Advantages & Disadvantages of getting formally diagnosed

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One negative thing is that you're treated like a Bloody ret*d your whole life. Even by those who've known you, your whole Bloody life, when they should Bloody well know better.

I think that there are strong reasons for getting a formal diagnosis and this is why I am in the process of pursuing it.

I have a meeting with somebody at the 'community' where I lived between the ages of 15 and 19 and will be looking at my old personal records. I don't expect to find much that is indicative of AS one way or the other from those records. My view is that it is the early years stuff that is most indicative. Unfortunately, with both my parents being absent, it could prove difficult to trace records of visits to child psychologists and the educational difficulties I had throughout my whole school career.

When I consider how far I have come educationally - from the age of 25 to the age of 36 - I realise there was clearly something 'wrong' with me.

However, my reasons are not enough in isolation, which is why I always say 'I think I might have it', rather than saying 'I do have it'.

If I do have AS it would explain so much about my life, so much more than any 'grab-bag selection' of criteria across the spectrum of personality disorders. Getting a formal dx would give me a sense of 'closure', which means 'bringing something to an end' and I would be able to adjust my lifestyle to suit the reality, rather than trying to 'cope' all the time and always failing.

I didn't even know aspergers exsisted before i was diagnosed. I knew something was wrong but whenever i thought about mental disabilities it was only a passing thing as if it couldnt be possible coz i never seemed to have any real problems. when i was diagnosed and knew what it was everything started making sense, like the eye contact, the problems communicating and everything. i think thats what made me feel alot better, knowing there was a reason for everything that lead to my depression, like its not in my control that i feel the way i do.
I was talking to the chaplain at our school and he thought that i had some sort of disability, because everytime i talked to him my life seemed as normal as everyone elses and i had been struggling with bullying, friendship problems and serious depression for years previously and nothing could explain why. for me geting diagnosed was a realy good thing, at first i hated myself for having a problem and i couldnt accept it but as i got more info on it, it just made everything clearer and it began to seem like a good thing that i knew i have this and i could improve on it. the only problem is nothing happens my parents had trouble accepting it though and they still have problems with my "rules" because they just dont understand, and its the difficulty that people have in understanding me and why i act as i do that leads to my depression.
i dunno what else to say, i think i moved away from the topic but thats what i had to say.

Can't you just forget and ignore the bad stuff, and concentrate on the good stuff? Is it so hard to find the beauty in everything? Everyone has their bad times. But you can't hate them because they're flawed. What in this world isn't flawed?

I don't have an official diagnosis but I have been assessed by a local autism center and had my suspicions confirmed about Aspergers. From that I have been given a report which I can take to a psychiatrist and receive my stamp and seal if I choose.

However, currently I receive SSDI for a misdiagnosis of Schizophrenia. And with the Republicans cutting poor peoples' benefits right and left, a diagnosis of Schizophrenia is safer than Aspergers for me to keep my financial support. The Republicans would cut support for Aspergers before they would cut for Schizophrenia.

So for now, I keep myself undiagnosed on paper.