Thank you for the explanation of your experiences, I appreciate your input! I definitely understand how your friends and family could have responded. It's good

Thank you for the explanation of your experiences, I appreciate your input! I definitely understand how your friends and family could have responded. It's good that you tried to inform them of their own misconceptions and opinions. Of my own friends who are diagnosed, they have time and again pushed for me to also get a diagnosis but I'd heard it can be a quite expensive and drawn-out process (as you've stated). Can you elaborate on about how long or thorough this is? Every article I've seen doesn't really seem to go into any detail on this point. Did you search out a professional explicitly for the purpose of being diagnosed? I hope I am not being too forward, I also would like to go through this process but I'm not quite sure where to begin. The friends of mine who are on the spectrum have been diagnosed when they were children and I assume or have read a diagnosis as an adult can be more difficult. I'm 32 so not too far off from the age you were diagnosed. Thanks for any help you can provide and thanks again for participating in the conversation, it was great reading your response.