-How did Autism diagnosis change your life?

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Well i was really young wen i have the diagnosis but I am glad that I have so i wont have to figure out what is going on with me

I had my diagnosis at 40 and now I do not hate myself any longer. I am relieved to find out I am not insane just very weird.

My mum didn't threaten to spank me when I cried afterwards, though she did send me to my room. When I was told at the age of 15, I didn't feel broken, anymore. I started saving my money like crazy, as well.

It didn't change my life much.

I fretted a bit less over my lack of friends & social connections,
because I blamed myself less for my social shortcomings.

It validated me. I've always felt there was some invisible standard that I couldn't understand, let alone meet, and that I couldn't do anything right, just come up with second-rate solutions. I literally worked myself into a nervous breakdown trying to compensate.

Now I know I'm "differently normal", that 1 in 250 people are like me. I know now that the difficulties I had were real, even though everybody else thought I was dramatising. They weren't symptoms of my glaring inferiority - the fact I overcame them to get where I am shows me just how strong I am. I really did start with a severe handicap, and worked out things like social rules by intelligence alone.

Still suffer setbacks when other people judge me, though

It made me realize I wasn't inferior or defective, and it helped me accept myself. I think I'd be a lot worse off if I still didn't have my diagnosis.

Fifty years down the track is a little late - there's an awful lot of things that seem to be set in concrete.

The diagnosis itself came at the end of two decades of personal development, an MBA, and the realisation, belatedly, that there was no god.

yeah, the diagnosis came late to me too, at 27, and i first didn't understand everything. It also let me doubt more if god existed.

byebye,
anton

Well I have Asperger's but that aside, it was relieving but at the same time I found out at an already tumultuous time, around age 17 (I'm 20 now) and I was very angry that no one had noticed and helped me sooner

If my life is the sky, it is the moment the clouds began to break.

Officially, my diagnosis came 3 weeks ago. It's a little early to see how it's going to change.things. There has been a MASSIVE shift in my thinking. It is still rapidly evolving and sometimes quite overwhelming.

I got my diagnosis in 2007/8, after being self-diagnosed for a while.
The diagnosis made me able to understand myself better, and to understand why I did the things I did. I can also explain to other people the reason(s) that I do things.
It showed me that I wasn't the only one and that there are lots of people similar to me, and led me to discover the autistic community and the amazing people that are part of it.
It helped me accept myself better.

Overall, discovering autism and getting the diagnosis has improved my life

I have to echo the "massive" shift in thinking comment. Too much to write but it is major. Also still digesting it all.

I wish I could say it made improvements but they're very limited. My family treats my AS as an excuse and I had to learn the hard way that people don't care.

I think the thing were being diagnosed with AS has helped me best though is that I no longer have to worry or be ashamed of not being on the same level of my peers, whether socially, intellectually, or just general success. I no longer have to worry myself as far as reaching certain life milestones by a certain deadline and I no longer worry about dying alone or having a successful career. I probably would've flipped or gone crazy if I had still been undiagnosed when when I failed to get an honors diploma in high school or when I had to stay at college for more than 4 years cuz of bad grades.

I always knew there was something wrong or different with me (that I may have some sort of condition or something) but my family never believed me. They probably have undiagnosed cases of something themselves in order for them to believe what they do. I'm just relieved when I got my AS diagnosis because for once in my life I was right about myself after being told for years that I am constantly wrong about this or that.