I won't bore you with the details but I got diagnosed when I was in my early 20s. Thought I might've been a psychopath with zero prospects, took a bunch of pills with a bunch of alcohol, then I was in a psych ward and they told me I was ASD. I'd suspected as much for a little while, and I'd heard about a study that said average life expectancy for autistic people is 36 years. I'd already lived over half of my projected life, and it's really unlikely that someone like me is going to get an early retirement.
My whole life's trajectory changed a lot when I found out how short my life is probably going to be. I know I'm stable now, but a lot of stuff can go down in the span of ten years. What if I lose a hand, get diabetes, lose my eyes and ears, get brain damage that stops me from forming coherent sentences despite processing everything else just fine... Locked-In Syndrome or something, I dunno. There's a lot of crazy stuff that can go down in the span of ten years that could make me instantly mentally unwell. Right now, considering, it's a bit of a feat that I'm as stable as I am. Look at me, I'm being coherent!
The present moment is where it's at. The doing, not the having done. I have an iron will. Besides, I'm only going to fall prey to the narrative of autism if I accept it wholeheartedly. I've been trying to find the positivity in it, looking at lolcows online, then documentaries about savants... All of my idiosyncracies are instantly eroded into the monolith known as autism the moment that it's associated with my name. I become an austistic, not a person who has autism. Shit, at least every single thing I do is fluke entertainment. At least that makes everything worthwhile. In a way. It was funny to watch.