Hi ! Is being diagnosis worth it as an adult?

Hi Jabberwocky. I've just been diagnosed at the age of 44 and, for me, it's certainly worth it. For many reasons, but essentially I wanted to know that I am 'really different instead of just being odd.' It has kind of relaxed something in me, even as it brings up other complicated feelings and reappraisals of past and present. I know someone who thinks he too is autistic but doesn't feel he needs the official 'stamp' to say so, and I respect that too. I'm just so uncertain of myself at the best of times, and certainly in terms of telling (in due course) family and friends, it personally helps me to have that bit of paper that says 'assessed and confirmed to  meet  the DSM-5 criteria for autism'. So that if wellmeaning people minimise it or say 'nonsense' I can hold firm in my knowledge that professionals with a lot of expertise could see what I've long suspected. I'm still processing the diagnosis, and a lot of thoughts and feelings spin off from it. But 'know thyself' means a lot to me, and there are so many comparisons I can ease down on now (I think) and stop giving myself such a hard time about.Because it flips things a bit: Instead of being an underachiever (a bit of a too-severe self-judgement anyway, we're not all designed to take life at a sprint - neurodivergent or not), I can actually say I've done OK, considering. 

Hey, Shardovan!! Thank you so much for responding! You describing your experiences ... actually feel like they mirror mine! This helps me feel a lot better. I struggle with feeling completely different verses everyone else and I always feel a little off. One huge problem for me is during conversation I believe I'm on topic or answering a question but I'm completely off base!! Not even remotely close to speaking about the topic, just what I assumed was similar enough to talk about!

Your response has convinced me that a diagnosis might calm me. I always feel a bit anxious or, like, I'm not going to understand what's happening around me. I feel a lot of stress with being different considering it's not something I'm trying to be :( 

I think you're right that having professionals affirming (or not, although I probably am) on the spectrum would give me reassurance instead of thinking "Maybe I am XYZ like these random people say.".

I do have one question. I am based in the USA and I've been reading that in order to be diagnosed I must go to a General Practitioner then a Psychiatrist. Is this how it worked for you?

How did you get diagnosed as an adult? :)

Hey, Shardovan!! Thank you so much for responding! You describing your experiences ... actually feel like they mirror mine! This helps me feel a lot better. I struggle with feeling completely different verses everyone else and I always feel a little off. One huge problem for me is during conversation I believe I'm on topic or answering a question but I'm completely off base!! Not even remotely close to speaking about the topic, just what I assumed was similar enough to talk about!

Your response has convinced me that a diagnosis might calm me. I always feel a bit anxious or, like, I'm not going to understand what's happening around me. I feel a lot of stress with being different considering it's not something I'm trying to be :( 

I think you're right that having professionals affirming (or not, although I probably am) on the spectrum would give me reassurance instead of thinking "Maybe I am XYZ like these random people say.".

I do have one question. I am based in the USA and I've been reading that in order to be diagnosed I must go to a General Practitioner then a Psychiatrist. Is this how it worked for you?

How did you get diagnosed as an adult? :)

No problem, and really interesting to read your own sense of sometimes connecting only obliquely with a conversation and ending up in tangents without seeing them as such. I have that to some degree, but some days are worse/better than others. The stress and anxiety I totally get. It’s a near constant - the best way I can sum it up for me is that I can invest three times as much mental energy, thought, care, and internalised emotion into getting something wrong as most will put into getting it right. It’s a constant drain in the batteries, as is the introversion that naturally goes with the territory.

Yes, like other have said in the thread already, I also had to go via my GP to get a referral to the NHS for assessment. However, the resulting waiting list was four years so I chose to pay for an assessment  and it wasn’t cheap! But worth it. And now the information goes back to my GP for the record. I’m still working out who to tell and why. But even if I told no one it is already helping me to see that the way I’ve arranged my life needs no apology. It’s scaffolding, not stagnancy, and healthy in a way it might not be for someone else. Knowing that is so helpful and consoling. I know who I am, what I am, and that I’ve navigated life better than I ever thought. Even if the struggle that makes that true can’t be ‘fixed’ as such. And I wouldn’t want it to be, for reasons I find it hard to presently articulate.