I’ve been diagnosed at the tender age of 36, because my lovely parents didn’t give a fuck about all the signals and the teachers “hints”.

Up until then, it’s been hell, and I’m not exagerating when I say that I don’t know how I made it this far in life. When you are one of the “lucky” ones that only suffer from what is now called “functional” autism (aka there is no cognitive disability), you struggle with most social aspects, you torture yourself thinking you are weird, you hate yourself because it’s obvious (only for yourself) that there is something wrong with you that you can’t understand.

A diagnosis is not a death sentence but an answer to what is happening in your brain to make it work differently. Now, I am starting to get help, I am asking for acomodations that make my life easier and I understand what is happening in my head. And most important, I’m not ashamed anymore when my “weirdness” leaks out because I understand it.

I work in special ed. There’s a lot of money in autism right now, so there’s some extra funding for therapies. A diagnosis can get you more school services - I’ve had kids who really needed in-home parent training but they couldn’t get it because parents declined the AU label. Some of the accommodations you get in school can carry over into college - extra time for tests, etc.

I’m not fully understanding your question. Those are wildly different diagnoses, and I assume the puzzle piece is referring to autism? Which generally doesn’t need to be shared with anyone, but if it is shared, today’s culture and awareness seems more receptive and accommodating than any other generation in history.

I don’t get it either. Also “disabled” could mean anything, physical, mental… From nobody would ever guess you get special treatment, to you can barely leave your bed. Or the label “black” for skin color. Why does that stick? Couldn’t you as well be labeled as “white” if you got two parents with different skin colors? Doesn’t make any sense to me. I think the issue is with labels and sorting people in categories. That’s kinda broken by design. Unless you have a very special use-case. But even then, you can’t lump them all together. You could receive some minor healthcare benefits, or a good amount of it because you rely on it completely. And there aren’t 500 different schools catering for all sorts of individual differences, it’s closer to two. One “special” one and one “regular” school. And that demands there be two labels. Disregarding if it messes up a lot of things.