Those who want an AS cure

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Since I don't know what it's like to be NT, I don't know if I'd ever want to be that. Being NT could be just as lousy. If someone could 100000% guarantee me that being NT is super awesome and I will be successful and happy, then maybe I wouldn't mind a cure. But no one can guarantee that.

A cure would change more than what I look like to others. If it was just a matter of what others saw in me, I would be completely opposed to the idea. But if it would fix the problems I have inside, I'd be first in line. I mean pushing people out of the way to line up. If I could get rid of the anxiety and depression (without the current range of meds, which knock me out), get rid of my inability to understand or put myself in my husband's place emotionally, get rid of the upsetting obsessive thoughts (someone posted a picture of 2 teenage boys with a little dog hanging dead from a wire. I couldn't get that out of my head for 6 hours. And I'm a paramedic, so I'll leave some of the things I see that get "stuck" to your imagination...) and help my impatience with people who aren't quite on my level, I would give about anything. I would sacrifice some intellectual function, some creativity, and some of what makes me "special". It's not a matter of how I am seen to the rest of the world and I wonder how anyone who says there would be "no health benefits" would define that...

Of course there would be benefits, there would always be benefits. But there are also benefits to not taking a cure. I know from the top of my head all of the presidents, every monarch from the history of England, France, Holland, Belgium, and Russia. Would I really give that ability up so I can read social cues? No. Would I get rid of my unique perspective of the world in exchange for being... depressingly normal? No.

In my opinion, neurologically speaking, the things I would gain are cancelled out by the things I will have lost. Except myself. I will have lost a major part of my persona, and no replacement could make it up.

Whether you want a cure is your prerogative, naturally. I don't take issue with any autie wanting to be cured, nor do I pity them.

I don't know you, so I couldn't say whether any of your positive traits are down to AS. I'm fairly sure some of mine are, but no, of course they are not my entire identity.

I would like to be able to filter sounds better, to have faster processing (a major weakness per my assessment), better executive function and less inertia. I'm just fine with my level of obsessiveness (which appears to be a little less than some auties'), my verbal abilities (possibly the greatest of my strengths, again confirmed in assessment) and my aptitude for certain technical skills, and I'm fairly sure some of these are related to my AS.

My anxiety and depression I would definitely like to lose, but I think these are for the most part rooted in the lack of acceptance I've experienced from conformists earlier in life rather than in my AS as such.

I'm not at all certain I would like to be cured unless there's a cast-iron guarantee only the negatives would be eliminated. Maybe not even then. If I was cured, I would no longer be me, a concept I'm not at all comfortable with even though my AS has most certainly made life rougher.

I read an article A few years ago about a man who was born blind. By the time he was in his 40s. Some doctors found out that they could restore is eyesight. The man agreed to the operation and the operation was a complete success. There was only one problem though. The man did not know how to psychologically handle being able to see because he was blind from birth and it cause him some serious grief. In the end. The man now wears blindfolding glasses now to cover is eyes and wishes he'd never had the operation in the first place.

There was another story that has a more happier ending about a man who was born a paraplegic and by the time is was in his 30s. they where able to do surgery to restore his legs. But it was no easy fix and it took this man over 5 years of training just to learn to walk. he described the whole ordeal as training to be a circus acrobat but in the end. He turns out to be normal walking person and was glad to had the operation.

The moral of this story. Even if there was a cure and you took it. It's still a crap shoot on whether or not you will benefit from it or not. it could makes things worse. You're entering into uncharted territory.

Please don't let yourself hate. Think about what you're saying. You feel like "smashing the s**t out of neurotypicals"... isn't that an awfully global statement? All neurotypicals? Isn't that exactly what they're doing to us--assuming that we are all the same? If you want to beat up bullies or bigots, I get that--though I still don't recommend it, since answering their violence with more of the same is likely to just get it all blamed on you. But all neurotypicals, no. Please remember that they are as human as you are, that most of them do not hate you. Many of them have experienced prejudice just like you have, for other reasons--maybe they're gay or a minority race or just unlucky enough to get picked on as a shy or nerdy student.

It's okay to get angry. Just don't let yourself fall to the level of the people that hurt us.

Telling someone with Asperger’s who has problems beyond missing social norms that seeking a cure would compromise their identity and make them lesser is like telling a paraplegic who once dreamed of being a mountain climber and a scuba diver that, far from helping them achieve something meaningful to them as a person and not as a paraplegic, regaining their ability to use their legs would be only cosmetic and they’d be dumber without it because they wouldn’t spend so much time on less physical activities.

