The Pro-Cure Thread

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Perhaps I am unique in this, but prior to discovering that I had A.S., I did want a "cure" for whatever I perceived as being "wrong" with me. Since finding out what that is, though, I have lost all desire to be like everybody else and embrace A.S. as a gift, not a curse or disease. To be "cured" is the last thing I would ever want.
The comparison may seem juvenile to some, but the debate over a cure is analogous to what mutant characters face in X-Men comics. The reasons for being cured or not cured are largely personal and I don't think there is right answer for everybody or even a majority of people with A.S. It is something everybody must decide for themselves.

ephemerella brought up a lot of great points, and I for the most part agree with her.

One thing I've noticed from my own experiences with the social skills and NT world, is that when you switch to the NT world and then come back again, one never really returns to full-blown AS like one was before the world traversal. Each time we do switch, the social skills we learned during that time remain with us, even while we are AS. This has the dual benefit of making the NT world easier to understand and get back into, but also to help put our AS in a more third-person perspective.

Unlike ephemerella, however, I have chosen to do my best to straddle between AS and NT. It takes a lot of energy to act with all the social skills and it will always be that way. I could never be able to act like an NT 100% of the time, and the more NT-like I act, the faster my energy is consumed and the sooner I'll have a meltdown. Nor would I want to be NT! 100% AS and 100% NT have some significant weaknesses, and by blending them together, I can try to minimize their weaknesses while still retaining some of their strengths. It's oftentimes difficult to blend them together, so sometimes I will resort to being a bit more NT-like with the social skills, or a bit more AS-like, depending on the situation. Even then, I need timeouts every so often to recharge that energy; acting NT does not come naturally to me, so any aspect of NT drains my energy, regardless of whether I understand its uses or not, and it'll always be that way.

To the AS folks who hate being Aspies and want a cure, I think it is unfortunate that you feel that way, but at the same time I do understand that feeling and I cannot blame you for feeling that way. It's just that AS actually has a lot to offer people that the vast majority of NTs do not recognize at all, we were born with a lot of strengths that can do the world a great deal of good. At the same time, AS has considerable weaknesses, and it's most likely these weaknesses that you are conscious of, and that make you want to rid yourself of your AS. However, NTs have strengths and weaknesses of their own, usually the opposite of the AS set of strengths and weaknesses. When you talk to NTs, you can get an idea of how that strength affects their lives, yet at the same time see how their weaknesses keep them down. Then the NT life doesn't look so great after all... NTs could potentially learn a lot from AS folks, just as we can learn a lot from them. A middle ground does exist, but most NTs don't even bother to try to reach this ground, which is also very unfortunate. We Aspies are always expected to reach this middle ground as a minimum, if not totally suppress the AS outright. That's also very unfortunate.

ephemerella brought up an interesting theory about pack animals and humans. The way that I've seen AS for a while now is kinda like a "caveman society," an almost anarchistic type of social structure. If it's dog-eat-dog out there, there is less need for social skills because, well frankly those outside of your family group is a threat anyway. And because of all the threats, the family group is a lot more tightly knit than it is now. The family group is there for survival, not merely for convenience, and everybody has to get out and work hard and not worry about the fluff social niceties, because your life depended on it. You don't waste energy and resources on making stuff look pretty, because resources are difficult to get. Everything has a logical, functional role, and conservation is key.

It's just that with the advent of larger societies (possibly coinciding with the rise of basic religious beliefs), people eventually learned that life could be easier and less threatening on a day-to-day basis if they only cooperated more instead of going dog-eat-dog. But cooperation on a larger scale requires a level of uniformity -- an idea of right and wrong that applies to everybody in the group, leading to the basic concepts of law and order and culture. After all, if everybody had the same idea of right and wrong, you would minimize interpersonal conflict since you'd be following the same set of rules/laws. However this has had the side effect of penalizing those who don't have the same idea of right and wrong (e.g. AS), and increasing the amount of intersocietal conflicts (larger-scale wars). So I think AS had a huge role long long ago for human survival, but has since fallen into "vestigial" status due to the rise of society. But it's only "vestigial" because most people don't know how to use AS skills effectively.

In the end, however, there are no perfect solutions to anything, and every solution brings with it another problem. Good and bad are two sides of the same coin. The best we can do is manage and cope with whatever life brings us, learning and growing along the way. Hopefully by acquiring enough knowledge and wisdom we won't have to worry about "being AS" or "being NT", rather just be ourselves.

"IF" they found a cure you think there would be a choice for those who refuse it...like the choice that young girls are now given as to whether they take the pill for genital warts ? Or the chose that young children have as to if they receive electric shock, ABA, chelation therapy from their parents . The government wouldn't have to even be very involved as the media seems to prefer the "cure groups" to those who speak against it and are very good at manipulating statistics to favor that agenda . I always prefer choice for individuals but trust the media, the medical,and pharmacutical industry. government, special interest groups who have financial incentives of their own...about as far as I can spit...(about 3 feet on an average day.)


I didn't know what was causing all my pain and confusion for most of my life ,so my idea of a cure was death. Life was the disease and I didn't think there was another cure for it . Saying, I understand that having AS can be very difficult and challenging and I would love to have some relief from some of the sensory and cognitive issues but realizing now, that the trade off would be the very things that I do enjoy about being me...it just makes more sense to "ride it out" this life time and try and make some positive changes to make the life of autistics a little less painful . I actually think that might be possible and think the alternative would be a lose to society as a whole and myself as an individual . I would rather see society invest their time, energy and money into making this a reality as I don;t think there is a cure for something that I don't really believe is a disease but a difference .

On a related note...Please don't ever think that just because NT's run around yahooing and smiling that many of them aren't
just as miserable as many of us, just for different reasons. How many of them are on antidepressants, seeking therapy, engaged in addictive behavior to avoid their own pain . A cure for AS is not the same as "instant happiness" .