Is autism really a disorder?

Post Reply New Topic

What exactly is your point here?

Are you saying Autism is not a disorder, but IS a brain hardwiring problem? I'm not getting what it is you are specifically trying to say.

I am saying that autism is the rewiring of the brain that different from other people. I just think that people should either treat autism or accepted it.

If you took away my autism, you would take away my special intense interests (among the other traits of autism) and I would no longer be the person I am.

I acknowledge challenges in life (everyone has challenges). My challenges are typical for autism---sensory, anxiety, social, etc. But I try to focus on the positives. So I am happy with who I am. I do not want changed.

In my opinion, for me to be altered would change the way I was born, and thus that would become a disorder for me. I am used to my life---and I am content with it.

If I didn't have autism I'd have even less going for me.

For me it is not that I have a problem with other people, other people have a problem with me for the most part and I would never want to be part of that world, "normal" or not.

Personally,I reset the choice of words used in the DSM; that the individual or others "suffer" from the behaviors. My only suffering from my "abnormal behaviors" has been the reaction of others who are condemning, judgmental NTs. My "abnormal behaviors (stimming, occasional funny noises, repetetive actions) always have made me happy or content...if the majority of people accepted us as equals and ignored our quirks, would so many Aspies feel so bad about themselves and have such a desire for a 'cure'?

To me it's a disability. I don't socialise on the level of NTs but in a different way. I find it hard to socialise, as though I'm below a level. I don't mean with maturity, I just mean with confidence. Even unconfident, shy NTs still seem to have the social skills there from when they need them, whether they intentionally isolate themselves from people or not. My mum is NT, and is very shy and she hates socialising and she wishes she just lived on a remote island with family only, and not having to mix with anybody else. That is how much she hates people. But when she was on holiday she showed me all these pictures of a big crowd she had met and she looked all social and got accepted and done things with them.....I wouldn't of been able to do that when on holiday. I don't make friends at all, and it's not because I'm different. It's because I hang back and don't join in because I lack the right social skills. I don't have different social skills. I lack all social skills.

Perhaps the disorder makes me different, but not the other away around. But then again, Mental Retardation makes people different. So it's not just Autism. Other conditions can aswell.

While mental disorders don't entirely define the people who have them, It's difficult to separate such a diffuse pattern of brain development from well... the rest of the brain! after all it's not like someone's personality (whatever we mean by that term) is floating around outside of their head, or guarded in an isolated section of the brain. The brain is a gob of wires, all connected. In fact, our ultimate decisions are made with the executive function of the frontal lobes. That area is the most commonly disordered area of the brain.

I don't resent everything about aspergers because I am confident that it has caused me to see great beauty in subjects that most NTs would never have much curiosity about at all.