IS USEFUL TO GET A DIAGNOSIS?

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I am 15 years old, I have serious problems that are relation with AS.I can hide them well and people only think that I am just different.Only my parents are worryied about me,because I never go out with friends.In fact I dont have got friends because I say things that hurt them without noticed .And thousand of problems that I could write a book about them but I never expressed them to other people.If I want to get a diagnosis, I will have to talk with my parents and I can´t talk to other people about my problems.And I don´t want my parents to know .I suffer from anxiety and depression but they don´t know.I have never talked with a psychologist.They wanted to take me but I didn´t wanted to go. What do you think I should do?

Hmmm....sounds like a difficult situation!

For some people, it is useful to have a diagnosis. Having a diagnosis can lead to getting help with things that is actually helpful......for example:

I have a lot of trouble making friends.

When I was younger, people didn't know I had mild autism/ASD, and they would try to help me with making friends....but the help they gave me wasn't useful because they didn't know I had ASD.

They would tell me all sorts of things like, "Just be yourself," or "Don't worry what other people think of you" because they thought I was just shy or self-conscious. In reality, I didn't have a clue what other people thought of me (unless they bullied me), and it was "being myself" that was the problem--because I was so different.

If the people who had tried to help me figure out how to make friends had known about my ASD, they might have known that I needed help with things like how to how to start a conversation, and how to avoid offending people.

Having a diagnosis can also be helpful if you find that hiding your problems is exhausting and you don't want to do it all the time anymore.

Some people find they don't need an official diagnosis. There are a lot of good books out there about living with AS and dealing with AS-related problems, and wrongplanet is a good source of peer-support. If you think that self-help (reading books and talking to people on wrongplanet, for example) might be enough to help you out, then maybe you don't need a diagnosis.

But if you want or need more help than books and peer-support can offer, it might be a good idea to try to find a way to talk to your parents--or to talk to another adult you're more comfortable with (if there is another adult you're more comfortable with)....if you can!

If you decide to talk to someone about your AS-relate problems, you have control over how much you tell people, and how you tell them (you could write something instead of talking, for example.)

Thanks for your advice animalcrackers

It's particularly helpful if you need accommodations in school, though I can't say whether or not it's useful once school is done.