Why so much opposition to curing Aspergers?

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One of my wife's best friends is as NT as it gets, but she's lonely and miserable. She's funny, smart, interesting to talk to, and likes to do fun things. She can be very sexy and attractive to the opposite sex. However, that said, she's compeletely miserable, because the kind of guys she is attracted to are not the kind of guys who are attracted to her, and there is nothing she can do to change that.

Being an NT is no guarantee of happiness, or a wonderful family, or anything like that. Witness the divorce rate, the explosion of dating sites, and the posts on craigslist in the "personals" section if you need evidence.

My son has AS, and I think it makes him who he is more than anything else possibly could. I wouldn't change him for the world, though I do urge him to work with the world around him, instead of against it. I am very hopeful, though, that some day he can find others who can relate to him, love him, and appreciate him the way we do.

Big myth there.

Reality: Severely disabled people have been assisted to live full lives since way back into pre-history. Different societies have had different attitudes on the matter, but there's clear evidence that it's happened since forever pretty much.

Why do you continue to assume it's about how "functional" people are, after there's been plenty of evidence over and over on this board that that isn't what determines whether people want a cure or not?

I was thinking the SAME thing, and the parallels are GREAT! INTEL and AMD are good at different things, but INTEL is often more popular/supported, but AMD is often better/faster!

Steve

I used to be against a cure until I figured out there was no point. A cure would have to involve brain surgery. Since you'd need humans to experiment on, there's no way to find a cure in the first place, and even then, it would be too risky to perform.

et,
I don't know if you quit on this thread or not, but it seems you have a negative view on life, whether it's because of AS or just your mindset. It doesn't have to be that way though. We choose to view life as we wish to view it. Maybe you don't think AS has given you anything good, and maybe you're right. That doesn't mean you should give up though. This may sound cheesy, but as to quote from Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness, "Don't ever let anybody tell you, you can't do something," and I'd like to add "Not even yourself" Maybe you don't think you have any strengths, but I'm sure you do. You just haven't looked hard enough. I think everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. I would advise you to try writing them down, even if it sounds stupid. Maybe a strength could be something as silly as you can walk. Some people can't even do that, but it's not like they have given up.

As for learning social skills, maybe you haven't learned the technique that works best for you. If there's one thing I think is very important that people should learn is that they have to learn what works best for them. Whether it's learning social skills, finding the right job, finding the right place to live, ect. Only you can figure this out for yourself.

Whatever you do though, don't you ever give up! I've lived my life thinking I can't do certain things. I internalized it and believed it to be true, and I hate myself for it, but still I never give up. Never!

If this helps motivate you in any way, then great. If not, that's ok too.

You are only 19, as long as you are alive you can change and make progress. I think you can make it.

I have only recently found out about Aperger's but I have always known I could do things mentally other people couldn't. I think of that as a resource for them, that I am able to put things in place for them for them to walk on, whether or not they realize it (and they usually don't). A lot of things bother me, sensory things and social things, but a great many things that I notice please me too and I wouldn't want to be more able to fit in weith society. I want to feel better but I think it would be better if the world was cured of what ails me rather than if I was cured of what the world thinks is wrong with me. Honestly.

Do you know how hard it would be to take an AMD chip, IN CIRCUIT, and rewire it to act PRECISELY like an INTEL chip? I just HAPPEN to have done a thesis on IC manufacture and improvement in HIGH SCHOOL! Let me tell you..... It is NEAR IMPOSSIBLE! Actually, I would never even try to attempt anything tlike that. OH YEAH, doing it with the power on makes it even LESS likely to be a success. Doing it with a running program? IMPOSSIBLE! The program would crash!

And THAT is with something where we have the technology, blueprints of both, etc...

Doing brain surgery would be FAR harder, yet we STILL have to do it IN CIRCUIT(in the body), WITH POWER(Blood flow), and WITH a running program(unconcious and probably concious).

