Whats the point of Adult Diagnosis

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The point? Peace of mind! That is enough for me.

As for not getting any benefits, that is not true. I get accommodations through my university, and I qualify for student loan assistance (money I don't have to pay back), and tax incentives, etc. If I got absolutely nothing, I would still want to know--and that was why I got the diagnosis: to simply understand myself and why I do the things I do, and am incapable of doing things I should be able to do, etc.

-Some people get disability for ASDs, even when diagnosed as an adult.

-I'm getting help finding a job with the state vocational rehab group, specifically working with the person who focuses on AS.

-I can see autistic specialists, and couldn't before I got my diagnosis. Rather than seeing a generic counselor who treats me like everyone else, I'm now seeing a counselor who actively studied ASDs and who understands meltdowns and shutdowns and will actively help me find coping mechanisms that work with my ASD.

-Accomodations, whether for academic things, careers, or whatever else is a huge thing that you get from it.

- And in general, others understand me better now. They're more willing to help me rather than call me a failure for not having found employment. They're more willing to accept that I'm not just making things up when I mention my sensory sensitivities.

I went to get my professional diagnosis because I wanted to know if I had Asperger's or not. I am a truth seeker, and I wanted to know. So at age 44, I found out I have Asperger's.

Now I understand some of you see having Asperger's as having something "wrong" with you. But, I see it as having something "right" with me. Asperger's has made my life fun---and challenging. But everyone has challenges. I enjoy my special intense interests. I enjoy the music skills I have from being an autistic talent savant. I focus on the positives of Asperger's---and its gifts to me. I am not sitting around and dwelling on my social awkwardness, my sensory issues, my this and my that... I realize I have those challenges. What can I do about them??? They are things I have and have always had. I will continue to have those challenges in the future. And I am not going to dwell on them. I am going to dwell on the positives and expand my life around those things.

After my diagnosis of Asperger's, I finally knew why I was different...why I was eccentric. Then I educated myself on Asperger's to understand how it worked...what it was...etc. And then I expanded my life around that knowledge. That is why I adopted my motto, "My journey has just begun." My journey in life had just begun with understanding why I was different. I am moving forward.

An added note: Please do not think that my life is all rosy. It is not. I have meltdowns, shutdowns, bouts of depression, numerous episodes of anxiety, etc. I just try not to dwell on it too much. But I do dwell on it some.

People who don't live in a banana republic can get help with dental costs, access to discussion groups, home assistance, help with finding a job and other benefits.

I've benefitted from my adult DX in some ways.

My life at work was something of a misery when every year for a few months I was expected to take an active part in an area of work that requires good teamwork skills, good comprehension of unclear instructions, good tolerance of crowds, good flexibility about start and finish times and changes to the remit, and an ability to jump rapidly from the detail of a task to the big picture. They were really laying on the responsibility to deliver - two heads of department had expressed dissatisfaction in my performance and had interviewed me about it without resolution, and the immediate supervisors appeared to be "gunning for me" increasingly as the years rolled by. Since divulging my DX, I've stopped worrying about it, and they've taken most of the pressure off me now. It depends on the job though - luckily the rules say they can't fire me at all easily, and they're very sensitive about their politically-correct image. In my case, it's great not to live life dreading that horribe job every time it comes round. Nobody here has had a go at me since my DX.

I feel I know myself better through studying AS traits and how they apply to me. The DX alone hasn't done that....as far as I'm concerned it's mainly a legal thing, and I'll never be 100% sure if AS even exists, but it did lend some credibility to my belief that I had AS, and so many things about me became a lot clearer that it's been quite a renaissance in my quest for self-knowledge. It helped to steer me away from murky Freudian repression theories that used to be all I had to explain why I found my feelings so difficult to notice. I used to think my special interests were a fugue into my intellect to escape some terrible past trauma. I used to think I cared nothing for anybody but myself. I didn't know my strengths and weaknesses so well. It's particularly useful with relationships....I now have a much better handle on what went wrong with my failed marriages, whereas before I was very much in the dark.

I didn't get any cash benefits, but they do exist - I just couldn't be bothered to jump through all the hoops they used to block my application. There's Disability Living Allowance for a start. If you know how to work the system you'll probably get it.

I haven't heard of any sessions I can attend to help me cope with AS. There is a local society or two for Aspies and other autistic people, but I haven't talked to them. I don't quite see what they could do for me. Couple counselling for Aspies might have rescued my last marriage, but there wasn't anything we could practically get to, and by all accounts it was only group therapy, which I don't think would work for me, as I'm only really calm in very small groups.

It's nice to be able to understand other Aspies better. They annoy me a lot sometimes but at least I have the knowledge to see why they're being awkward, and that makes me a lot more forgiving. They inadvertently teach me a lot about my own wacky ways.

I get Disability Living Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance, Housing Benefit and Disabled Students Allowance (I live in London, UK so that's why my benefits have different names to yours). This is not only due to me having schizophrenia, but Asperger's Syndrome has a big part in it, in fact the DSA is 70% due to my Asperger's. And I live in council-run supported housing, which was originally a referral from a psychiatric ward, but now that I look at it, my Asperger's is 60% of the reason why I am in supported housing as the schizophrenia affects me in other ways.

SO I see for some people they are so screwed by it they get disability or special props at work or school.

Already finished college, and repaid all the loans.
Already in a successful thriving career (savant type here) in creative - technology field.

When I try explaining it now people are just utterly lost.
They expect me to be more abnormal in general life.

Its the inner world which most affects me: sensory, perceptual(space/time/sequence/dyslexia/dyspraxia), the GIGANTIC BLINDSPOT of never knowing when someone is being underhanded, manipulative, honest, sincere, and total and complete inability to READ BETWEEN THE LINES - an absolute LITERAL interpreter. INNOCENT to the degree of bring childlike. Other diagnostic testing puts emotional age at ten.

