What would you rather have?

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What would you rather have as a condtion? Dyslexia or Aspergers Syndrome?

Hahaha. I do not like where this thread may lead.

I have AS and would prefer to keep it. Dyslexia would probably mean being a very different person because I am hyperlexic and am attracted to written words (reading and writing both) like a moth to flame, thankfully with less burning-to-death involved.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that if I'd been born dyslexic, I wouldn't want to switch, either. People prefer to be themselves, generally, rather than somebody else.

I'd rather have both, because I have AS, and I'm self-diagnosed with Dyslexia.

I'd rather have AS, my grammatical abilities are the only thing going for me .

I think I would chose aspergers over dyslexia. But I would rather have atypical autism than asperger to be completely honest. I like the name more. I hope that if I am diagnosed with autism it will be atypical.

Either one providing they also came with significant cognitive *gifts*.


Whatever is ultimately wrong with my brain comes with no *gifts*....only
the blackest plagues of hell.

If anybody takes issue with that statement... i'm afraid I can't apologize for it.


I call things as I see them and as i've experienced them. Maybe some people
could manage to live happily with the sort of cognitive problems I have, (or strongly
believe I have at least) but I am not one of them and whatever that makes me....so be
it.

I think i'd rather be a dyed-in-the-wool sociopath than live with the cognitive
problems I believe I have.

Again....as long as my particular sociopathy came with significant cognitive gifts, what
else would matter to the individual in the grand scheme of things?

Would I be going to hell for my anti-social behavior? Would I be reincarnated
as a poor women in Darfur or something?

I think not...I would wind up in the same oblivious nothingness that the so-called
"saints" wind up in.

Sure people would hate me and think I was evil.

But since sociopaths lack this nebulous thing we call a "conscience"....i'm pretty
sure i'd find my own skin pretty darn commodious regardless of how many people
despised and feared me.

The point i'm trying to make is that at least sociopaths are capable of finding
happiness. Those who are bright enough can achieve whatever they want in
life even if many of their "achievements" entail some rather nefarious things.

My own brain, on the other hand, has betrayed me every step of the way. It has
robbed me of every hope, dream, goal, aspiration, etc....I ever had.

So if I had the choice between being a "high functioning" sociopath (say like
Bernie Madoff or someone...assuming he's a defacto sociopath) and being the
person I am, why exactly SHOULD I chose the latter?


Why should I be that selfless and self-sacrificing?

What's the big reward in the end?.....what's in it for me?

Maggots and worms?

Not good enough.

The ability to look myself in mirror?

What does a person with no conscience care about how they "look in the
mirror"???

I'm fully aware that my thoughts here are incredibly sick and twisted and I truly hate myself for having them.


But neither my self-awareness or self-loathing stops me from having such thoughts. They are there in my worm-eaten brain whether I want them to be or not.

If nothing else....they serve as an illustration (at least to myself) of just how miserable my circumstances are.

Such misery is the end result of serious neurological disorders....at least in
my case. Those who say I ought to be able to find happiness in spite of
them should spend 40 years in my shoes before saying such things. I don't
know why so many people make assumptions about the sufferings of others.
I don't pretend to know what holocaust survivors have gone through. I would
never blame any of them if they could never feel happiness again after going
through such an experience. Comparing my own experiences to that of holocaust
survivors is apples and oranges. But who is to say my own experiences have not
been equally as traumatic and immiserating in their own unique fashion? Do we
now have some objective measure of human psyche pain and suffering or
something?

It's pretty bad when you'd be willing to sell your soul (figuratively speaking
coming from an atheist and a materialist) to be just about anyone else.

I love words too much to give them up for mere social interaction!

Dyslexia. I wouldn't mind being able to socialize and live independently in exchange for having difficulty spelling.

AS. I've always had trouble making out written words and can't spell to save my life. When I go to college, I'm going to have to have some kind of accomadation for tests that allows me to misspell words but not have my score deducted because of it. The AS makes me smarter and I never had any desire to socialize. I can persue more with AS than I ever could with dyslexia. My problems related to AS are mostly due to to preduice and ignorance.

I already have Asperger Syndrome, and I'd rather keep it than having Dyslexia. I've read some accounts from dyslexic people, and I don't want to go through what they already have to go through. No offense to any dyslexic people here.

