Do you want to be 'cured' of Asperger's Syndrome?

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To the original poster I respond very much to the affirmative.

Both? One? None? Huh? Since when is AS controlled by two genes?



There is no NT inside me. I have AS. AS is a part of who I am and I wouldn't ever want to change it, because I'd be a different person. I wouldn't be any better off or worse off overall if I was an NT. I might get along better socially, but then I'd probably have only average intelligence. NTs aren't all happy, we aren't all sad, and vice versa.

To put it simply, and this is likely the case for most other who do want a cure, is that problems with AS have given them (and myself) further difficulties, such as depression and anxiety disorders, just to name a few.

If none of us had to deal with damn traumas or co-morbid mental illness, I imagine a lot of us would be a lot more content with being who we are. For some, AS can cause distress because when it mixes with things like depression, it only amplifies the negative parts of AS and negates the positive parts of it.

That's all there is to say. Because of having depression, I myself am not too keen on enjoying myself for who I am.

I would love to be cured of Aspergers, it would be so nice to fit in
I dont mind having OCD, although it can be annoying at times I do enjoy my routines etc.
Whereas a couple of years ago I didnt mind having Aspergers either but now I'm starting to hate it and would do practically anything to be cured

It's not - it's just an easy explanation of the chances of having AS. I'm no scientist, but that's what I read somewhere. I'm no good at science or maths, so bare with my poor explanations here: if Autism spectrum conditions run in your family, there's a 1 out of 4 chance it could be passed to the next birth. If you get 1 AS gene and 1 normal gene, you won't have AS but you will carry the AS gene, which could be passed on your children. If you get 2 normal genes you won't carry the gene or have any AS. If you get 2 AS genes, then you will have AS and could pass it down again. I ain't talking bollocks here - I'm just trying to remember what I had read about this.
The theory does sound pretty acurate and understandable if you really think about it.

Get a small bag and put in 2 ten-pound notes and 2 twenty-pound notes, all folded up. Shake the bag a bit, then without looking pull out 2 of the notes. What have you got? 2 twenty pound notes or 2 ten pound notes, or one of each?
It works the same way as genes would. Very random and it's a chance nature takes.

There's still a possible chance of being born with ASDs even if it doesn't run in your family, but I think the chance is 1 out of 6 or something. And again, I'm not talking bollocks here. I'm not very clever for an Aspie, so this is probably just about the cleverest thing I've ever wrote on these forums.


And what I meant by the ''I want to bring the NT out of me'' remark is that I have less AS symptoms than most Aspies. My intelligence is just under average, I don't have any stimming habits, I am good with jokes, eye-contact comes natural to me, I never lined things up as a small child, I don't wear the same clothes each day, I'm not into Xboxs or other video games, I can hold a conversation with someone, I'm excellent at gossip and small talk, I can lie and convince people to believe me (but I'm not lying here though), I enjoy working with other people at work instead of on my own, I'm not sensitive to light, I don't have a world of my own.....and lot's more. I'm not running Aspies down, I'm just saying what I don't have. So I reckon I've got some sort of NT inside me, yet I have got an ASD, which sometimes makes me find things more difficult than normal. I'm on job-seekers at the moment, and I'm finding it mighty difficult to find a job. It's NOT because I'm lazy, it's because I have got low confidence to do these things, and I do suffer from high anxieties, and I have got very high paranoya, which means I worry more about what other people are thinking of me, than what I'm doing with my life. Stupid really, but that's just the part of AS what I suffer with the most. Apart from that, most of me is NT because I show NTism with other people, more than ASism. But I still wish I could be cured from it, because then I wouldn't get half as anxious as this.

No more then i want to be "cured" of seeing, "cured" of mobility, "cured" of thinking

I don't know. It's a difficult question, and one I still ponder. So I cannot pick a side just yet. One thing I've got to say, though, it that it really sucks when you spend so much time cleaning up your own messes that you don't have much more time to spare for doing something beneficial and productive. I like my special interests, but I spend so much time dwelling on things and obsessing over the little details, as well as having to deal with my major executive dysfunction problems, that I miss many, many other important things. And when I try to avoid negative experiences and making these messes in the first place, people say that I'm lazy and don't try hard enough, and that I can train myself to overcome all my problems.
Screw. All. Of. Them. I'm sick and tired of fighting against the current. I just want to settle down and enjoy life, for once. Unfortunately, life can't help but continuously fire unnecessary junk at me that I have to deal with, like my stupid eye problems. I hate all this glasses/contacts business, and my mother's incessant lectures about improving my vision. Why me, I ask?

I was thinking the other day about a plot for a fictional story that had to do with an AS teenager.

The boy had a lot of issues as a result of his AS. But he seemed happy most of the time. But yet there were times where he had difficulties. His parents wished he could be "cured" of his AS. It turned out that a certain medical lab found a cure for autism. And the cure did turn autistic people into NTs. So the parents of the boy bought the $10,000 pill...and they slipped it in his milk shake, and down it went. And he woke up cured. He was now NT.

His previous AS issues had caused him to be reclusive. But now, he had the desire to socialize. And socialize he did. One evening, to his parents' great satisfaction, he went to the high school prom with a beautiful girl. All went well until after the prom. The limousine he rode in to take him and his date back home was in a wreck. Although the girl was treated and released from the local hospital, the boy received a massive head injury.