This causes massive amounts of pain and suffering, exploitation, abuse, being used, taken advantage of: otherwise a predators dream.

However; Intellectually gifted and one of the best in my field, own my home, property, financially stable and successful - by all NT standards pretty successful and independent. No WAY given my lifetime earnings and income tax returns and capabilities and IQ etc., would I ever be able to get any type of disability etc., just not dysfunctional enough.

As for medication interesting that someone mentioned Risperdal. Over the last 20 years I have tried so so many bipolar, depression, and psychoactive drugs it's rediculious. None of them helped. The anti depressants gave me absolute night terrors (I was decapitating people in my dreams and such). The only drug that made my brain seem to feel ordered and would stop a manic episode - or rather prevent one when I felt the onset was Risperdal.

After having diagnosis for years of bipolar and then later told it was actually ADD/ADHD but I was so bright I escaped diagnosis all those years I was relieved to try Adderral and Ritalin - which had absolutely no effect no matter how much what types or how often I took them, I was about out of hope. My doctor gave me Risperdal out of total experimentation and it worked. Of course when I studied Risperdal and learned it was first line of treatment for schizophrenia and how the perceptual scrambling was explained also within a schizophrenic mind I freaked out. If none of the bipolar meds or depressin meds or add meds ever worked I argued I must not "have that" and my psychiatrist agreed. So finally a drug that WORKED was goddamn schizophrenia medicine. It really does make me feel ok.

I couldn't face that possible diagnosis and stopped going to my psychiatrist.

Now that I have learned about Asperger's which explains everything AND that Risperdal was mentioned as a help in treatment, I am MUCH more likely to go pursue this.

I was not aware any medications were available.
So this is good and encouraging.

Obviously there is no cure for the glaring BLINDSPOT, but if this medication helps with the overwhelment and sensory overload aspects I would see value in getting the DX.

Obviously my most extreme fear is getting a job at a major fortune company (which is what I do...have done....the places I work for) and having Risperdal pop on the physical/drug test questionnaire and labratory test - in which case the company is going to rule out my employment/candidacy immediately due to the connotations of "Risperdal" and what it's designed for.

If I could have an Asperger's diagnosis then I would have an excuse for taking Risperdal that is not schizophrenic related.

However I have not ruled out that I might be schizophrenic. As I get older I am having greater difficulty with administrative tasks, memory, emotional processing and time perception/judgement as well as taste issues ( I can taste the chemicals in everything...and a great amount of dissonance around food in fact i cant think about it too much because i let myself realize even raw vegan food unless grown myself is covered in pesticides, and even organic meats arent safe, the cows were exposed to chemtrails and the earth itself even the top level water supply is contaminated with trace amounts of drugs, there is literally no where or way to truly get food that does not have chemicals in it because the water supply itself is contaminated, anyway its mind boggling and I cant deal with it and it TASTES so awful I don't understand how other people DONT taste it...but I don't know. People look at me like I am insane when I talk about the chemcals in food and other things which makes me wonder if I am possibly crazy because I seem to perceive things that arent there whilst simultaneously not perceive things (BLINDSPOT) that normal people do.

Sorry to be long winded. Thanks for the responses. Not meaning to whine. I just was having an extremely hard time dealing with it. I blamed my father and overly dominant strict upbringing for my 10 year old emotional age and thought with personal growth, therapy dedication, hard work and taking personal responsibility not being in codependent relationships I might one day if not slowly MATURE past f*****g ten years old. Now I see this is not possible and I will have this blindspot forever and this emotional YOUTH about me which will always put me at a disadvantage in life - but the worst part is I have 2 children and I now have to face that my children are going to mature past the point that I am. My gifted 11 year old daughter already is passing me by. She actually helps me with my blindspot and reading people and helping protect me. It just saddens me that I'm not going to get any more emotionally mature and will eventually be less useful to my children because of it. It also saddens me that I don't have much hope of ever having a healthy adult non co-dependent relationship. I had hoped to perhaps therapeutically progress myself out of the submissive/dominant dadd/girl relationships that are comfortable to me to a man/woman partnership. But I see now I will always need a daddy, a guardian and protector and mentor - whcih is fine but I am scared in 5, 10 or 15 years when we are 60 he won't want the mentality of a 10 year old.

I am scared to death every day he will realize what a childlike and dysfunctional mess I am on the inside and he will leave me. I am also scared to death he is in my blindspot and is not at all who I think he is. He gets my dyslexia and direction and sequence issues, and some of the sensory issues due to the s&m I am into but he doesnt quite grasp the overwhelment and blindspot issues since we dont live together and I am afraid to ever live with him because then he will see for sure. I truly have no business being in a relationship with anyone and realize this more and more as I find out about this. It'snot fair at all to the NT, they deserve better...they deserve someone on their level across the board. I will never be that.

It's not really fair to say that I'm "so screwed by it." I have gifts far above and beyond what most people can do. I have an IQ that hits the test ceiling. I've published two books and I'm a speaker. I have a college degree from a top-notch 4-year private college. Yes, I have challenges, especially with sensory issues and communication... but I don't like to think that they've "screwed" me. I'm a perfectly capable human being who can work past my challenges and come out better for it on the other side.

Also, it's Asperger's. No 'b.' Sorry, just drives me crazy.

I don't think there's any point for me now i needed the help when I was a child or when I had a job they didn't know much about it when I was little but because I have a learning disability I went to a special school which was better for me as there was no way I could have coped in high school I dread to think what would have happened to me if I did.

starsoul111, valuable insight, thanks for sharing. You are not alone.