Whats the point of getting a diagnosis

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A diagnosis could lead to government benefits (I know, they can be denied).

It can lead to accommodations at work (I know, some places may get even more hostile if they know you have a disability).

But a sanctified piece of paper could be of service if you feel you've been wronged. It's considered "proof" that you're part of a minority group.

a dx for me was like the period at the end of this sentence. it put a cap on a worry i'd had for decades, that there was something wrong with me. i thought then and now, "now that i know for sure, per professional assessment, i can go on to the 'now what?'" phase.

It would become meaningful only if they discover a genetic diagnosis; in other term when they start to define AS a true medical condition and not as a psychiatric diagnosis.

From both sides of the desk (as a nurse and a patient)...

Doctors can sometimes get their backs up when a patient (someone they consider to be relatively stupid) comes to them and says, " I think I have X." No matter that we have been living in this body and are capable of doing research, as well. We haven't been through 7+ years of formal training, so often our observations are discounted. To our detriment ( I knew something was wrong with me physically once, but the docs missed a cancer diagnosis ).

However, I went kicking and screaming into neurocognitive testing, and blammo ~> diagnosed.

I think if you want to know what's up with you, they resist. And if you don't want to know, or don't care to be diagnosed they slap one on you.

My experience is that the only one who really recognized what was going on for me was a clinical psychologist who specializes in autism in teens/adults. Others (psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, et al) didn't understand what was happening for me and what it meant for my life. So they just made things worse (because they had nothing to offer that explained anything but their own shallow, rubber-stamp diagnostic services). That one clinical psychologist helped me understand for the first time why I am this way, that there is a way for me in this world, and that I just needed to learn what I needed to learn to get by in it as best I can. He did things like explaining NT social stuff for me. He even had a white board in his office and would draw diagrams for his autistic patients to help us understand. I used to take pics of his diagrams so I could review them during my work days dealing with my ridiculous NT coworkers. Very helpful.

However, he also wrote me some disability accomodation papers for work to try and help me keep the job I had at the time by sparing me from the stuff that was triggering autism stuff for me, and it was all denied by my employer (even though my employer was in the business supposedly of helping people with various kinds of disabilities). So no real help there.

I'm also one of the "vast middle" of folks who aren't well off or "high functioning" enough (in the greater NT world) to be able to make my own way, but who are also not "low functioning" enough to qualify for disability. This happens to a lot of people - not just autistics, of course. People with mental health struggles, physical medical struggles, and so on who are also in the "vast middle" just do without or pay huge bills for what others get "free"/"low cost" through insurance.

In the end, though, I'm glad I did get the diagnosis as it cleared up some stuff for me. However, if I hadn't gotten it, I still would have begun figuring it out, or just understood myself as one of the people who are just "different". Or, as in the "old" days when being a "nerd" or "geek" was still considered a "bad" thing (instead of the "cool" thing it's supposed to be now for popular people), everyone just tagged me as "nerd"/"geek" (including myself).