Autistic Spectrum Conundrum

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Here is what I think was a simple and interesting question to answer, until I started to mull it over. If there were a cure for Autism, would you take it to be cured? I still don't know exactly what my answer is to be honest. What is everyone else's opinion on the subject?

You wouldn't be "curing" yourself, you'd just be changing how your brain works.

Certainly not
I would much rather keep my quirky traits and alternative perception of the world, but receive help and understanding where I struggle.

After all, NT's excel in some areas and struggle in others too.
Broadly speaking, how are we any different, other than that we are the more unusual ones in the specific areas where that happens?

It take all sorts of personality types and neural structures to ensure an interesting world and an adaptive species.

Last edited by crookedfingers on 10 Aug 2012, 9:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

Easy in my case. I'd not want to be cured. I'd not want a cure forced on anyone against their will. I'd find it acceptable for people to request a cure for themselves.

http://turtleisaverb.blogspot.com/2012/ ... s-not.html

(I don't feel like rewriting things)

Even though I dislike having aspergers, I wouldn't take a cure. It would change who I was almost like someone else taking over my body, "I" would cease to exist. It would be just like killing myself.

I would give an arm and leg to get rid of my aspie traits.
Absolutely hate my brain and wish I had not been born.
Humans are social creatures and if you cannot master their social intracasies then you will forever be ridiculed. The only escape is to reduce contact with other humans. This is no way to live. I felt like this when I was 4 and still the same at 40.

Many NTs are far more academic and intelligent than myself. So the aspie superiority people really annoy me.

Like a brainwashed North Korean who thinks they live in a paradise land with a generous leader, I choose not to listen to their anti-Western views because they have never been outside their land.
Similarly I have no time for pro-Aspie sentiments because they simply don't know what joys they are missing in the NT World.

This might be why we are all so interested in what aspects of our personalities have to do with autism and which don't. If AS went away, who would I be? We get accustomed to who we are, and even when that includes deficits, it is still who we are.

WIth respect that would be the cure. Changing the differences or restoration of the AS brain to normal order.

Exactly. Who would "I" become with a "cure" for what I am and have always been?

Nope. I often used to accuse people of basically telling me that they liked me with the exception of everything about me. Sorry, but I am who i am. Whether that is due to ASD or ADHD or not doesn't change the fact that I am who I am because of how I am wired. Change that and I fear that I will cease to be me. That is a fate worse than Asperger's.

People can talk til they're blue about a cure for autism. How exactly do you change the physical wiring of a persons brain? The cure that most people are thinking of is early detection followed by abortion. It's going to be a looooong time before there is a non abortion 'cure' and it will happen before birth.

"Cure" is the wrong word. Autism is a neurological difference, not a disease. However there should be more ways to adapt to the neurotypical world.

Also, my strengths and weaknesses both come from AS. I can't just take that away without taking "me" away. I'd much rather learn to adapt.

I would like to see a way for Autists to become more empathetic (and not to have some of the other problems) but to leave the "helpful" aspects of Autism intact. I don't know if that will be possible.