Jax Taylor, Brittany Cartwright’s 3-Year-Old Son Cruz Diagnosed With Autism

• Brittany Cartwright revealed to PEOPLE that her 3-year-old son Cruz is autistic and is mostly nonverbal
• She’s opening up about a recent moment with Cruz, whom she shares with ex Jax Taylor, that almost brought her to tears
• Cartwright says she wanted to share Cruz’s autism journey ahead of the April 15 premiere for season 2 of The Valley, since they got his official diagnosis after filming wrapped

Sitting in the foyer of her Los Angeles home in mid-February, Brittany Cartwright recalls a recent moment with her 3-year-old son Cruz that almost brought her to tears.

“He was in his car seat, and all of a sudden, he goes, ‘Mommy, I want to get out,’ plain as day,” the reality star, 36, tells PEOPLE. “I could have cried because hearing him say a full sentence was heartbreaking in the best way.”

Fans of Bravo’s The Valley will recognize how big of a milestone this was for Cruz, whose struggles with speech were documented on the first season of the hit reality show last year. His journey, as well as Cartwright and her ex Jax Taylor’s search for answers about their son, continues in season 2, premiering April 15.

Since filming for the season wrapped before they received the official diagnosis from Cruz’s developmental pediatrician last fall, Cartwright is sharing for the first time publicly that her son, who turns 4 on April 12, is autistic and has limited speech.

“On the show it’s obvious that he’s nonverbal, and I wanted to be able to talk about this on my own terms instead of people on social media trying to diagnose him,” Cartwright says. “My son is autistic, and he’s incredible. I’m his voice now. I’m his warrior now.”

Since learning Cruz’s diagnosis, the Kentucky native has been adjusting to a different normal.

“This is a whole new life for me,” she says. “I don’t have any close friends that live near me that have kids with autism, so I don’t really have anybody that can relate to what I’m going through. They’re all super supportive, of course, but there’s just a lot of ins and outs that a lot of people don’t really understand.”

Making things more complicated is having to navigate her relationship with her ex, who made headlines in March for admitting his struggle with cocaine addiction over the past 20 years. Cartwright and Taylor, 45, separated after 10 years last February, and Cartwright filed for divorce in August.

“Going through this divorce and everything has really made me so much stronger,” she says. “At the end of the day, everything I’m doing is because of my son.”

Cartwright and Taylor welcomed Cruz in in 2021, two years after their wedding. As Cruz grew, he quickly checked off developmental milestones.

For more of Brittany Cartwright’s exclusive interview, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE on newsstands Friday.

“He crawled early, he walked early,” Cartwright says. “He was talking, he was saying, ‘Mommy,’ ‘Daddy.’ He was saying ‘Hot Dog!’ from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Then, as he got closer to two, we started noticing that he was regressing in his speech. He stopped talking almost completely.”

Cartwright enrolled him in speech therapy right away and decided to show some of the sessions on The Valley in hopes of helping other parents: “I try to remember that people can relate to this. I’m not the only one going through this. It’s nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about.”

When Cartwright finally received Cruz’s autism diagnosis, she was expecting it.

“But, of course, when you get it, it just made everything real,” she says. “Our life is going to look a little bit different, but I feel like I was meant to be his mom.”

Though Cruz is mostly nonverbal, Cartwright says he will “sporadically say different words,” like “Mommy.”

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“It can be difficult because I’ve never heard him say, ‘I love you,’ but he is so loving, and he shows me he loves me every single day,” she says. “He is such a mommy’s boy. I think a lot of times with nonverbal children, people don’t think that they understand what’s going on, or they think they’re not very smart, and that’s just not true. Cruz is very smart.”

At preschool, Cruz has a therapeutic companion who joins him, and he continues to do speech and occupational therapy several times a week.

At home, he has a sensory room fitted with a trampoline and lights to help him regulate when he’s overstimulated, or “stimming.”

“Sometimes Cruz does this thing where he’ll put his hand up to his mouth, and he’ll kind of blow into it,” she says. “That’s his main thing that he does when he’s stimming. Sometimes he likes to spin in circles. He doesn’t really flap his arms that much anymore. Whenever he does start the stimming, I just embrace them. Sometimes I will flap with him, or I will spin in circles with him, or I’ll just give him a hug. He loves tight squeezes.”

Cruz also loves swimming in the pool and swinging on the swing set in their backyard.

“Right now is the time he’s building his brain, so we’re just setting the building blocks,” Cartwright says. “I’m just trying to do everything I possibly can to help him live the happiest life ever, and I feel very blessed that I’m able to give him everything that he needs. That’s why I want to help as many mothers as I can.”

The Valley premieres April 15 at 9:15 p.m. ET on Bravo.