If you could live life without Asperger syndrome, would you?

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CantExplain
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25 Dec 2011, 4:36 am

On further reflection, it would be nice to be understood, to have social stamina, and be more comfortable with crowds

CantExplain
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25 Dec 2011, 4:42 am

Phonic wrote:

God forbid their exists NT's that aren't extroverted lifes of the party who love shopping and have many friends and shallow relationships.

Good point. NT have their troubles too. And Aspies have problems that have nothing to do with being Aspergic.

Take away my Aspergers and plenty of issues would remain.

Nexus
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25 Dec 2011, 4:59 am

CantExplain wrote:

Phonic wrote:

God forbid their exists NT's that aren't extroverted lifes of the party who love shopping and have many friends and shallow relationships.

Good point. NT have their troubles too. And Aspies have problems that have nothing to do with being Aspergic.

Take away my Aspergers and plenty of issues would remain.

Hence why I said there's a problem of perception on answering this question earlier. If let's say you're talking about being an introvert NT who's awkward and shy too and struggling with social connections, then the differences become even less to a point where the question is redundant.

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Apple_in_my_Eye
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25 Dec 2011, 5:10 am

I have 40 years of learning how to deal wiith how I am now, and I wouldn't want to start over from scratch as an NT. I could end up even more dysfunctional than I am now.

DreamSofa
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25 Dec 2011, 5:28 am

whalewatcher, you put into words very eloquently how I feel about being on the spectrum.

ScientistOfSound
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25 Dec 2011, 5:40 am

Short answer: No

Long answer: No, because being an aspie makes me who I am. I'm proud of that reguardless of what people say, and I'm not broken or diseased, I'm a perfectly healthy human being. So why should I change?

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25 Dec 2011, 6:00 am

ScientistOfSound wrote:

One thing I've been thinking about re: cure/treatment is that basically the stuff I want to change is the maladaptive/self-destructive/counterproductive stuff. Like suicidal tendencies - I don't want those, even though they've been a part of my brain for a long time. I don't want anxiety or panic attacks, even though I've had those for a long time. I don't want anhedonia, even though it has frequently happened to me. I don't want impulsiveness, as it has a tendency to cost me more money than I can afford, get me into social trouble even beyond autistic difficulties.

I don't want to change how I process, think, and perceive, though, beyond making things more effective/efficient (medicating ADHD).

If I could pick and choose, I'd want to remove barriers, but I wouldn't want to change who I fundamentally am.

deathsign
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25 Dec 2011, 7:01 am

Yes.
I want to live a normal life unburdened by AS, and all the problems it causes...
If only it is possible...

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25 Dec 2011, 7:05 am

Would rather not live at all than live a life that isn't mine.

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Joe90
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25 Dec 2011, 12:43 pm

AS does not make me who I am. If anything it stops me from being who I want to be and who I could be. It's so mild that I feel there is an NT inside me, screaming to get out, but a thin but firm coating of Autism is keeping it inside, making half of me wanting to conform but the other half ot me wanting to be different.

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lotuspuppy
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25 Dec 2011, 12:55 pm

No. As a matter of fact, I wish I was more Aspie. The other day, I was laying in bed, and noticed a ceiling fan above me. I've seen this fan thousands of times before, but that day, I noticed I was NOT fascinated by its spinning motion.

I also miss that I can't seem to reconnect with my inner life, which is very rich. As a child and teenager, I could go for days without talking because I was fascinated living in my head. Now, so much of my life is lived with other people. This has distinct advantages, but I wish I could flick the two modes back and forth like a light switch.

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25 Dec 2011, 8:02 pm

I don't know if I have Asperger's. It seems like I probably do but I am trying to rule out every other possibility first. I just want to understand what it is about me, that makes me so different from other people.

But whatever it is, I don't want to change it. I don't to stop being the way I am. I just want to understand it better. And I want to be around people who are more like me, who are not so different from me. It's not fundamentally "the way I am" that causes difficulty, it's being different from most others around me that causes problems.

Mysty
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25 Dec 2011, 9:31 pm

poetc wrote:

Does it having it give you any advantages?

The way I see it, it's a syndrome; that means a set of traits. So, does not having it mean not having enough traits to qualify for the syndrome by whoever's defining it, or does it mean not having any traits?

For me, there are aspie/autistic traits that I like having, and others that have been problems. And the ones that have been problems, I've been able to either overcome, or learn to work with, so they aren't problems.

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Inspirations
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25 Dec 2011, 11:03 pm

NT's are always worrying what people think of them and trying to have a good reputation and they follow the herd. They seem to assume that people should be grown up boring conformists. The NT world is powered by greed and self interest so no I don't want to be NT.

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26 Dec 2011, 12:38 am

Joe90 wrote:

If I were NT and had this same family and everything, then there would be nobody with AS in my family, and if I had all the same people at school then I wouldn't have mixed with anyone with AS, so I probably wouldn't know what it is. It makes me panic because life could have been like that.

But no - I had to act like a dick on my first day of school, upset the teacher, worry my parents, be sent to doctors and psychiatrists to find out what the f**k was wrong with me, had to be singled out from class more to have one-to-one learning to catch up with my reading and maths, had a lack of friends at school, was misunderstood, kids were embarrassed to be seen hanging about with me, couldn't be included no matter how I tried, and there is always going to be something ''off'' about me even though the traits I show are so minor to nothing but it still seems like it makes a huge difference and I get people constantly laughing at me all the time and it confuses me because I do act normal and look normal and there are plenty of people about who look 10 times weirder than me so I don't quite understand, it just kills me on the inside and one day I'm going to commit suicide because I cannot stand people laughing at me any longer...........

Can't be bothered with all this sh** - I WANNA f***ing BE NORMAL!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !

You pretty much summed up my childhood as well (a lot of it, at least). I hate when people stare at me in public, and I don't know what they're thinking. When I notice the stares of others, my first thought is, "did I do something socially inappropriate? I don't look ret*d, is my facial expression off-putting?". As time goes on, I notice more people staring, so I start getting frustrated because I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. And I know I'm doing something wrong, otherwise people wouldn't stare at me like I'm a goddamn alien. About people laughing at you... it happens to me, too. For example, I'll be in the grocery store, and there'll be employees handing out food samples. As I take a sample, I say to the employee, "thank you very much for the sample". Immediately afterward, I'll hear laughing from shoppers standing behind me. I feel so embarassed, thinking I've just mase an ass of myself but not knowing how. When it comes to being social, life f**king blows. Because I want people to accept me, but they don't. I've attempted suicide, but that's not the answer. Nor has social awkwardness been a temporary problem...

conundrum
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26 Dec 2011, 1:02 am

SyphonFilter wrote:

For example, I'll be in the grocery store, and there'll be employees handing out food samples. As I take a sample, I say to the employee, "thank you very much for the sample". Immediately afterward, I'll hear laughing from shoppers standing behind me. I feel so embarassed, thinking I've just mase an ass of myself but not knowing how.

I honestly don't see what's "wrong" with what you said. Do people have a problem with formal politeness? :roll:

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