Steve

I think the co-existing difficulties (co-morbidities) such as anxiety, depression, etc. are a bigger problem than the Asperger's itself.

Syndrome, disease. Disease, syndrome. Does it really matter what we call it? It's just semantics. Some people feel like their autism doesn't need to be cured. Others do. And everyone uses their feelings to decide on the issue. But you can't change what someone else feels, and a cure should be available for those who wants it. Where you wade into murkier waters is that if a cure existed, the possibility also exists that it can be misused. Those who don't want a cure, don't want one at all to stop that possibility from becoming reality. But possibilities aren't inevitability. All sorts of possibilities exist for abuse, nuclear power as weaponry etc. But that doesn't stop people from using that technology. Otherwise we should all sit at home and twiddle our thumbs, doubtlessly as many of us ARE doing, and not attempt to progress and make things better. After all, who knows what innocent-seeming invention might be used to do harm?

I surely don't want to be cured into being someone else!

One can't really cure austim and AS. For me its a gift from God. I'm content with it.

"normal" people are not interested in science and math. they just learn it in school like you would learn history or some other bogus subject. its people like us who are curious about things at such an abstract level. Newton and Einstein where not "normal" people. if the world was full of "normal" people, there would be no math, no science, no technology, no progress, no nothing. we would be running around naked eating each other.
if there is a God, i'm sure he made every "flaw" in the brain that leads to disorders and whatnot on purpose. because those people are needed too. what would be the odds that so many people happen to have the same "defect" in their brain that leads to say AS, or OCD, or whatever. think about it, the fact that so many people can have the same "defect", with the same symptoms, it would be very unlikely to be just pure probability.
i am not into bio, or have taken any bio class, but from what i understand; everyone is a mix of the genes/dna/w.e of their 2 parents, who are a mix of theirs, of theirs, etc.. all the way back to the first reproducing cell that started the hole thing. so there is no defined human. no genetic layout of the basic person before any family traits or w/e are added to them. so because of this, there is no design of what a human is. say your father was exposed to radiation or something that alters the genetics in his sperm, then when you are born, you have random defects in your genetics that makes u not conform to a "normal" human. if there was a defined human base genetic structure, this would not happen because it would define you, not you the mix of your parents. but every mutation because of this is unique. if 2 cases are similar, it just so happened to be because of probability. but now so many people have AS, is it because of radiation altering one mans sperm that so happened to lead to AS, and we all share this common ancestor? or is it because of a built in "flaw" in the human gene pool? say there is a "flaw" in the human brain, and this flaw causes defects to happen under specific conditions. if so, where those conditions present in every one of us while being in the womb?
man i though of this a long time ago, but never ran through it all in words. maybe i should take bio, i would like to learn about genetics and all that. but i hate the rest of bio, memorizing organs names and s**t.
any1 here take bio in university and knows a little something about genetics i could talk to??

I've consciously spent 15 years on it so far. I'm more perceptive than some NTs in some ways nowadays, though I still have a little way to go. It's not the reading, but the 'emulating' that's the really hard bit.

It sounds like you've had a tough time of things, as many of us do. I had a hard time myself coming to terms with the fact that I'll never be 'normal'. But society is set up by and for NT's, and if it was set up by Aspies it would be different (for a start they wouldn't keep shifting all the s**t round in the supermarket every couple of weeks). Maybe you should make a late New Year's resolution to stop beating up on yourself, and give yourself some time to figure things out.

Aside from that, I'm afraid I have no special wisdom to give

You know, i think the "cure" for As might be:
1. you are not normal (within the norm, no perjorative intended)
2. You will never be normal
3. Normal is not all that good anyway
4. You are pretty good as you are
5. You can learn to be exceedingly good at being you
6. Live your own life, your way: sing some Sinatra!
7. Sure, sometimes you will feel bad. Just do not ever feel bad about feeling bad. The initial feeling is part of the As experience. Ride it like a coaster.
8. Know that you are not alone