Asperger's/autism are actual developmental diseases. So, when one is an adult, there's no way to know if it was true because one is about as developed as one is going to get :-) There's no "point".

With something like anxiety, some/depression, "situational" mental illnesses where we might not have been taught/raised well, been abused, etc. and the problems aren't genetic or seriously chemical (that can't be "fixed"/helped by today's meds) one can learn/change/grow and mature and "get over" the illness but it it is genetic or seriously chemical, one can only adapt as best one can. One doesn't get "better" with a developmental disease; there is a time frames where we have to learn to talk or we cannot learn to talk at all; there's a developmental clock and if we miss the "window" then whatever it is can't happen and one has to "live with" that particular problem.

It's possible to work around, grow out of, take helpful meds, adapt to ADD/ADHD so it isn't such a problem to one's life but literally not being able to learn something, like how to read faces http://www.adhdlibrary.org/library/e...ren-with-adhd/ handicaps in a different way. If one can't learn a needed behavior or skill, one can't build on that to go further and are "stopped".

It's my impression that most people developmental diseases and other, serious problems like unchecked schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, NPD, etc. are not "interested" or unable to conceive of help and working on their problems and behavior. I'd be willing to bet a whole lot of money that there is no one on these boards who is autistic, because the truly autistic do not use words, don't read, haven't the ability to engage in what we're doing here. They are not the less for that, I'm merely stating a "fact". That you are working so hard to help yourself and doing it well, expressing yourself well here on the boards and being very active, would make me imagine that you are not very developmentally or "seriously" wounded that you cannot learn new behaviors and have different outcomes to situations that use to cause you problem.

Diagnoses can give one a sense of relief and make it feel like something is defined; but in mental health, that's not really true. Just like doctors can have trouble with non-specific illnesses, I think all mental health issues are pretty non-specific. Saying someone is "depressed" doesn't necessarily help. Sure they can try meds but that only works some of the time; if "Depression" were like a broken leg, they would help 100% of the time. Therapy helps some people but not others, lifestyle change helps still others but not all. Some people change for no seeming reason at all.

I never really wanted a diagnosis because I like feeling "special" and to have someone label me with something that a zillion other people had, didn't appeal to me. What did help me was looking at symptoms I didn't like and then working back from them to find causes of that symptom and working to understand the cause differently than I did initially, which formed the symptom I didn't like to "balance" me. I did things I was afraid to do, resisted symptoms/habits to see what would happen, how that would make me feel, and worked a long time with a therapist, looking at my life and thoughts and feelings and everything, including the kitchen sink (we discussed how I felt about peeling potatoes and it was very significant :-)