Why so much opposition to curing Aspergers?

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I'm old. I go by "Nutbag" 'cause at my age - and especially being single, I am a bag by definition. To be AS is to be in a minority. Minority status is always more difficult than to be one of the masses. Whether you are finding that you are alone, standing there wondering what to do on the school field, or alone in an office where everyone else seems pretty much like everyone else, or whether you are trying to find a specific philosophy to latch on to and find none that fit. . .
It is difficult to be in as minortiy. a person of unusual height (I am female and 5' 12" and so fit this category) has a more difficult time in finding clothes. A person of unusual weight or unusual show size. . . but an Aspie is of unusual mental function.
EVERYTHING that is "off the rack" for the NT is ill fitting for us. We have to self generate our worlds around us. Things that are automatic and available for NTs is not so for us. And so we face challenges, everywhere. and I will not sugar coat this: life is rough and it has been so for me and continues to be so. I often feel like an organ transplanted and being rejected bu its new body.
I do not think like those around me. this is not a measly inability to find long enough sleeves on a blouse. This is integral to every interaction I have with society.
Each day is a challenge. But I am old and have found (sans help, most of my life As did not exist as a diagnosis: and I am so happy to have found it now because explination is of its own worth) ways to cope.
I have learned how to look into eyes until my meter is well into the red. I can look at faces nearly normally though I still do not read them nopr necessarily recall them - especially out of context. I can "sort of" hold back my tendency to go pedantic in style and content. I do not have to blurt out: "Yeah, it does." if asked: "Does this make me lopok fat?" that is, I have studied NT society and learned to adapt.
And no it has not been easy. and the adaptations mean that whilst those about me are on autopilot and even apparently enjoying small talk, I am hand flying my craft, clumsily, and see little content. But I can do it.
I own my own business. I work alone and around my issues mental and physical. I go to see a new client, I perform well (enough), I come home and i crash.
And in all this I have seen things that the mundanes all around do not. I have a view from outside the world of man. I haver data to ponder. I am an individual in ways that the members of all the crowds are not, and an adventurer in ways that such cannot understand.
I have value to contribute to the world. I even have learned to contribute some sort of real friendship.
It is we who must conform, it is the law of numbers. Live where you must: I live in my head nearly all the time, I comer out when required. You are young, and have small worldly experience.
If you keep your mind open you will develop your own ways. You will find your value. You can make it even if you are a stranger in a strange land. and you have friends here - on WP. Insomuch as I can do so (and I assure you: I am pretty much extreme Aspie in this regard) I love you though we have never met. All of you are members of my tribe.
all opf us have a more difficult life than do NTs. Just going to the grocery store may be a trying experience for out like. But in this way we can also find challenges to be overcome and woithout having to climb Everest or such.
If I would be to be cured who would I then be?

Nutbag, I'm with you. Too old to have had "programs" that helped me, but I learned to read those NTs and found a way to cope. I don't like being out around them, so I found a job that suits me. I developed skills to help me get along...just as you said...a stranger in a strange land. I also live in my own head for the most part, but I've managed to make friends and have a marriage. I just had to figure out what kind of people I liked. I'm also glad you have grocery store phobia. I actually have food phobia in general. I don't like the sight, touch or smell of raw food. It freaks me out.

Pleased to meetcha ZanneMarie.
Etg1701

Please allow me to add an observation.
Firstly, I have always been AS. But I didn't take any tests or join WP until just recently. therefore the AS vocabulary of Aspie and NT has not been mine for long. All the while I have been living, I have worked consciously to gain some traction in this world.
I have had my own vocabulary - used internally - to describe myself and my world. I have refered to a certain group of persons as "mundanes" a word I owe to Babylon 5.
These mundanes fair well correspond to our NTs. Now let me give you an observation - well two - of NTs:
1. NTs tend to be happy. why not? the world is - of course - by and for the majority.
2. they are robots. Awwww, c'mon that isn't nice. But it is true. Very rarely does an NT have to go out of his way to create anything. Clothes, schooling, religeon, secular philosophy, hobbies, jobs, politics, et. al. It is all there and waiting for the NT, the mundane, the normal, on the buffett of life.
and so they join up into their various clubs. If bush (I use him as obvious, if any. . . says a thing, then one group of NTs shout "yea yea!", whilst another grouip shouts: "boo, boo" and each side robotically.
Mundanes are somewhat individual, but en masse they are as statistically predictable as is gas flow. Advertisiong and political speach all is in realization of this. The mundanes, the NTs are, well, average.
I both hate being Aspie because my lif e is made more difficult by BEING this, and love it because otherwise and for the grace of G-d there would go I. As i have aged and thought, I realize that the things which I lovbe about being me come only at the price of that which I do not love. and in the balance, and despite all, I will go with who i am.
And this is good, because i truly have no choice in this anyway. I am okay. I am not a great winner, but I am okay.
Hang in there etg1701 you can make it too. and you have WP and are still young. What I wouldn't give to have known at 19 what I do know now.
I could have avoided at least this much: meta feelings. As an Aspie, I do and will have some negative feelings even about myself. BUT withknowledge in place i can feel that intrinsic downer, and not then feel the "meta feeling" of feeling guilty about feeling bad! I can feel bad only once! What a blessing!