The boy was eventually placed in a nursing home as that was the only place that could properly care for him. His parents grieved over the vegetative condition of their son. What could they do now?

They thought about the cure they had given him because they were not able to accept the autism in him. Had they not given him that pill, he would still be walking around their house and talking infinitely on his interests. They saw it in a different light now. Staring at the vegetable in the bed that was their son, they cried uncontrollably. How they wished they could go back in time and accept the autism in their son.

I have more ideas on this story, but I think it makes my point. We with autism were born this way. Autism has given us a certain pathway in life. To alter ourselves could change our paths and lead to a very bad end. Maybe it would be easier for you to not wonder about the "what could be's," and live your lives to the fullest that you can. And if you still want to be cured, look around at the NTs around you. Do they also have challenges and issues in their lives? Things can always be worse.

Great story, and a really good way of looking at it. I have no idea how many problems other people have. They just seem so happy, though, so I wonder if they're happier than me. When I hear of someone doing well as something I could never do so well on, I begin to underestimate my abilities and feel worthless in general. It's hard to tell who's really happy in this life and who isn't. Maybe I am the happier one, who knows.

No advice in the whole world will help me with this. People can tell me and tell me 'til they're blue in the face that ''you must accept who you are'', and maybe they're right - but it will never change how I feel about being different.
I want to be cured and without side effects. I am fed up with looking at little children and knowing that they are normal, simply because they're socializing well with mates before the age of 5. I am fed up with feeling terribly sorry for little children who are really shy and won't touch any other child with a barge pole. I just know that their future life is completely f****d.

I am angry with myself. I feel horribly embarrassed of the things I have done in my childhood life. I know everybody's going to say, ''but that was your childhood, and they've most likely forgotten about that by now, and life goes on,'' and you're right, but in a way your childhood is a very important part of your life, especially your late childhood years (teenage years), and it's not always something you can forget. And it's more so the principle of the embarrassments I've caused for myself. It's a case of knowing that all the other children have forgotten about how embarrassing you are, but if they see you one day the memorie might come back to them.

Oh, I wish I was NT. I'd like to go around saying, ''I'm neorotypical, like the majority of us on this planet''. Having AS makes me feel alone, and makes me feel one big problem, and makes me feel like I'm a person what everyone can do without. I feel awkward being me. I'm so close to being NT though. Out of all my 12 cousins, none of them have AS, or anything related to AS, and so it makes me feel even more miserable because I'm the one who can't make friends, and they all can. It makes me beat myself up inside.

Most Aspies here seem to have a few relatives with AS or Autism, and so they probably can accept who they are easier because they have other relatives who think the same as them, but if you're someone like me who's born amoungst a huge family full of NTs and none of them truley knows how it is to be you, it is harder to accept.

I can't be happy with who I am, because I don't know who I am. Not when I'm surrounded by NTs. I just feel like a worthless nobody.

Anyway, the question is, how come nobody in my family has AS, only me?
And I know what the answer really is: because you're unlucky, that's why.

I'm the same. No one in my nuclear family is on the spectrum, and - at least as far as I know no - neither is anyone in my extended family (although I do have a cousin with cerebral palsy, and I'd prefer AS to that any day). I'm also like you in that my AS is mild enough to pass for NT in front of folk who don't know me that well, although when I start getting close to people my idiosyncrasies usually become apparent after a while. In some ways that's a disadvantage, becasue instead of sensing that there's something clinically different about me people sometimes assume that I'm a self-absorbed as*hole.

I have learned to be happy with myself over time, however, but it's been a very steep learning curve. It's also taken me until age 39 to achieve that inner peace (and even then only with the help of anti-depressant meds). When I was 20, though, I felt exactly like you do now - possibly worse in some ways as AS was virtually unknown then, and as I hadn't yet had a correct diagnosis I didn't even know why I often failed socially - only that I did (resulting in self-blame, depression, anxiety and all the usual co-morbids).

I can only hope it gets easier with time for you too. At least with a proper diagnosis you've got someting solid to build on.

Holy slippery slope argument, Batman!

I'm participating in a treatment for Asperger's that's supposed to help with my social skills. I'm not doing it because I want to be a neurotypical drone who wants to conform. I'm doing it because I don't want to sit in my room in front of my computer for the rest of my life.

Last edited by Delirium on 20 Sep 2010, 9:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don't think I'd want to be cured. I have adjusted to living with AS for this long, changing that would take a long that to adjust to becoming NT. Besides, I like my quirky personality and my friends have accepted my oddities as they are. There are NTs in our club that are waaay more socially inept than I am so I think I'm well off in that respect. I don't remember whether or not I posted in this thread already but if I did, oh well here it is again. >.>

I'm sorry but if I'm reading this correctly the moral of your story seems to be that people shouldn't be cured of autism because otherwise they might get in car accidents? This seems like a very weak method of supporting your argument and doesn't make a lot of sense. Are you telling me you never go on car rides, ever? There is a risk of getting injured or killed in a car accident every time you get in car, no matter who you are and no matter what you're doing. Telling people to become shut-ins and to avoid life just because there are some potentially dangerous things out there doesn't seem like a very positive message to me.

No. My case of Aspergers doesn't and won't make me who I am, I make my case of Aspergers what it is. Yes, it makes some things difficult for me, but that is who I am. I will improve, as I have already done so much.

No, because I won't be happy having to start a new life as a new person, theres no way for me to be a kid again and start all those important milestones as a normal person with a clear-thinking brain.