@matty There's one part I can actually comment on here, and that's the "why some Autistic hates it as to get diagnose as Autistic". My perspective of that is someone who was formally diagnosed as a kid, for a very long time could not accept the diagnosis, and then much later in my life I ended up essentially self-diagnosing *afterwards*.

The issue when you get diagnosed eg. as a kid is that it is usually not by your own choice, nor do you control the circumstances; most of the time, the diagnosis is made on request of a parent, with the intention to find 'evidence' that there is something 'wrong' with you. They may not phrase it like that, but that's often the underlying drive.

The result is that the diagnosis then gets weaponized against you, long before you've had any chance to understand yourself and how you work and what you need, and with absolutely no genuine support being provided. It's just used to "other" you, to place you out of home, to socially isolate you, to try and "treat" (ie. remove) it, and generally only serves the interests of your parents, school, and so on, and not those of yourself.

Basically, being diagnosed as autistic without your consent or agency over the process, more often than not, only makes life *worse* for you. This has been my experience and I've heard the same thing from many others who have gone through the same thing.

This is different if you have already had time to learn how your brain works, and come to accept who you are, and what you need. Then a formal diagnosis can actually *help* you, because by that point you understand how it can be used to find accommodations, and you know when and how to tell people to fuck off if they try to weaponize it against you.

(There are exceptions, of course. Some parents really do the research and genuinely intend to support their kids, and to use the diagnosis as a tool for doing so. These cases seem to be rare, from what I've seen.)