Many of us do not just have surface issues with social norms and struggle to reach things more meaningful to us than a 24-hour binge on our special interest. Good for those of you who don’t. It must be nice to be in a better position and still look at us like we’re silly little conformists for wanting to trade something that doesn’t define us and isn't meaningful for more ability to reach things that do and are. I pity your lack of ambition and your complacency with what you were born with.

The more I learned about asperger's, the more I realized something. The asperger's is a LACK of certain advanced and versatile social and emotional functions that which have made it possible for the neurotypicals to thrive. Animals and aspergians don't have these functions, only the neurotypicals do. While asperger's does have some pros as a side effect, such as our logic, attention to detail and special interests, perseverance and intuitively thinking outside the box, these positives are overwhelmed by the negatives.

The following are commonly experienced by the Aspergians to varying degrees. If you are only borderline aspergian and mildly affected by these, which most of us are not, good for you.

First, aspergians experience emotions on/off, unlike the neurotypicals. You will either feel nothing, or freak out. Second, aspergians have a poor connection between the thinking and the emotional brain, meaning that the basic cognitive therapies are not going to work, or will be ineffective (i.e. you cannot regulate your emotions with your thoughts like NTs can). This emotional inflexibility and instability is a high road towards stress, depression and anxiety and it's a mark of an older, more primitive and animal-like emotional model that which the neurotypicals have evolved out of.

Then there is the matter of empathy. We often have a lowered sense of empathy without having any of the pros that the actual psychopaths do. We are not charming, we cannot manipulate and we have a hard time lying. But wait, it gets better: we are ACCUSED of lying because of the eye movements that we do because we are not comfortable with eye contact, while the actual psychopaths dance those same accusers like puppets on strings without them even noticing.

And the social side, I'm not even going there. Everybody knows it. We can't put on a small talk mode, we have trouble walking in another's shoes, we cannot properly read social clues, we are easily overwhelmed by stimulation and so on. Social skills are by far the most heavy contributor for consistent happiness. Having been under the influence of psilocybin and MDMA, I have experienced the same as many other Aspergians with them, which is to temporarily have become normal and later regressed back to your bubble. Often, it's not until you find out how it is to be normal that you fully realize how harmful our social defects really are.

We are not considered actual ret*ds; we are something in between and there doesn't seem to be anything superficially wrong with us and thus people expect us to behave normally. Sometimes we can, but most of us have constant social anxiety because we know that we WILL mess up, and that our brain will NOT be able to process all the information that which successful social contact demands.

Our intelligence is useless most of the time because it's rare that we could put it to a good use (in a specialized environment), and usually we can't even communicate our ideas and needs properly. An academic career is a possiblitity, but even that is hindered by our defects (most of the aspergians are unemployed).

As much as I hate some of the Neurotypical features (tribalism, ret*d idol/celebrity worshipping, being judgemental based on some petty social constructs, being suspectible to advertisement and emotional manipulation, all that fighting for social status mess), at least they can function. As much as I'd like to take pride in the few pros that asperger's brings, all the defects just make using them nearly impossible.

Asperger's means that you will understand basically everything but you are more or less powerless to do anything about it. Your intelligence will ensure that you won't be happy like the ret*ds are, either. You will be emotionally unstable, stressed and anxious, and socially dysfunctional while at the same time displaying a myriad of unintentional behaviors that which mean that you will, a lot of the time, be misunderstood and ostracized. Having asperger's is not a gift. It's a CURSE. There is nothing beautiful about being socially and emotionally on the level of animals and not advanced like the NTs are. It SUCKS.

I'm pretty sure all of us have more than surface issues with social norms, or we wouldn't be diagnosable as AS. I'm certainly prone to special interest binges myself; a lot of time disappears into that. I'm not entirely pleased with this, but my special interests are meaningful to me. They are not the only thing meaningful to me, but I'd rather not be without them, even though they can and do complicate things.

Other things meaningful to me, well, I've achieved some of them, others are extremely elusive. I don't like that at all, but I'm not going to stop trying.



So you don't want the pity of those who look down on you for wanting a cure. That's quite reasonable. I don't like the rabid anti-curists and the autism supremacists either. But now you say you pity those who are content with their lot? That seems a tad inconsistent. Wouldn't "live and let live" be a healthier model than looking down on each other for wanting or not wanting to be changed? There is a middle ground.

You seem rather bitter. I think it would cost less sanity to just ignore those who look down on you for desiring a cure.

I consider my AS both a gift and a curse. As long as it's not guaranteed a cure will only yield positives, I'd rather stay the way I am. I absolutely think those who want a cure should have the option, though. They are not me, so I have no right to try to run their lives for them.

