Why do the professionals bother diagnosing us?

I guess it very much depends on your local council and funding as well as your level of functioning. Where I am, support services are in place and my social worker allocated funding for a support worker.  If you receive PIP, theoretically that payment is meant to be used for such services if additional funding is not allocated.

I agree it's vastly frustrating and yes questions and answers get twisted and turned. I think your "dismissal" wasn't a case of you being the problem but their lack of experience. I've met and seen on YouTube professionals experienced in autism and that makes such a huge difference. It's the luck of the draw who you get in counselling and mental health ( I've been to appalling ones and good ones so nervous about who next.. ). Some have an aura of superiority and some ( often with more experience) are just very calm natural and unassuming. Yes one of the outcomes I hoped for was the help, support and pointers like you said.. I'm yet to find out how that will pan out. It's knowing where to look and what to look for. I found a facility I thought looked good but it's in the Leicestershire Northamptonshire region and it's really hard finding anything near me. But they are out there. I'm trying not to give up hope. The other thing is identifying our own strengths and weaknesses or specific traits if we can ( I'm useless at that .. what are you good at? Erm I don't know I do things but wouldn't say I'm good at them .. Maybe  you have and the confidence to go with it) and then looking for ways to use /enhance or ignore/ improve.. I suppose is the use of it all. Just keep listening to how others do things. That's why I wanted a sort of glossary on here so that useful strategies or tips people actually use to help can be easily found. 

I suggested to my psychiatrist that I might be on the autistic spectrum & she more or less dismissed the idea out of hand.  About 18 months later I got a letter out of the blue saying "we've made an assessment appointment for you" that was about 3 weeks away.  I went because I thought it would result in some help, either directly from the "service providers", or because they could give me some pointers towards things I could work on to make my life easier.  What actually happened was that having been diagnosed the psychiatrist signed me off - I suspect that she knew she couldn't do anything more to help me at that time & "discharged to more appropriate care" looks better on the file than "discharged because we can't do anything".  I was then left with another label, and have found it impossible to get any real explanation from anyone as to what this actually means for me on a day to day level. 

Funny how they can ask you questions & use your answers to say you're ASD, but if you ask if such & such a thing is because you're ASD you get an answer along the lines of "well it could be, but it is a spectrum condition, and everyone copes better with some things than others"

Has it ever ocurred to you that all those so-called normal people out there, the neuro-typicals, may actually be pretty dysfunctional themselves. They manage to get through an incredible amount of divorce, breaking up their families, taking illegal drugs, petty crime, serious crime, and general bad behaviour. Very few of those people have autism. And consider this: if everyone else is so great at social interaction and dealing with people on a personal, sympathetic, and empathetic way why do most of them sit on the couch at home, glued to their phone screens banging our digital garbage to cyber based 'people' who may not even exist as they present themselves, rather than going down the pub, or to a social function and talking to real flesh and blood people? 

I'll tell you why they do that. Because they too have a real problem with other people, but they just want to fit in so they pretend.

Rant over. But I hope that made you feel better. There is no such thing as normal.

Presumably you chose to be assessed or could have said no? I think there should be more and better assessment for adults. It's on in getting a diagnosis that things will change, if not for ourselves but others to come. I value my diagnosis and fought to get it. I agree there is very little adult support. And as said before a postcode lottery. Some areas do have a range of adult services. Over time I hope that will be standard in every county, but some change is slow and we (me included) can't expect everything to be handed to us on a plate ( nice as that would be) I'm coming to realise we have to be more proactive. Not a single shop or business in my town is taking part in the autism hour. I could have put leaflets up or posted them in letter boxes but that's something I hate doing so didn't. So I didn't help promote this great idea. I have had anxiety and depression for more years than I care to remember, I live a very narrow life and want help to change that but I know I will have to face the fear if I want something different. I'm hoping to get support but don't know if I'll get it. Help is needed across all ages. I have gone through so much I am very selfishly saying it's my turn now. I will be very interested to know what others think. I'm sorry you are having a tough time at the moment Ladynicotine.