Is being diagnosed a good thing or bad thing

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Like most who have spent their childhood and adult years searching for why they appear different and the World does not move to your beat, having an explanation should give some relief. I have Asperger syndrome mildly and ADHD I am 51 and have only just found out. To me the this explains my unusual experiences that I have got myself into but it seems I am destined to continue in this embarrassing way or always be in fear of myself in social situations.
I am sure you out there can give a better view on the situation so I await your comments with your knowledge on how to live happily with yourself in the NT World.

I was thrilled to find out I'm on the spectrum. I learned this from a licensed clinical psychologist whose specialty is Asperger's and autism. Now I had an explanation for my quirks. Now I had an explanation for why I am always alone while people I knew are getting married and having kids. And it's not just because I' gay, either. I just find it difficult to make and maintain friends due to me always saying the wrong things. I've done that so many times it hurts.

These days I've been trying to use my diagnosis as a panacea for whatever ails me. Depression still has me in its grips even though I know where the root of my differences are. I am trying to look at it like I'm autistic and these things just happen to people like me.

Did you still hold out hope at this stage of life that your social skills were likely to change, even without any kind of diagnosis?

I think all of us who are diagnosed as adults have a similar reaction in the beginning - it's at once a cathartic release from decades of guilt and self-loathing to realize the social handicaps that have held us back for so long are not our fault and not flaws in our individual personality, but the result of an actual neurological disorder over which we never had any conscious control - yet, at the same time, there's a profound sadness in the permanence and finality of knowing that because it's embedded in the neural wiring of our brains, that it's unchangeable.

Ironically, though, one has to have known, by the time you get to the half-century mark (I was diagnosed at 49), that those qualities were not going to change, no matter whether they were the result of a disorder, or just a quirky personality. I knew by the time I was in my 20s that my social skills simply were what they were and there was nothing that was ever going to make me any different.

As far as living 'happily' in the NT world, well, as you also surely know by now, there are good days and bad days, but it's not our home planet here, and it's never going to feel like home.

Personally, I'm rather content with myself, it's the human population of the planet that cause me all sorts of grief, and you can't teach them anything or reason with them on any level - they're all quite insane.

Going through the diagnosis process was a good thing for me. Before I met with the Psychologist, I spent more than 4 months reliving my past events, both from child hood and adult hood, documenting everything I could remember.

I found it oh so interesting how well Aspergers explained so much about who I am. Prior to the diagnosis, I spent my entire life trying to figure out a) why I was so different and b) why I had so much difficulty in the world.

After the diagnosis, I have radically modified my expectations in my life. As those false expectations (of trying to emulate a normal person) was not working, causing both anxiety and depression.

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