> Is there any benefit in getting a diagnosis? For me, unquestionably. I got my first and current full-time position at a very well known technology firm throu

> Is there any benefit in getting a diagnosis? For me, unquestionably. I got my first and current full-time position at a very well known technology firm through their hiring program for autistic individuals. Through that program I also met a mentor who became a very good contact of mine, specifically because she has an autistic son and understands the condition to a better extent than just anyone I might find on my own. Because I struggled with social contacts in college I find she's the one person I can really associate with. From experience, I would say having hiring programs oriented toward people with a diagnosis makes work-related things feel much more sane, and in more ways than just the material benefits it provides, because in my case it feels like the people who put them together understand the things people like me struggle with and try their best to account for them. Besides that I personally found that having a diagnosis makes events in my past that made me feel completely ostracized from my surroundings make far more sense in retrospect. Now I'm more aware of societal/mental issues I might have from reasonably established consensus, and I try to factor them into how I act toward people and myself. There is the argument that they're still just mistakes to learn from, diagnosis or not, but after I merely became aware of the condition I thought, "Hmm, that describes me pretty well in some ways." After that I felt like I was limited in the past by not understanding that I might in fact have some similar mental inclination, and instead attributing more things that went wrong to factors in my control. I guess in some ways it's less about the diagnosis than understanding you might be inclined to act in some way due to things outside of your control (which can of course be changed with enough practice).