I was encouraged to go for assessment for autism. I did and now they have said I'm autistic. This has made me very upset. I feel that now I have been diagnosed I will only ever be seen as autistic and I think I feel hopeless or lost.
Does anyone understand this?
Hi Emily
Yes, we unnderstand very well because so many of us have been through exactly the same thing 
You are allowed to consider yourself very lucky. A great number of AS people either never get a 'proper' diagnosis, or get it late in life - there are a few of us on here with diagnoses very late in our lives, but as Coogy says, it still makes a huge difference.
It is natural for you to feel the way that you do right now, the diagnosis moves just about everything to do with your life into a new perspective. As you learn more about yourself, especially by talking on here with us, you will come to appreciate yourself in new ways.
Personally, I'm becoming a whole new person. I'm finding it a strange journey, but interesting and hugely beneficial. I've even found my community for the first time in my life, and it makes an enormous difference to know that it isn't 'me' or even 'just me', so I no longer feel totally alone and isolated. I'm even beginning to understand why people have always seemed to be willing to be cruel to me, and why I don't have to let that happen again.
You are an AS person, and you are different from most people. You don't need to tell anyone, although later you should find that telling those few people who are important to you will help them to understand you even better. The choice always stays with you.
So, right now you are lost in a sea of confusion and negativity about yourself and your condition, but this will mostly clear away and you will become much more comfortable with yourself. Your new community is here to help and share with you, and we will - that's an Aspie promise! It won't stop the difficulties, but it will stop you feeling bad so bad about them as you learn to deal with them in new ways, and you will definitely learn to be kind to, and about, yourself.
You have every hope for a better future, and, most importantly, you are not alone any more.
Hi Emily
Yes, we unnderstand very well because so many of us have been through exactly the same thing
You are allowed to consider yourself very lucky. A great number of AS people either never get a 'proper' diagnosis, or get it late in life - there are a few of us on here with diagnoses very late in our lives, but as Coogy says, it still makes a huge difference.
It is natural for you to feel the way that you do right now, the diagnosis moves just about everything to do with your life into a new perspective. As you learn more about yourself, especially by talking on here with us, you will come to appreciate yourself in new ways.
Personally, I'm becoming a whole new person. I'm finding it a strange journey, but interesting and hugely beneficial. I've even found my community for the first time in my life, and it makes an enormous difference to know that it isn't 'me' or even 'just me', so I no longer feel totally alone and isolated. I'm even beginning to understand why people have always seemed to be willing to be cruel to me, and why I don't have to let that happen again.
You are an AS person, and you are different from most people. You don't need to tell anyone, although later you should find that telling those few people who are important to you will help them to understand you even better. The choice always stays with you.
So, right now you are lost in a sea of confusion and negativity about yourself and your condition, but this will mostly clear away and you will become much more comfortable with yourself. Your new community is here to help and share with you, and we will - that's an Aspie promise! It won't stop the difficulties, but it will stop you feeling bad so bad about them as you learn to deal with them in new ways, and you will definitely learn to be kind to, and about, yourself.
You have every hope for a better future, and, most importantly, you are not alone any more.
