These are all some very good answers; I really enjoyed the boyfriend/girlfriend comment above. And others have addressed that you have been employed for 5 years, so that proves that there is a legitimate business need for you and your services. I would add the caveat that that it proves you a a "real" professional, but not necessarily a "real" developer.
What makes you a "real" developer?
Don't let anybody tell you that SQL doesn't count. There is no language that doesn't count. If you understand HTML, or XML, at a very high, broad, and detailed level, you are developer. If you understand EDI files, or even MIDI files, at a very high, broad, and detailed level, you are a developer.
I think that what separates the "real" developers from mere coders, IT support, and technical interns is: understanding of systems, understanding of software-development life cycle, untaught aptitude, natural or practiced... and successful, deployed projects. If you are competent to provision your operating systems, IDEs, servers, and testing environments, from off-the-shelf hardware, software packages and cloud services, you are a developer. If you understand in theory and practice how to track down bugs, how to do feature-branching and unit testing, you are a developer. If you have tried, sometimes unsuccessfully, to teach and train others on what comes second-nature to you, are you a developer. If your stuff works, you are a developer.
Don't let anybody tell you that being a "real" developer is somehow a function of pay or professional advancement. It is good to have pay and professional advancement, but there are college students and even high school students who are very talented in building their fun open-source and hobby projects: retrocomputing, gaming, linux-from-scratch, amateur radio, crypto mining, screensavers, customized firmware, making art on graphing calculators, and whatnot. Even if those kids don't have the pay and advancement appropriate for their skill level, because of lack of formal qualifications, lack of professional maturity and "soft skills", or a lack of business need for their specific specialties, I would never dare say to their faces that they are not "real" developers.
Because their stuff works.