How Has Your Life Changed After an Official ASD-1 Diagnosis?

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I don’t have an official diagnosis yet, but there’s a high probability I’m ASD-1.
I’m learning about it, talking to AI, reading your posts, and taking tests.

Most of the time, I feel like an average person — but if I don’t follow my rituals, daily routine, and my own “architecture,” things quickly turn into chaos.

I’m curious: how did having an official diagnosis change your life?

I mean not only the medical or therapeutic side, but also the broader aspects:
— Did it make communication with people easier?
— Did new opportunities appear (work, education)?
— Did your self-perception change?

I understand that for some it’s just a formality, while for others it’s a major turning point. I’d love to hear real stories.

Well, my impression of myself improved. I liked having a diagnosis to explain my behavior as opposed to "I just can't get it together and stay emotionally regulated and not step on other people's toes or say the wrong thing, because I suck." But when I told my (now ex) husband, he reacted like he had been conned into marrying someone defective. So that marriage ended, and I had to fight a custody battle to prove that even though I'm autistic, I'm a good mom.

When I told other people about the diagnosis, they didn't believe me. They thought I had invented an excuse. So I quickly learned not to share it with others.

In an ideal world, people would cut me some slack. Oh, the whole morning schedule changed from what was expected, of course StickBugette had trouble adjusting. Or let StickBugette do things her way, since she does so much work here for the whole team. Oh, StickBugette needs quiet right now or she's going to lose it. I see that sort of thinking towards some autistic children today. But as an adult, I need to suck it up.

When my bride bumps up against one of my Autism traits she gets to hear me say:

"I have a doctor's note for that!"
Also, the diagnosis lead me to participating on Wrong Planet...the only online place I go to socialize.

And the diagnosis confirmed my suspicion I really was different.

But I got my diagnosis right before my 65th birthday. I was already happily and comfortably married and retired. And I am not, by nature, very social. Sooo...the diagnosis didn't really change my life much (except for those three things I listed above).

My diagnosis changed my life incredibly and I really wish I didn't have it, until adulthood at least. I feel the only female here with only mild AS to have been diagnosed in childhood and it gets me angry.

My life has been pretty much destroyed since I was diagnosed and it made me feel horrible about myself and I still feel that way now. It shut off opportunities to me because it meant I could never be officer in marine corps or join the military.

No changes.

I was 14.
It's a no brainer for me since I was 10.

I could've able to convince the household to not make me go to school for few years when I burnt out, diagnosis or none.



Too aware that nobody knows what to do with me.

And for most of my life, my needs as an autistic is overshadowed by something more biophysical condition, yet was dismissed or ignored. Left untreated until this year.

If there's any change I'd be getting, it's to get rid of said biophysical issue.
THEN I'll be able to just focus myself as an autistic, all without those stupid human problematic detours.

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Oops, I don't think "incredibly" was the right word lol. More "drastically".

If the diagnosis was just kept between me and a few close relatives and went no further then things might have been different. But because it had to be all out in the open, being constantly reminded of it, and my whole class being told, then it was a miserable time and it's horrible feeling really different when I wasn't really that different.

OK. I'll mention that I went onto active duty in the U.S. Air Force in 1980. One of the best things that ever happened to me. (I can't say the best thing because I'm married!)

The DSM did not add Asperger's 'til 1994, the year I turned 40...too late to catch me!

I was diagnosed in late 50s. It made me realize precisely why I've pretty much never had a boyfriend (I'm female). It explained why I was so unsuccessful with dating and could never find a man with whom to have a meaningful relationship. I had always thought I was too "weird" to get a man, and if I ever DID get one, he'd have to have either a mental handicap or schizophrenia (during this time of my life, I thought autism was Rainman, so I never considered he'd have to be autistic).

In later years I began speculating that no man of "my type" was ever interested in me because he could tell by just sensing or vibes that I didn't want sex.

But this premise assumes that every single man wants sex, which is not true.

There had been men interested in me, but many were married or bums or completely not my type. I have asked many men out, so don't blame pickiness. They all turned me down.

The diagnosis finally made it make sense. All my life I'd been seeking a partner in the NT sphere. I had placed dozens of personal ads in my 20s and 30s. Had I known I was autistic I would've said I was autistic and was seeking an autistic man. I could've also taken part in events for autistic people given by social service agencies.

I had been robbed of finding a soulmate by NOT knowing I'm autistic. My siblings and in-laws knew but never told me. I feel so robbed. I can't get those years back.

It's too late to find a man (he has to be autistic) because I look 50ish (I'm now 62). I am NOT interested in men my age; never have been; never will be. This is why I say it's too late. Furthermore, autistic men my age don't go to autistic social events that I attend; they're all in their 20s and 30s, rarely 40s. I'd love to have a much younger man, but I've come to terms that this will never happen.

It's MUCH easier to accept the fact that I was too weird to ever get a man, vs. it was because I was autistic and looking among NTs. I'd be lying if I said I never thought of how maybe it would've been better had I never began suspecting I'm autistic in the first place, because it would've been easier to live with the idea that I was too weird to find a man, rather than, "I COULD HAVE HAD I KNOWN I WAS AUTISTIC."

I was diagnosed at the age of 62. By that time I'd been a psychiatric patient for nearly 46 years.It hasn't changed my life to any noticeable degree. It might have done if I'd been diagnosed 20-25 years earlier. It did prove I was right in insisting there was more than just SMI.