Yep, professionally diagnosed, not with Aspergers but was termed HFA (high functioning autism) by a specialist back in 2010 as the result of a higher education programme, for that is another route to diagnosis for universities are keen to discover and aid. To say yes there are some distinct positives in being diagnosed in that it can aid one's self forgiveness for a self perceived life's failure, but there are some dangers to the diagnosis I've found ;I have recently been diagnosed by my GP, after seeing typical symptoms on the NHS website, as being on the Autism spectrum. I have, according to my research what I believe to be what used to been known as Asperger's. I have to wait around 18 months for any sort of assessment due to long waiting lists.
The diagnosis makes so much sense about how I have been and felt all of my life. Unfortunately it has cost me two marriages and it's looking like a third is also going to end.
Has anyone else been diagnosed? It would be interesting to hear your experiences?
a) In a new found interest in the subject of autism, one might take to learning more about it, to perhaps seek to connect with others out on the web, to in discussion of experiences through a need to fit in, potentially take on things that aren't really yours to take, to if you can recognise them erode coping mechanism you have through your life developed.
b) Be very careful who you tell for there are a lot of bullies out there, intentional and not, for any can take to the web, to find the popular picture, the stereotype to there apply their understanding of that popular picture to you , to even when they can't see what they have read seek to deny your experience and difficulty and in some cases even use the knowledge as a tool of oppression through telling you, you do not know what you're thinking because you have a ' cognitive disorder '
c) It's true, there is no help for late diagnosed adult autism on the NHS, for one to just be expected to suck it up and cope with what could be ailing through the understanding, to be diagnosed as an adult one has clearly coped to get that far to not be in need of aid and besides to offer treatment to adults would erode the belief that adulthood cures childhood autism for invariably diagnosed children lose their support at the age of eighteen, to in my mind be in a worse position than the late diagnosed that may have been forced to develop coping strategies to navigate living and working.
Though in my case a diagnosis of autism enabled a lot of understanding and self forgiveness, it wasn't the end of it, for what came two years later was a diagnosis of an intersex condition of which just happens to feature a well known comorbidity with high functioning autism. For that condition to at least have a medical treatment paradigm of which I do have to say from experience does knock the edges off the autism. The only problem with the direction I took in that paradigm is that it has rendered me more or less a public enemy for my appearance. An experience I find autism actually aids with in that I am already well schooled in the art of societal camouflage and the avoidance of situations likely to cause difficulty.