can they find a cure for us?

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I probably have a different take in this matter but I don't want any cure because I love the way I am, I truly do. If I had to be like those NT people, oh god forbid it ever happened! My life is nothing more than a blessing because there is no drama in my life, I always know what I want in life and I go get it. Everything is planned well and things (for most of the times) go according my plans. I see NT people with mess in their lives and they always come to me for advice and help. Oh god, I can't imagine having a life like theirs.
The things that I'm not good at, like socializing, oh well I hide it very well. Very very well. Quoting Hannibal, I wear my human suit and I can be very normal and socialize quite well. I hate it all the way but I can do it. I can't be a real social butterfly but my social skill passing a normal state.
Other things like always getting lost or bumping myself into things, I don't sweat it much.
I guess I'm pretty lucky that I get on well in life. I wish you guys can feel the same.
We are all created different, with all our flaws. Once we can accept who we are and love who and what we are, we can live a happier life. And never ever, for once, wanting to be someone else because you don't know what kinda life they have. It might look perfect on the surface but it might be very bad underneath. I know this for sure.

Oh god, forget about people. Who cares about what they think and do? And if they treat you like s**t then they are as*holes and stay away from them.
Surround yourself with positive people who can accept you for who you are and not judgmental about your condition.
I have stopped giving a f**k about people since I was a little kid.

...aaa...

I don't want to be "cured"! Why don't NTs take pills to make them "better people?" To say there is something wrong with an aspie because he is not NT is like saying your iphone is faulty because it's not a blackberry.

ASD is just our operating system. The people we become is still influenced by our upbringing, experiences, and the people we are around.

I really feel for guys on here who are so lonely, but the only way you are going to get over it is by helping yourself and getting out more. join groups and when you feel awkward though it up and stay. Of course you'll make mistakes and upset people but you will also make great friends also.

As for not wishing this on your worst enemy i often think what would happen if I could create a drug to make NTS ASD. A part of me thinks they'd demand a life supply of the drug. However with thier operating system replaced they'd probably become different people - a
stranger in their own body. Just like we would.

YOU ARE WHO YOU ARE WHAT YOU BECOME IS UP TO YOU!

How about curing NTs?

who do you mean by us? also do you mean for everybody who is on the spectrum or just kids or adults, the parameters aren't defined enough for me too be able to answer.

As I have grown older I have have learnt to cope well with my aspergers. We all go through a phase were we hate our social skills. This time last year I had no friends whatsoever today I am the more social then I have ever been before and my communication skills have much improved. All I can say is I consider learning to socialise one of my greatest achievements and I live life to the fullest becuase of it. As for the 'cure' part of your question i do not believe they will find a cure other than genetic therapy or significant rewiring of the brain.

I really don't understand too much of what other people are talking about.
At the age of 10 I just assumed I would be dead around 30. Its something I can not really explain. I didn't fixate on it, just assumed it would happen & hoped to hell I was wrong.
I made it to 30 & felt I still had a couple of years in front of me.
The good news is I have made it to 40 & somehow scammed an extra decade, ( I really feel this is worthy of a medal). The bad news is I don't feel I have a couple of years in front of me anymore.
Very few people seem to have any perception of this. Its not that the disease is any worse. Its just the older I get the less I am able to cope with it.
It doesn't help knowing that the median age of suicide is 41.2 . There is a clear spike in suicide rates between 35 & 45 which pokes a hole in the theory that suicide is preventable. Nor does it help that the rate of male suicide to female is close to ratio of autism from male to females.
I beleive I will die without a cure. Am I sure of this ? of couse not ! I still hope I am wrong. But I am completely fixated on finding a cure.
I find psychiatry repulsive & their illusion of knowlege being one of the largest hurdles to finding a cure. I beleive simply labeling a collection of symptoms and calling it a diagnosis ridiculous. I beleive in cause & effect. A diagnosis by my definition should show a measurable cause. Psychiatrists treating mental disorders with drugs & ECT should simply not exist in any realm of scientific based medicine. This is possibly an extremely ignorant view & I would dearly love to be contradicted. But not by opinions but by evidence. I apolagise for my ignorance to people who find this offencsive

I don't really care what people think or do if its not harming me, or contributing to all the crap going on in society....but yeah I wouldn't care about what people think/do if I didn't experience chronic bullying and ostracism growing up, it did damage whether I wanted that or not of course I would love to just have brushed it off and not care but it negatively effected me and only helped contibute to mental issues I have.

