I find it vaguely funny that even though it's my official diagnosis, I seem to put a lot less faith in it than many of the self-diagnosed Asperger's people that I've met.
Yeah, I find this interesting as well. I don't even consider myself socially disadvantaged anymore, largely because nowadays it's just a matter of making observations. And, since I spent so many years working only from textual information, I get stupidly large advantages in courses that involve the interpretation of text.
For a while, I'll admit that I was pretty obsessed with getting a yes or no answer, but it turns out that a lot of the emotional problems I was having back then were due to a really horrible vitamin deficiency =/ Fixing that didn't toss the social problems, but it did get rid of the anxiety that was making it so I couldn't apply anything I knew (and most of the manic-depressive symptoms, which was also good). And then, doing that gave me enough other things to focus on that I could stop obsessing unproductively.
The one self-diagnosed person I know, though... she is really into her "autistic identity" and still does stuff like hiding under tables when she's nervous, screaming when she gets overloaded, and remarking on how "weird" and "unusual" she is. My hope is that she'll get over it eventually, but given the other things I know of her it seems rather unlikely =(
Haha, I guess the weirdest thing about all this is that I still don't feel at all unusual or distant from the rest of humanity.
Actually, since you've added the "worst" experience you've had, OP, I'll put in one of my best ones. Erm, outside of various math-related things, where my skill could probably be attributed to some sort of weird mental wiring >_> <_<
I recently rewatched a movie that I last saw a few years ago, and for the first time I was able to easily process all of the body language, vocal cues, and subtext without having to struggle with it. There were so many jokes I'd never noticed, and so many places where the acting was saying something I'd completely passed over... it was kind of sad, since I've seen it loads of times and it's one of my favorite films =/
I dunno. I was unimaginably relieved.