Whether it would be helpful to you depends on you personally and your life, past and present. For me, at the time that I sought a diagnosis, it was important. I went in with relative certainty that I had AS or was high-functioning autistic (if you want to make the distinction, based on what I was told about my early childhood). I also knew I had been evaluated for autism as a young child, because I wasn't functioning the way I was supposed to (if you'd asked my parents), but I was never informed of the outcome - though, given that I heard chunks of their conversations with others ("not severe enough for institutationalisation") I suppose it was a positive for autism or something on the spectrum.
I wanted the validation. I wanted to feel allowed to be who I am. I know that there are people who will probably go "pfft" at this and say that you don't need permission to be who you are, but I will speculate that they grew up and continue to live in more accepting surroundings and aren't under the same unrelenting pressure to conform, or that they just happen to be a better fit for their particular environment by chance. If your environment is largely hostile, though, the validation that you really are different and can't adapt to perfection in order to fit in perfectly can really be liberating. It relieves you of the pressure to try where it really isn't necessary and can help you to build up the strength to demand more tolerance from others for your way of being. Labels aren't the enemy, intolerance is. If people think labels are bad, then I would hold that avoiding them also gives you a default label: normal. You don't get to avoid labels. And normal comes with the expectation to be entirely normal, something that the overwhelming majority of people on the spectrum aren't ideally positioned to be. And now we're back to whether your environment tolerates the deviation or not, and whether the label 'AS' would help you to be more like you need to be.
Also, as mentioned by others, an official diagnosis can help you get the special services you need at uni or adjustments you need at work. I'm not sure if these things are routinely available where you are - the extent of help available and the willingness of employers to make adjustments tends to be based on legislation, and this varies greatly across countries. But as far as I know, quite a few western countries that I know have by now made provisions for the help and adjustments available to autistic people, if they want them. (Which is not to say there's nothing available outside "the west" - it just means I don't know.)
There really isn't a universal answer to whether a diagnosis is helpful. It depends on you and your personal circumstances.
ETA: In most places that I know of, no one can just put you on medication against your will. Doctors are, essentially, service providers. I know that most doctors act like they get to decide what happens to you, but you must (really, for the sake of your own well-being) learn to think of them as your help to get the treatment you want and need, and not let them order you around against your explicit wishes. Standing up for yourself to doctors and making your wishes clear will (with almost perfect certainty) be met with resistance, especially if you're a woman, but it is essential that you do. If your doctors just won't cooperate, it is really worth it to find better ones. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. You only have this one body, and only you have to live with it (in it) for the rest of your life. No one else gets to have a say.
12 Apr 2013, 12:37 am