I do get away from people who turn out to be as*holes, but there have been instances I don't find that out till they have already found some way to screw me over or try to screw me over....also I have close family and some friends more or less so I have people who aren't jerks to hang around, though not all the time and even around them I might still feel like crap which sucks.

Asperger's alone does not "f**k up every part of your life", AS don't work like that my friend. If that was true then wouldn't all our lives be ruined? And yet many of us on this site are having somewhat successful lives all the same. There's highly educated, brilliant people here. Creative souls, sensitive artists. There's people with friends, with love lives, husbands and wives, children, even grandchildren. There's old and young, the hopeless, the desperate and the ever optimistic.

The one factor that combines us all is that autism has touched our lives, one way or another. It's a part of us... and that's okay. You cannot cure it, but you can learn to cope with it as evidenced by the thousands of people who have. And if you fail somehow, or feel miserable, it is not your autism that is to blame... it is the way you, and your surroundings, dealt with your autism. Don't be a defeatist. Be a survivor. Own that s**t. And rock with what you got.

You know, instead of a cure, they can just give all of us lots of money (as we can't thrive like normal people).

I mean, it'd be more helpful.

If I was 'cured' then who would I be? There are very few people I've met in my life of 60 years that I would want to be like. I like who I am.

Has life always been easy? No, but it's not for anyone. Are there things I would change if I could? Of course. But they all have pretty much to do with Clinical Depression and Anxiety Disorder.

Even though I have a number of 'problems' I still managed to find someone who loves and cares about me (as I am) and we have wonderful children who also love me. I have work to do and interests that keep me busy. I can't see very much I'm missing out on.

What would I gain with a 'cure'?

I wouldn't want to be cured of Asperger's, though I would want to be "cured" from the other things I suffer from, like anxiety, insomnia, panic attacks, etc.

I don't want to be like everyone else.

Nobody is, ever was or ever will be 'like everyone else'. If anything, what people usually want is to be treated the same as others. I keep my diagnosis to myself because I do not want people to either walk on eggshells around me or tease me, and it seems usually one of the two is the case, as people's perception of what autism really is, is very flawed. Black & white, little grey.

I am not ill... I am just a guy who happens to be a little different. But we all are, in our own ways, different. I would not want to be anyone else then who I am now, and if I somehow magically "took away" my AS, I would no longer be myself. I'd be but a stranger in my own body, a soul lost in the world of another.

I of course sympathise with the OP but this sounds more like depression than anything intrinsic to autism.
Now the cause of the depression may well be "not fitting in" to a neurotypical world, sure I get that this must be very hard. But I would use the analogy that many gay people get depressed for similar reasons. It is nothing to with being gay per se it is to do with living in a homophobic and intolerant world. I think, similarly, many of the issues faced by autistic people are more to do with societies intolerance than to do with the autism itself. It is society that needs curing not the autism.

The big question I have pondered is "would, if I could wave a magic wand, I cure my sons autism?"
My answer to that is no. I don't know what he thinks about it because he's only 4 1/2 years old so has no awareness yet of what autism is let alone that he is autistic. But if it were up to me I would not wave the wand and cure him.
Why?
Because it is so much part of who he is without it he would not be my son any more, he would be some other child who I'm sure I would grow to love but it would not be my Bean (that's my nick name for him BTW). Also he is a very happy little boy so what is there to fix? Sure it would make me and my wife's life easier if he were NT but that's not a good enough reason to fundamentally change the personality of our child! I can cope with the difficulties in parenting that having an autistic child presents, sure its exhausting sometimes but we can take it.

Now I'm sure there will be challenges as he grows up and particularly when he becomes aware that he is different. My biggest concern is that he will suffer from depression and anxiety because of the intolerance of others. I'm sure that there will be times when he hates his autism and wishes he were NT. But my job as a parent is to make sure that he is happy in himself and to guide him through that time. I'll also do my damndest to change the world as well. I will educate my friends, family, teachers and anyone else who has contact with my son. They will learn about autism and in particular HIS autism and how it affects him. They will understand what adaptations they need to make for him. They will get it and those that do not will no longer be our friends or part of our world it's that simple. This is my pledge as a father.