To the Naysayers

In Asperger's from the Inside Out, aspergian Michael John Carley writes

When something hits you like a ton of bricks as you read about [Asperger Syndrome] and you internally shout, 'That's it!' ... then you're usually on the right track.
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But whereas I empathized with the need to save the money that a clinical diagnosis usually requires, I started to see a disturbing pattern in some self-diagnosed folks: I began to hear stronger-than-usual complaints that they were feeling doubt from the world that they could actually be on the [autism] spectrum.
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I know that with all the doubt there was from people I love, that I needed that official diagnosis in order to withstand the pressure to shrug off my AS as nonsense.
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And what is truly overwhelming is the flood of new information that the diagnosis brings--the new interpretations not only about yourself, but also about the people around you. This is not bad news, this is good news. Maybe the best you've ever had.