Benefits of a Diagnosis?

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Hello everyone I was just wondering what are the potential benefits for an adult to get formally diagnosed?

For those that need it:

Prossional validation for their suspicions.

Disabilty benifits

Accommadations

But, if you need accommodations, don't expect anyone to know what you need just because you have an autism diagnosis. Because autism is a very wide spectrum, a diagnosis doesn't really indicate what problems you have or necessarily the severity of those problem. You might consider just asking for whatever you need, unless you know of a way your employer can benefit from knowing you have a disability.

Knowing your problem areas. Not all evaluations will give you that information, however.

I've been wondering this myself. My current therapist is looking into it for me but I'm thinking the cost will just be to much. I think there could be some validation there though. People couldn't say "You just need to try harder" etc anymore.

Like starkid said, it would be nice to know how it affects the individual but that's going to be a very thorough evaluation.

The thing about identifying problem areas is that most people already know what they are. It may actually be more useful to identify possible areas of talent and even giftedness. It can be hard to believe what is easy for you is actually highly valued by society unless you get paid for it. What, $20 million a year for playing a kid's game like baseball?

Being on the spectrum usually comes with some comorbidities, I agree with starkid, it helps to know what you are actually dealing with. I got my aspie diagnosis in my 20's, in my 30's and 40's I was getting treatment for adhd which seemed to come and go for years. Only recently, after taking a few personality inventories, did I find out that the adhd symptoms were from chronic depression as a result of schizophrenia and bpd. Treating those has made a huge difference in my quality of life, and as a result, makes it easier to deal with being on the spectrum. As far as I'm concerned you can never know too much about yourself, and it's awful hard to know what course of treatment is warranted, or if you need treatment at all, without some thorough testing.

I'm not saying that everyone needs to go that route, but if you can afford to do it, it certainly can't hurt to have the information

For me just having an answer was big. It didn't change anything about me, but it let me know there was a reason I did the things I did, that it wasn't that I was lazy or stupid. Unfortunately, since I spent a whole lot of time believing those things so it's still with me.

For me it also let me feel as though there was somewhere I belonged. That I could participate somewhere like here knowing that I could participate without feeling like a pretender. Kind of hard to describe. That is just how it worked for me, mind you, I do not wish to discourage anyone from participating here if they've not had a diagnosis, nay, I encourage them to participate.

Being diagnosed does not change who you are or how you feel.

Thanks for the replies.