do you want to be cured?

Post Reply New Topic

my 10 cents

Technically it would require brain neurosurgery in your limbic system, probably transplanting fetal brain parts.

You'll live this as emotional response changes. The older you are when you get the "therapy" the less changes will occur in your end behavior, this because of the way your brain works. Technically you would have acquired a NT brain, but that is alredy trained as an aspie for the time you alredy lived, and your childhood lives a disproportionately large imprint. How the brain ends up working is highly path dependent. Sociopaths that are born, are different beasts, then people that lost there "conscience center" as adults.

Probably, unconsciously, the people that voted no (me included), alredy know that.

You should define maybe more precisely what "therapy means". You'll end up replacing everything under the hard meaning of the word. At best, therapy can really happen only on babies.

If anyone wants to be cured they should have a transorbital lobotomy. Anxiety gone, not a care in the world. Side effects may be mental retardation and death.

Someone needs to cure this anxiety I have about crossing roads and walking on hot days. And if I could survive a music festival that'd be just peachy.

But AS gives me an attention to detail which is what I need to be good at my job. I hope my ADHD traits don't get in the way. I'm easily distracted, bored, exhausted. But at least my employer is willing to work around my issues.

I would not like a cure, but I wouldn't mind finding ways to augment my good aspie traits, and diminish the ones that cause pain.

It would make you genderless.

I just wanna be life a normal life with friends, family & a girlfriend and im happy.

I have nothing to be cured

I don't like any of the symptoms AS seems to have, (it seems there's about 6 million symptoms, since AS seems to be every quirk a human can have, so it seems when reading through WP with new symptoms added what I've never heard of before! ). Rather than saying, ''I want a cure for everything'', (since it causes too many arguments on WP) I'd rather just say, ''I want a cure for 3 of the symptoms.'' And with this, I'd have to be careful with what I want ''cured''. (Don't forget - this is just wishful thinking).

I think I would cure the sensory issue I have with my hearing for one thing. The sound of toddlers screaming really startles me, and I think I would be more at ease if this symptom went away. I get angry, murderous thoughts in my head when I see a toddler having a temper tantrum near me (although I would never hurt one - I just know that these thoughts are just my mind's way of trying to look calm whilst fighting off anger). I really don't like this - I'd like to tune out this awful din, then I can work better in retail without becoming emotionally bothered by toddlers screaming and also the pain in causes my ears.

Next, I think I would ''cure'' my anxiety issues. I get too anxious over the slightest thing, and it causes problems. Things as simple as phoning up for a job application causes me stress. I really don't know why all jobs can't just have an email address you just send your CV to, or just give some simple steps where you can just apply online without no difficult questions. Then job hunting would be so much easier and not so stressful. Not only that - I get anxious about other things caused by negative emotions, such as jealousy, disappointment, confusion, depression, isolation, criticism, embarrassment, fear, and anger. And these emotions are usually caused around change, people, noise, and pressure. I think self-esteem comes under this too.

And lastly, I think I would ''cure'' my obsessions. Having a crush on men is all very well, but it's gone too far, and I get so emotionally involved in someone (without them hardly knowing) that I really want to be like them, which makes me hate being myself all the more. Then when a man (who I'm not obsessed with in that way) asks me out, all I can think about is the people I'm obsessed with, which spoils the relationship. I wish I had a higher IQ and could focus on obsessions what will lead to success, like some Aspies have. A couple of Aspies on WP have gone off to work on a cure, and they know that they have the brains to do it. When I think of working on a cure, my mind goes blank. I wouldn't know where to start. Even if I developed an obsession on it, I still wouldn't know the first thing about how to go about it. A few years ago I got a special interest on cars, but I didn't seem to know much about them, even though I was obsessed.

But I think the most awkward thing about me is I hate being stuck on my own for too long, yet when I'm in company I don't know what the hell to do with them. I think I would like to have just that cured.

Amen. I'd much rather be bullied, harassed, excluded, underemployed and undereducated than to live a life of happiness, any day!

Well, maybe. And while were at it, can you give me super strength and psychic abilities too? I wouldn't mind being a half human half God like genetically engineered person. But if all you're going to do is make me an NT, I'll pass.

This topic comes up every so often, and the answer is always that the majority of WP does not want a cure.

And I'm in the majority.

Edit: My issue comes mostly from this: I know how people treat me, and where it comes from. The reason they bully is because of the importance they place on being normal. I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be so focused on social ritual that I place more emphasis on it than the person.

Edit2: And don't tell me that I can focus on the person anyway. That's not how being neurotypical works. I can focus on the person because I don't care about the ritual. No matter what people may say about me, I know that's one aspect of my character that they cannot bring into question.

The bullying isn't a product of your aspergers, it's a product of living around NT's. I'm sure a bonobo would be bullied if it was raised in a clan of common chimps.

The same could be said of everything else you noted. Except the undereducated part, where did you pull that from? To me it seems as if people with aspergers educate themselves to a greater extent than NT's due to their obsession.

+1

By the way: How is it that we (as a group, people) have become more concerned with how easy our life is than our personal integrity?

yes

Or, rather, how is it unreasonable that one is concerned with both our personal integrity AND how easy our lives are?

I'm not sure what a cure would be like. Even if I, for example, suddenly had the ability to engage in pointless smalltalk I don't see why I would want to.

I don't want to be "cured." I want to be treated. To say that my mental make-up is something that needs to be "cured" bears the suggestion that I would be happier or better off if I were "normal" and had a "normal" life.

There are "normal" people everywhere who are in abusive relationships. They get into such situations by being in too much of a hurry at too young an age to decide that someone they have a "good feeling about" is the right person to be with them for the rest of their lives. Perhaps there are "normal" people who don't get into this kind of situation, but they are still considered to be "normal" if they do. I started older and wiser, and I have avoided this pitfall. I could have also avoided this situation by being wise and mature and having good adult guidance, but AS happened to be a key factor in my individual case.

There are "normal" people everywhere who go through drug addiction. Perhaps there are "normal" people out there who are clean, but I am also clean. Some people are clean because they have good morals. Some people are clean because they are highly educated. I'm clean because I was never invited to the kinds of parties where they have drugs.

There are "normal" people who are forever estranged and disinherited from their families. Perhaps there are "normal" people out there who have healthy family lives, but I think that I and my Mom and Dad get along reasonably well also.

There are "normal" people out there who will never be talented at anything. I am reasonably virtuosic on a keyboard or piano considering my lack of training, and I am a fair hand at writing. I have more time to practice because I don't have as busy a social life as most people.

There are "normal" people who give up on their education and settle for demeaning jobs working for others. My education continues because would-be employers have taken me for a fool because I stammered and had trouble looking them properly in the eye, yet I am investigating avenues for entrepreneurship, carrying on the family tradition. Would I be giving up my serendipitous liberty to live on my own terms to "be normal" and "fit in"? Sure, I might have been an NT and continued my education out of being an excellent student and having a good bead on things, but I have been lucky in my own way.

But I do like the fact that I am being treated for my AS. The medication I take doesn't make me "less AS, more NT." It helps me function better in ways that I want to function better. It helps me live a better life as the same person I have always been, and it helps me bring out the best in myself. That to me is the difference between a "cure" and a "treatment."

Do I have a "perfect life"? No. But having AS is only one of thousands of ways that my life could be less than perfect. It's just not as common as some of the other ones.

Last edited by WilliamWDelaney on 06 May 2011, 12:52 pm, edited 3 times in total.