Why ain't my cousin on the spectrum?

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Did your glue ear develop into a middle ear infection that was treated with antibiotics?

I had many ear infections as an infant, to the point that if I had one more they were going to put tubes in my ears. Same for so many people on the spectrum. The ear infections don't cause ASD to develop - it's the antibiotics destroying healthy gut flora at the same time as they kill infections and then growing and developing w/o an ideal range of healthy gut flora necessary for our enteric nervous systems to function properly and send signals from our digestive systems to our brains.

Doesn't really matter if you don't Think that ASD can be caused by antibiotics/gut flora changes; medical studies suggest otherwise. It's also been my personal experience over the last decade that diet/probiotics etc to alter my gut flora = treats and controls my ASD symptoms.

Maybe not every case of ASD is related, but from stats in medical studies my educated guess is that 70% of ASD cases are related to gut flora - inherited from mothers, altered by antibiotics & diet etc. There have also been a couple of medical studies done over the last decade where the gut flora of children on the spectrum were dramatically altered via FMT - Fecal Matter Transplant - basically a cleansing protocol followed by capsules of healthy bacteria refined from a healthy person's stool to repopulate their guts with the variety of healthy strains of bacteria humans require to be balanced and whole and have our guts and brains work properly in conjunction with each other. These are facts - feel free to google and read.

So I was basically born an NT and was NT up until the age of 4? If I didn't have ear infections then I wouldn't be on this site right now feeling sorry for myself?

Well at least there's an answer now. Well, not quite actually. My cousin had ear infections too, and was often on antibiotics. My ear infections came later, starting at around 4. My cousin's ear infections came when she was a few months old and then she grew out of them when she was around 8.

I can't say for certain, but it may be a contributing factor.

It's entirely possible that it's a combination of the genetic lottery + inherited gut flora + antibiotics and diet + who knows what other environmental factors.

I'm on the spectrum, I see it in Almost all of my mothers side of the family, but I don't complain that my great aunt and some of my grandmother's other siblings and their children seem to have been skipped or spared.

Is what it is. I am who I am. They are who they are. Such is life/them's the breaks and all that. What's the point in griping that your cousin seems to have grown out of any symptoms and is more NT than you are? It's not going to change anything at all by being bitter about things like that.. it's only going to serve to irritate and frustrate you.

Like all things, we have to just accept things as they are and deal with the hands we've been dealt. Personally, I'm happy for my extended family members that seem totally NT and their social, career, and life successes for it. (Although some are NT and not exactly highly social or high achievers - there are all kinds of people.)

Sure, I've had some "Why me?" sorts of thoughts over the years, but never "Why not them, too?" because I've never had a thought that I'd want someone else to suffer through the frustrations and difficulties I've had. Why would I want to wish that upon someone else? For me, I wouldn't. IMO it's a healthier more productive way to think and feel about things as it doesn't leave me feeling bad/sad etc. Might be something you want to give a go yourself.

I don't wish this awful disease upon my cousins, I just wish I were NT. Some Aspies want their children to be on the spectrum, one time someone posted here (who was trying for a baby) posted that they hoped their child would be on the spectrum.

Which awful disease are you referring to? ^

Gotcha.

My mistake if I read your post too quickly and interpreted as you wanting them to be afflicted with ASD in some sort of "fairness," or something.

Very understandable to wish you were NT.

Whenever I make big mistakes because of ASD that cost me things in life - jobs, money, opportunities etc - I'm right there with you wishing I were NT.

Pros and cons, though. There are a lot of things I've done in life, and will do yet, that could only have happened Because of my AS, so I try to focus on some positives out of it all since so far I haven't been able to permanently cure it.

Given the context of the thread discussion, I can't see how it could be interpreted as anything other than ASD.

Well, there are always studies claiming autism comes with physical health conditions (something that wasn't mentioned when I first was diagnosed), and there's often threads being posted here about autistic people having an average lifespan of 38 years or something and that healthy autistic people are "more likely" to die from covid, get Alzheimer's, get diabetes, everything else you can think of, so that is why I call it a disease.

If we're "more likely" to die, it's usually because doctors treat us like crap.
That's a problem with the medical system / triage, and not us.


So you wish this disease on your cousin, then?

I've just explained that I don't wish it upon anyone, I just feel insecure about having it and wonder why other people related to me don't have it. I just wish I were NT like them. I feel so suicidal. I feel like physically punching myself to death.

If I thought it was an awful disease I'd be very glad I'm the only person in my family with it.

If it's disturbing you this much I suggest you talk to a crisis centre.
I mean that sincerely.

These may help:

Samaritans Telephone: 116 123

So when my mum had cancer the best way she could have looked at it was "well I'm glad I'm the only one with it and not anyone else".

Nobody's that selfless. When my mum was still alive with cancer she felt so isolated with it that she sort of felt jealous that everyone else was lucky enough to not have cancer. An outsider might have been offended and thought "oh so you want us to have cancer too?" but I knew exactly how she felt. It wasn't a case of "I want my loved ones to have the same doom as me", it's more a case of "why me and why not them? They're so lucky."

It's difficult to explain here.

What are they going to do, magically rewire my worthless brain into a lovely NT brain?

I think I need some sleep.

Sounds like a good plan.

Can't rewire our brains afaik, but it's been my personal experience that we Can alter our gut flora and in turn treat ASD symptoms so they don't drastically mess with our lives all the time.