Diagnosis - good or bad?

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There was an old thread that came back to life -
Are you harder on yourself? that reminded me.

There's an open question over diagnosis: it's all very well if your parents are well off and well informed and you're diagnosed early enough for successful intervention, but what does it do to the rest of us?

I've not been formally diagnosed. I learned about AS and am 99% certain I have it. I found out at 40.

In one way, learning has been a help. It's enabled me to deal with issues I never understood. Practically, it make no real change. The damage is largely said and done already.

I did not answer the survey as I am not formally diagnosed.

Informal assessment at 5 years Old.

Did it help?

Not in a productive way.
It made people see the label and not me as an individual.

Parents well off, but hopelessly negatively misinformed.
I was told that something was psychologically "wrong" with me and it wasn't a legitimate difference in brain wiring and perception.

Hmm... I'm not sure. I think there'd be both advantages and disadvantages. I was diagnosed at an age when I was still so completely disconnected from the world (in a fog, so to speak), that I don't really recall enough of before diagnosis to tell the difference.

I try to put myself in the shoes of someone who was mature enough to start questioning why they were different (or even notice that they were different at all; I was so immersed in my own little world, all I really registered was the fact that people bullied me - didn't think enough about other people and social relations to wonder why) before diagnosis, and I think maybe you would suffer a lot more simply because you could only blame all the abnormal problems you seemed to be having on yourself not trying hard enough, or something. In the same vein, being diagnosed means people treat you different, and your family doesn't expect as much from you as if you were undiagnosed - leaving you at the risk of being spoiled and coddled.

I think it depends entirely on the individual situation of the person in question.

A diagnosis can have very different consequences for two people of the same age, with similar ASDs, with similar level of severity and similar level of functioning. It depends a lot on the rest of their abilities, their personality, their living arrangements, their financial status, their parents and friends, their school or workplace and so on.

I sought it at age 18 and it has been mostly very helpful so far.

People - parents, the people themselves who're affected and professionals - don't consider the personal situation of a person and their future enough when they make assessments.

Late.

It helps now that I know the things I kept on failing at that I should have been able to easily accomplish with my cognitive ability, and my endless attempts of trying after trying which led to my breaking point, were due to something I have no emotional or rational say over; it's a disability in the same way a person missing an arm can't do the things that those with one can, just without realizing that you actually are lacking an arm, so you keep on trying to pick stuff up with...nothing, which leads to constant failure.

I can work around it now.

I was diagnosed age 36 and it didn't do much. OK I got extra benefits but other than that it is still the same.

35 here and no info on how it has changed my life. I will get to know soon. For some who have some more extreme cases of ASDs, they may get some help coping with work, assisted living (special apartments) and home help to cope with life.

I only think i will get help with the first part (coping with work) since i am too high functioning, and even though i scored below the cutoff point on the AQ-test, i still meet the diagnostic criterias for AS specified in DSM-IV.

Late, as in 33. It would have been a big help to have been diagnosed earlier but it is a help now - as it is part of why I can get Social Security.

I was diagnosed early. Did it help getting a diagnosis? Not much because I was still who I was with or without it. Actually, I don't think the diagnosis itself makes that much of a difference. What matters most is what you are surrounded by and how you learn to cope and adapt.

Well for me, I hate getting treated like I'm a moron, and I absolutely hate getting special treatment. Which means if I had to either be homeless and eat from garbages and trying to get a job, or to use my Aspergers diagnosis to get a special fund or what not, I would definitely without a doubt choose number 1. If I **** my life, I'm going to take responsibility for it and not use a diagnosis to get the easy way out.
As soon as I'm legally an adult I am going to get every single record of Aspergers or anything else terminated, no matter what. To use something like that as something to get special support is not me, and I definitely don't need it.
I am going to get a job when I'm 15, and move out when I'm 19, and live life independently and not use the Aspergers diagnosis or even Aspergers itself as a reason not to do things.

Was diagnosed at the age of 30. It has helped very much. Am now allowed to just be myself. People no longer try to give me psychiatric treatment. And learning about asperger's has diminished my anxieties substantially.