I, too, am in my mid-thirties and was only diagnosed early this year, at which point the diagnosis was little more than a confirmation of my own suspicions. I had learned some coping skills over the years, but they were self-taught and lacking. For instance, while I could communicate fairly well on a one-on-one basis and had decent public speaking skills, trying to carry on an actual back and forth group conversation generally left me silently fuming at being interrupted so much with no idea of how the topic had gone from how the influenza virus mutates to the latest episode of some reality TV program I had never heard of. Also, and most importantly, almost every social interaction left me full of self doubt and mentally exhausted.

And that's what being diagnosed has changed for me. I realized that I was exhausted because I wasn't being myself but playing a character of myself. I learned that my coping mechanisms were limited because they weren't addressing the true issues (e.g. what I had thought were panic attacks were actually autistic meltdowns). I learned that it was okay to be me, and I got okay with being me. Today, I know when I am getting overwhelmed and that It's okay to take a step back. I know that it's okay to let myself stim when I'm alone or with people who know about and accept my quirkiness. I am repairing relationships that were nearly destroyed by what I refer to as my social flatline (my lack of recognizing, and recognizing the importance of, certain social complexities such as telling my girlfriend I love her). My business is doing better because my relationships with my customers have improved.

I like to say that being diagnosed and all that's come of it was like reading my life story and having it make sense for the first time. Yeah, it was scary letting go of some firmly held ideas, but today I am me --the real me --living in the world --the real world (as opposed to the one where I felt like an alien stuck on the wrong planet).