A Moogle  🏳️‍🌈 💻 🎮 🎶 🇸🇪

The value of diagnosis lies in its legal weight. Without diagnosis, employers and educators have as much obligation to give accommodation as they would to "a normal guy with some quirks": None. Diagnosis allows for the ADA or equivalent in your country to have effect.

As someone diagnosed with ASD at age 12 who is now 35, I would ask your son this: In what way is he *not*, ultimately, still just a normal guy with some quirks? What is normal, anyway?

It's been a couple of years now, and he is slowly working his way back to that. The first year was pretty bad though. He was working with an OT, but seems to have ended up with nothing much more than a box full of empty worksheets and planners, etc.

I'm trying to help and encourage him, but as I'm sure you know, it's very easy to step beyond 'encourage' into 'bloody nagging'! I'd love for him to connect with some of you, so I'm slowly trying to work on that.

For some folks, diagnosis can be a relief (validation/solid reason for symptoms/behaviors, allows them to get proper help or seek out ways to cope & problem-solve in a more focused way, finding others to relate to) but for some it can be a Pandora’s box of sorts. It forces one-

-to acknowledge symptoms/behaviors and sometimes that involves a level of “I knew I was like this, but I didn’t know it was THAT BAD..” (Much like when a person is living in a messy space: as more & more trash slowly piles up, one may become less aware of it or ignore it as a—

-defense mechanism bcus it’s too overwhelming. They may not realize how much of an impact it has on their mental or physical health. But then a friend comes in & is like “HOLY shit man this is hoarder-level bad” & the person is forced to acknowledge how bad things really are.) —

Anyway, I can totally understand & it’s not unusual why it’d rock your son’s foundation. I wish him luck in accepting it, hopefully he will be able to look at his diagnosis a little more positively as a springboard for working out problems & finding resources he may need!