Love ya' etg!

"Cure"? Who has the right to say that we should be changed to their standards - maybe they need to be made more like us...

From my viewpoint...I'm 40...I've been like this all my life. Yes, things were difficult, no people do not understand, yes sometimes life was he$$...but it was "my" life.

I know "me", I am used to "me", and 98% of the time I like "me". I don't want to spend another 40 years trying to figure out a "new me".

A cure would change "me"....I don't want to be changed...acceptance is great...but the last thing I want after finally coming to terms with my life is someone with a "cure".

Taking into account the lower functioning auties who are alot worse off than us aspies are, I am not against the idea of a cure. It should be optional though. What I'm more against is the attitude surrounding pro cure groups and organizations, and how theyr painting a rain man picture for all of us. And how they insist that any trace of autism is a disease, and that we are a burden to society. This is just plain wrong.

Snake, I think therein lies the problem and for the parents of AS kids as well. The minute they hear Autism, they think of the low end of the spectrum and freak. I think this really does a number on their relationship with the Aspie kid. I'm starting to be really happy no one knew about it when I was a kid.

We need to find causes, diagnostic tests, and better treatments so we can function in the world, but we DON'T need a cure! We just need to take away the bad things, so we can focus more so on the good things. Same with all of the other neuropsych disorders- take the gifts of different ways of thinking and be able to actually use them when the better treatments help us not be debilitated.
-OddDuckNash99-

I have no idea. I also think studies need to be done on older people with it. Those of us who grew up with no special classes, therapy, etc. I think they need to compare how we did in a normal environment with how these kids are doing now. What they are doing is not valid until it's tested and proven out. That can only be done by looking at a control group - us. At least that is as close as they will get.


I also think a study needs to be done to see if the symptoms grow less with age. Mine did. I hid in small spaces when I was young, but only do this now under extreme stress (someone dies that I am close to). I used to eat the same food for two years straight then switch. I haven't done that since my 30's. I did try to commit suicide five times (for reasons besides AS but I'm sure that didn't help) when I was young and haven't since. I did have horrible depressions that lasted years, but no longer. I could go on and on. Considering my score now, I would have been over 200 as a child, yet I functioned in school, went to college, got married and have a career in spite of everything. The reason I think they need this study is because so many kids with AS would feel better if they knew it got better over time. So many parents would quit freaking out if they realized that AS's live in the real world and function okay. They wouldn't be so frantic with these kids. I don't know how these kids are taking it, but honestly, the behavior of the parents I see on here (and they are well meaning and love their kids) would have completely shut me down. I would be in a rubber room if I had all of this 'help.' It is very frightening.

Seriously, RedMage is right. Also, this whole thread is pointless as you curebies are going off-topic; make a different thread about your problems, Etg. This ain't the depression forum.

And so we Aspies sort of stumble through a world that isn't ours. always in a bit of a daze - wondering what and why about all about us. But sometimes one of us will pull off a miracle. We are clumsy angels.
If the NTs knew how useful we are, we'd be treated as such. Until then: keep goin' on.

etg1701 That is sad. Accepting yourself is key to a lot more than you can probably imagine. Aspergers is a way of being, NOT something NOT to accept.
Here: Take my analogy: You have an office. Your office has ten cubicles. All of the cubicles have a computer. Each computer has an INTEL chip...for the exception of ONE...which has an AMD chip. the AMD chip, much like a person with Asperger Syndrome, functions a bit differently than the other machines...NOT BAD>>>DIFFERENT! It's still a computer. You are still a person.
Maybe you feel depressed, and that may be what is making you feel like AS is bad, because YOU feel bad. Yes, AS has its pains as well as its gifts, but curing it would change who you are, and who knows who you would be if you could have it cured--do YOU?