I understand and respect people when say that either want or don't want to be cured of AS.
But, can I make a distinction here?
Are you wanting to be cured of your AS or wanting to be NT?
If it is the latter, if you were to say to me, "Scientists have found a way to make me NT and I'm going for the operation tomorrow," here is what my honest reaction would be: "Good grief, don't do it! NO! NO! NO!" I doubt I would be able to scream my protests louder if you were standing on a roof top and about to throw yourselves off it.
You people are all so cool, why change that and be part of the majority group?
If it were the former, I understand why a person would no longer want the aspects of AS that makes life difficult and uncomfortable e.g. the sensory issues and dislike of change, etc. I'd just hope and pray that your good qualities are not emlianted along with them.

My final thought is that to completely rid yourself of AS would take a combination of the "cure" in whatever form that it would take, and a great, great change in the way society and the world sees, understands, treats and accepts people. A magic pill or operation would change you, but not other people.

Being NT is NOT great - I can guarantee. Now you know.

The reason behind why I hate having AS so much is because I hate being in the minority. I want to be like everyone else, I don't like being slightly different and considered weird by some people. I'm not saying being NT is actually better or worse. I'm just saying that being in the majority and having more instinctive social skills and being accepted is what I want.

I know, because I am always around NTs and I observe general NT behaviour a lot - which is why I'm so miserable about AS, I suppose. But I am not clever like some of the other Aspies and Autistics here, I just linger around average, some things I'm underaverage at. But how clever I am doesn't bother me. I'd rather be dumb. I just want to be more social.

My traits that I want to change or my skills that I want to improve, I try to change or improve them over time, and they generally do change or improve over time, with my efforts towards my goals, so I don't need cure.

You know, my preference would be for an end to prejudice and misconception and outright hate.

If I could be the way I am and not be spit upon and ridiculed and all the rest of it, THAT WOULD BE A CURE. There wouldn't be anything wrong with me any more. I think, in time, the anxiety would evaporate.

But-- I am not naive enough to believe it's going to happen, or even that it's possible.

Forty years after we buried Jim Crow, we still don't have a colorblind society. Survey says it's uncommon for white and black people to mix, and when they do there is always racial tension. Same with cultures, religions, even socioeconomic status. DH and I are, comparatively, quite wealthy really; my best girlfriend and her son live on about $500 a month. We've known each other for almost 15 years, we help each other get by-- we talk to each other on the phone and pick each other up when we're just down and out with life, she does NT Woman stuff with my girls, and I kick her a little cash, a little food, a little of her favorite toothpaste, whatever seems to be the need/want at the time-- it has been long established that this is simply "each according to her ability and not some form of charity or pity or noblesse oblige or whatever-- and still that tension of "WE ARE NOT THE SAME" never goes away.

She never stops resenting me for being in a position of being able to help out economically-- and none of my saying that it is exchange, or human decency, rather than charity helps. I never stop resenting her for being socially adept-- and none of her saying that I'm her sense of logic and island of sanity in a social/emotional tropical storm helps.

I've come to believe that the reason we're so often faced with "Difference Equals Deficit" is that difference inherently equals discomfort. People are going to deal with that discomfort in different ways-- unfortunately, a lot of them are going to choose condescension, or contempt, or avoidance.

I can't change human nature. I can only change me.

With that in mind, what is within my power to do to acquire and maintain the inclusion and acceptance I desire?? I can pour a huge amount of energy into appearing "non-different." I can pour a huge amount of energy into satisfying NT norms and NT needs so I can continue to have a place at (or under) the NT table.

I can wish for a cure, that would fundamentally change who I am, so I could do it all without an exhausting effort that leaves me wondering if I wouldn't be better off to renounce inclusion and acceptance and become a hermit (which, if it weren't for the compelling need I have to be a full participant in raising my kids, I think I almost surely would have done by now).

as an old man, I am wondering if a cure would help me at this point. I have so many other things wrong with me right now.

The vast majority of people who are pro-cure are parents with children who have low-functioning autism.

I'm not saying that all parents with an autistic kid want a cure.

I woudn't want a cure to my autism. However, I would be willing to take medications. I know my biggest weakness as a guy with Aspergers is my ability to self-advocate for myself. That means I have a hard time self-initiating tasks such as doing homework, or doing things on my own.

I think many people with Aspergers who struggle with executive functioning would benefit from taking ADHD medications. They really do improve your focus and self-initiating tasks, they also improve your mood the first day you take them. The only downside is that is it ruins your appetite (I was real skinny my 8th grade year because of meds) and sometimes it increases anger and agression if you forget to take them. (one time I forgot to take them and I ended up vandalizing my whole school)