesn’t anyone understand what I’m saying? Or how important this stupid little thing is to me.’ First thing I noticed is that small things [that] should not be a big deal are a huge deal to her.”
Tyler‘s autism diagnosis comes after he was previously diagnosed with bipolar disorder and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He admitted that he had been puzzled by the former diagnosis since he didn’t experience the highs and lows usually associated with bipolar disorder.
However, after talking with a doctor about his autism, it all started to make sense to Tyler.
“She was like, ‘Your mood swings are based [on] things not going right in your weird little routine that I won’t be able to understand, your wife will never be able to understand fully,’” he recalled.
“You can explain it as much as you can about how these things operate in your head,” Tyler continued. “These mood swings come across [like] something really frustrated you real quick.”
While the autism diagnosis finally gave him the answers to questions he’s had his whole life, Tyler admitted that he was left wondering about what could have been.
“If I would have known about my stuff, being autistic or being on the spectrum, would that have changed my therapy?” he wondered. “It got me thinking, ‘Wow, there’s so many things that could have been different.’”
Moving forward, Tyler is happy that he has a better understanding of how he functions.
“It’s just the way my brain works,” Tyler said. “Instead of trying to fix it, let’s just try to live with this thing and I think knowing this information makes me better aware.”
Back in 2023, Tyler joined OnlyFans.