Welcome,
There are plenty of people here that like a good debate, so 'over-think' away.
I've only known I'm autistic for a short while, but I get the impression that disclosure is a tricky subject for a lot of people. Hanging around in places like this is in many ways better confirmation on a personal level than a formal diagnosis. If you keep an open mind, you will know soon enough if your experiences are commonly shared by people here.
For me personally, I had got so worn out from repeated burn-outs, that I just had to have professional confirmation. I needed help just to keep my head above water, and an official diagnosis was the only path to the help that I needed (I have never been able to afford private health care). I didn't even suspect autism as the root my periods of mental illness when I first sought help.
If an informal diagnosis still leads you to some enlightenment and helps improve your life, and you are in a position where you don't need official confirmation, then I can see why it might be wise to be more cautious. Over the course of a lifetime, you can never know into who's hands any permanent records will fall. Hans Asperger himself emphasised the positive aspects of autism in order to protect his young patients from a horrifying world outside.
It is only a few years ago here in the UK that several large construction firms were prosecuted for keeping illegal "black-lists" of people they would mutually not employ. It was for union activity in that case, I believe, but the principle could be applied to any selection of people just as easily. They had been doing it for years before being taken to court, so I think it likely that there's plenty of that behaviour going on still.
Even when the intentions are good, we need to consider the security with which data is stored. We have had scandal after scandal in this country of large I.T. investments that have resulted in buggy computer systems with questionable security. Plus the occasional civil servant leaving a laptop containing 'secure' data in the back of a taxi!
A lot might depend on how your local health care system works too. If I were living somewhere without the free universal health care we have here, I might have taken a very different path. I can imagine it would be especially tricky for people with health insurance linked to their employment.
Disclosure to friends and family can be tricky to decide as well. I don't have a very good judgement about how a person is going to react. Apart from a few close people, I only disclose if it is the only way to explain my behaviour - with reasonable results (so far!)
My attitude is that the closer to the present I act, the better the chance of predicting the outcome. If the world does tumble, I want to increase my chances of having had some good times before it comes. Getting diagnosed and telling a few key people was what I needed to stand any chance of doing that - but that won't be the case for everybody.
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When you are fighting an invisible monster, first throw a bucket of paint over it.
22 Feb 2016, 12:44 pm
