Knowing about Asperger's Damaging or Helpful?

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I'm in the 'helpful' camp. I always knew I wasn't normal, so that part was no surprise. It was just kind of freeing to know WHY I was the way I am. I did go through a period where it did get me down to realize that certain things were never going to change, but I already kinda knew that anyway. So the knowledge has had both positive and negative effects, but overall I'm glad to know. I have wondered how it would have affected me to have been diagnosed younger, but I don't know if it would have helped a lot, given me an excuse for not trying, or had no effect at all. I guess it all happened the way it was supposed to happen.

Hmmm.... I guess people disagree with what I said mainly.

I think my main problem is my interest in Asperger's could be seen as creepy too, especially if it turns out I was really wrong about being on the spectrum. I do have a friend in real life that cares a lot about autism and wears awareness shirts and stuff even though she's not on the spectrum, but she's a substitute teacher for special needs kids and it makes more sense.

I'm even obsessed with the Aspie Quiz, why do I want to take that test so much Especially since I get similar results, I'm barely below the Aspie/NT cutoff.

I found learning about it to be immensely helpful. Suddenly almost every single thing I had ever struggled with made sense, and all of it all at once with a single word. It answered the question I'd been asking my entire life: "What's wrong with me?" And it made the answer: "Nothing. Nothing is wrong with you. You were just born a little different." It gave me the framework needed to simultaneously allow me to accept who I am and to work with that knowledge to improve myself and work on my persistent difficulties. It's much easier to face a problem when you know what the problem is.

Knowing about Asperger's/autism also helped me by teaching me problems I didn't even realize I had, and by teaching me more about other people. I didn't know that most people were better able to judge such things as what others think of or feel towards them (theory of mind), for example, which taught me a lot about both myself and others. It taught me that I can be naive, and that gives me the ability to protect myself. It helped me understand what it is that others find awkward about me and why they called me "eccentric" or "weird" when I hadn't understood before, and why hearing a vacuum cleaner made me want to cry out and cover my ears.

I could go on, but I've probably gone on more than enough already.

I only about a week ago really looked into aspergers (my mom always knew i had it but I thought it was like add, and i just wanted to be normal so I stayed away from learning about it).

But when i really learned about what it is. I started to tear up. It was amazing, it explained everything about my personality and why I have such a problem with social situations. I am so happy to know what I have. I don't hate myself anymore for not being able to fit in. So I am very thankful to know about this. And I am really thankful for Wrong Planet and being able to talk to people who have the same issues as me.

I like it. Assuming I'm right in my self-diagnosis, it explains why I do what I do. And I like things to have rational reasons. I like what I do and I like the way I am. The reason why I behave in certain ways has no bearing on my opinion of my behavior. For context, Einstein's brain was abnormal. So being abnormal can be just fine.

Perhaps if I had known about having mild AS I might have been able to avoid the terrible conflicts that occurred in the last 10 years when I was a member of two different social groups. But as it is I feel like I found out too late (even though the possibility had occurred to me years ago, I couldn't find any help for it so I just dismissed it). I am now afraid to try to join other groups, both because what happened was so awful, but also because knowing I have AS seems to me to make the likelihood that I will succeed in getting along with others very low if not nil. So I am less likely to try again.

Mostly, it has made me feel more hopeless, because now I know it's not just a matter of trying harder.