Either one of them is really bad and can affect your learning
but I suppose Dyslexia would not be as bad as being a social outcast

Hmmm... I love to read, I'm extremely good at it... but bad at social stuff, I wish I was good at that... I honestly don't know. I can't spell very well though, is that a condition! (I love firefox spellchecker)

Horus, look what you've already done in one post.

You've spoken honestly, even if you're mistaken, knowing others will take issue with what you said. That takes courage nobility of spirit.

You've produced more coherent sentences in one place than some people produce in their lives.

Then you wrote them all down, so you must be literate, or you must have been able to win someone over to take dictation, or you must have somehow gotten your hands on enough money to get a dictation program.

You obviously have access to a computer, so maybe someone likes you enough to give you a gift or maybe you acquired the money for it by working or maybe you can make yourself presentable enough to show up in cyber cafes routinely.

All seemingly small achievements, but indicative of at least some ability to do at least some things.

Anyway, with regard to the actual topic... I really like being who I am. I'm attached to me. And I don't like change all that much.

But if I could be assured of having the option to change back at any time, no questions asked, as if it never happened? Then I'd want to at least try dyslexia. Sounds fun! I'd like to be likable and the ease with which I read and write sounds like a reasonable price to pay, especially if it weren't permanent. If I could trade for a week, I'd do it in a heartbeat. (Incidentally, I'd do the same for practically any neurological wiring because I'm curious that way, with the only caveat being that no permanent damage would be done.)

To actually choose which way to live the rest of my life with no take-backs? I aspire to be a writer and a psychiatrist. On the one hand, my grasp of characterization would be greatly improved by the switch, and if I could work with someone else to actually get it on paper, or tape-record it and then work at transcribing it after the creative frenzy had passed, then my writing would probably only improve. On the other hand... how could I ever read J Clin? I suppose I could hire someone to read it out loud, but there are tables... Anyway, it would improve my ability to network, to understand office politics and to present myself well to my patients and to my colleagues. It would also make understanding them easier, unless I were treating Aspies.

So those are all arguments in favor of dyslexia in my specific case. However, I do believe that my Asperger's protects me from herd mentality to some degree and means that I have experience with a different (sometimes repulsive to other people) neurological wiring that I don't consider entirely a bad thing, so I would be likely to show patients more respect and behave morally even in the absence of social pressure to do so. Further, my ability to obsess makes me better suited to becoming good at something academic, like learning the signs of various mental illnesses and the relative profiles of various medications. And I often feel compelled to read the fine print and really understand, e.g., in what circumstances a trial period off of antipsychotics is indicated and who would do better on Zyprexa versus Risperdal. Really understanding it, rather than just writing out a scrip for whatever's the newest fad-- and better yet, knowing when it's not necessary to write out a scrip at all-- would make me a better doctor.

So cutting short this line of thought, in the end, I don't really think it matters. These drives come from who I am. The precise way in which I experience them and act on them is colored by many factors, including my Asperger's. If I were dyslexic but otherwise identical to myself as I am, then I would, as now, have these desires and be in some ways uniquely suited to act on them and in other ways very ill-suited. I could look over the same thing me-as-an-NT or for me-as-a-schizophrenic or me-with-bipolar-disorder and I'd come up with similar results. (Schizophrenia might make seeing patients an impossibility, and it could be an utter disaster for someone with uncontrolled psychosis to try to do talk therapy. However, a position in research wouldn't be out of the question, and I bet it would only make my writing more interesting. Bipolar disorder, too, might rob me of the consistency and even emotional keel needed for talk therapy, and I wouldn't want to take meds prescribed by someone manic, but, again, that would make for some great material. Similarly, being an NT would rob me of the outside perspective that I believe adds value to what I say and allows me to see things few others can, though my stories would be more plausible, my negotiations with agents smoother... and certainly, I'd be better at talk therapy.)

...Didn't I say I wasn't going to consider those? Aaaargh... well, anyway. It doesn't matter, so I choose to stick with the problems I've had so many years to learn to cope with. (Not that I have the choice anyway.)

My verbal difficulties are worst than dyslexia, and I also have AS (verbal difficulties + AS = HFA).

Funny that.

I have both and other stuff as well. Narcolepsy/Hypersomnia is the worst one. It sucks more than the others combined.