Do you ever think it's odd that diagnosis is essentially just us being classified, usually by neurotypical people?

Yes, I do have a problem with it myself.  The whole diagnostic process involved me putting myself into the hands of "experts" with the power to evaluate core aspects of my personality based on a handful of criteria from the DSM, which in any case don't represent anything like the whole picture of any neurodivergent person!  It also involved extremely long waits, plus a whole load of anxiety linked to that and also to the very real sense that I was basically asking someone to judge me (having already received a whole rake of negative judgements from others throughout my life)!

I'd really have preferred not to have to go through this, not to have my personality traits listed in their vast compendium of mental disorders, not to give away my power to people with so very little understanding of neurodiversity that now, 3 years later, it actually shocks me.  And the more I learn, the more shocked I am. 

Ideally I should have been identified as autistic much earlier on in life, probably in primary school, with adjustments made for my learning style and different ways of socialising but, in the late 60s/early 70s, the knowledge and awareness just wasn't there.  Failing that, I'd prefer to self identify - after all, people know when they're gay and I always, always knew i was different.  I just didn't have the words for it.  Again, the information just wasn't out there.  

But on the whole I'd say I feel sick of handing over my personal power to so-called experts who then proceed to make me feel somehow "less than" and  refer me to agencies that still have a stereotypical view of autism (quite obviously geared towards young boys, probably with learning diabilities as well) and that can't possibly help me as an older woman with intergenerational issues that all cluster around never having known that my family is strongly neurodivergent and never haing received any appropriate support or information.  They actually have little or no relevent expertise and, were it not for the perceived need for an "expert", I never would have gone down that route! 

I have major regrets!  I also feel somehow primed for this experience in that, again throughout my life, I learnt that I was somehow in the wrong and needed to either change or mask to fit in or not be subjected to endless criticism.  And this meant I generally looked to others to see how things should be done, never trusted myself and developed an exaggerated external locus of evaluation, never thinking to trust my own internal voice and experience.  This has been damaging and I still need to develop my internal locus of evaluation, my own value system and instincts, many of which were right all along.  But no.  I went and deferred to the "experts" in one last act of desperation!  I really resent all of this! 

Yes, I do have a problem with it myself.  The whole diagnostic process involved me putting myself into the hands of "experts" with the power to evaluate core aspects of my personality based on a handful of criteria from the DSM, which in any case don't represent anything like the whole picture of any neurodivergent person!  It also involved extremely long waits, plus a whole load of anxiety linked to that and also to the very real sense that I was basically asking someone to judge me (having already received a whole rake of negative judgements from others throughout my life)!

I'd really have preferred not to have to go through this, not to have my personality traits listed in their vast compendium of mental disorders, not to give away my power to people with so very little understanding of neurodiversity that now, 3 years later, it actually shocks me.  And the more I learn, the more shocked I am. 

Ideally I should have been identified as autistic much earlier on in life, probably in primary school, with adjustments made for my learning style and different ways of socialising but, in the late 60s/early 70s, the knowledge and awareness just wasn't there.  Failing that, I'd prefer to self identify - after all, people know when they're gay and I always, always knew i was different.  I just didn't have the words for it.  Again, the information just wasn't out there.  

But on the whole I'd say I feel sick of handing over my personal power to so-called experts who then proceed to make me feel somehow "less than" and  refer me to agencies that still have a stereotypical view of autism (quite obviously geared towards young boys, probably with learning diabilities as well) and that can't possibly help me as an older woman with intergenerational issues that all cluster around never having known that my family is strongly neurodivergent and never haing received any appropriate support or information.  They actually have little or no relevent expertise and, were it not for the perceived need for an "expert", I never would have gone down that route! 

I have major regrets!  I also feel somehow primed for this experience in that, again throughout my life, I learnt that I was somehow in the wrong and needed to either change or mask to fit in or not be subjected to endless criticism.  And this meant I generally looked to others to see how things should be done, never trusted myself and developed an exaggerated external locus of evaluation, never thinking to trust my own internal voice and experience.  This has been damaging and I still need to develop my internal locus of evaluation, my own value system and instincts, many of which were right all along.  But no.  I went and deferred to the "experts" in one last act of desperation!  I really resent all of this!