If you had the chance to cure you're Autism would you?

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given any say in the matter at all, I'd insist on curing my arthritis first and THEN the autism.

A year ago, I would have said no.
Now I say yes.
I have too many things stacked against me.
A reprieve from at least one of them would be nice.

Yes, again, this is caused by the inability to filter information and our inability to do things subconsciously.
The inability to filter info and the inability to act without thought are my main theory of what causes most of the symptoms of Aspergers. It has a domino affect, the gait, learning disorders, sensitivity to sounds, mental burnout, meltdowns, special interests, etc. If we find a treatment for these two issues the rest should become bearable and we can move on with our lives passing as normal. There are certain substances that treat or even cancel many of these issues but they all seem to cause long term health problems and brain damage. Oh how tantalizing and depressing this fact is.

I am also looking into why females have fewer cases of special interests. I suspect their natural brain chemistry protects them against some of these symptoms. I also read somewhere female aspergians tend to have above average IQ scores while males have average, this too is interesting.

I turned off my phone and suspended my Facebook account today. Once again, I had tried to give the social world a looksee, but it was just too negative. Lots of people on there I can't relate to and it was just bringing me down, so, I'm gonna do what I did as a kid - isolate. This doesn't bother me because, luckily, I'm extremely focused on the things I want to do. This month alone I wrote, edited and published 3 books on Amazon. So it's full steam ahead; may as well use this gift of autism to a positive end.

Yeah, that makes sense. My kung fu coach told me that people can only concentrate for 90 minutes per day. I thought about this and decided that I can only concentrate for 90 minutes per day. The rest of the time my brain is a useless piece of s**t. But what I didn't understand was that I saw many people who spend much longer periods of time concentrating. People at work for example who seem to concentrate flat out for 8 hours per day or even longer.


I asked my kung fu coach about this and he said that most of the time people do stuff on autopilot. This kind of fits into that ^

I do have an autopilot but it's probably not as good as the NT one and it doesn't seem to get used as much. Most people (NTs and the more highly competent aspies) probably only have to use their conscious thinking for a few seconds a time so over the whole day sip through their 90 minute allocation bit by bit.


For me, I work in fits and starts. For a 20 or 30 minutes I'll feel great and get stuff done then for a couple of hours I'll feel miserable and stare at the screen wondering why I can't do the work in front of me. The good phases happen 3 or 4 times per day and they often correlate with good moods. I feel like I'm in an adrenaline rush and I can do stuff with much speed and effectiveness.


If only I could get this to last all the time. I'd get five times as much work done during the day. I would have gotten straight As in school and I'd have a degree by now. Why won't my brain do run smooth all the waking day? Maybe because in prehistoric times food was limited so we evolved to not waste calories on too much thinking. The trouble is, now we have an abundance of calories and I'm slightly overweight. If my body started using more calories I'd be fine with that, it would give me an excuse to eat more. But instead my stubborn body acts like it's living in prehistoric times and the next famine is just around the corner.[/quote]For people with Asperger's Syndrome, dopamine levels are much lower than Neurotypical people. [/quote]Crap! That would explain a lot. I've often wondered why NT holidays often seem to be about going to a beach on the other side of the world and then standing around in proximity to the beach talking about the same stuff they talk about when they're not on holiday and then going to cafes and restaurants in their destination country sitting around tables talking when ethnic restaurants are commonplace in their home country. The cruise ship is even more confusing.


It also explains why the majority of NT parties seem to be people standing around in a room talking about the same stuff they talk about when they're not at a party.


Not that I dislike socializing. I like it more and more as I get older. It's just that to me party socializing seems to be very similar to not party socializing. The reason for the party is often arbitrary.


All this dopamine stuff might explain why I seem less depressed when I have a really frustrating problem to solve. Like the other day I was trying to figure out how to deal with my dire financial problems. I was mad, sad and frustrated that I can't buy stuff but I wasn't depressed. I get more depressed when I don't have any particular problem to solve or sometimes when I have a problem I can't even begin to solve because I don't understand it. True this stuff should be taken with a grain of salt like anything you read in any place but it's interesting and there just might be something to it.[/quote]Why do Neurotypical people seem so irrational?


Because neurotypical people are guided by their subconsciousness and only use their consciousness whenever their subconsciousness is insufficient, many of them rarely ever contemplate on anything. As such, they do not realise the inner inconsistency of their beliefs. [/quote]So that's explains why religious people can believe so many contradictory beliefs. Because they never contemplate any of it. Theologists call this duplex veritatis.Never ever do this or the waiter will take your knife and fork along with the plate and then we he brings the next course you won't have any cutlery!It makes then feel more elite so they can boast about how upper middle class they are.[/quote]Why do teenage boys sometimes use a "secret handshake" or "code language"?


It creates a sense of having shared knowledge not available to other people, which in turn creates an emotional connection.[/quote]Another way NT do this is by exchanging ridiculous conspiracy theories.That explains why a few years ago I didn't get jobs when I was honest in my job applications. I thought they would prefer to hire the most honest and logical candidate rather than an obvious sycophant. I was wrong.


I got my current job by feigning enthusiasm on the job application. Almost two years later and I still have this job even though I'm woefully underqualified. I wonder if they passed over more competent less charismatic employees for me. It's a good thing I can feign charisma during my energetic periods.I'm not sure if he felt great because he's cured of AS or if he felt great because he was on narcotics.


Hell if I had a broken fibula and I took enough heroin I might think I'm cured but that don't make it so.For me it started when I was 15. I'm not sure if I'd want to go back the the way I was before that because even though I was very energetic I was extremely irrational and impulsive (maybe I was impulsive because I was energetic (nowadays I make decisions slowly because I like to study the big picture one small piece at a time). It's just a shame that I ran out of steam just at the age when academic performance starts to have an effect on one's future.Nonsense I know several female aspies in real life who are highly obsessive. I also know male aspies in real life who I not predisposed to becoming like us. I know at least one who can cope with NT stuff better than NTs can and I know several who are quite successful in their careers.


I used to think that our culture only accepts quirkiness in girls not guys. Like for girls it's cute. Until I realized there was an exception. Me. I act quirky and people are fine with it. The girls think it's cute. Yes it's possible for a guy to pull that off if he does it the right way. It doesn't require you to hide your AS, rather it requires you to play on peoples perceptions of what they think AS is. Just act like a clueless nerd. Girls love that stuff.


[/quote]I feel the ages from 0-22 when I got so caught up in special interests I lost all my drive to live life. Learning new languages, trying sports, etc. impossible, I have ZERO motivation for my entire life. My special interest stuff was drug like, I did not ever truly enjoy it but was drawn to collect trivia like a drug addict and had meltdowns over my obsession with it, there was no true motivation there. What launched me into my greatest depression during my young adult years was coming to terms with the fact I was no genius at all like all the adults kept saying.....[/quote] If only your special interest was career related. That worked out so well for Steven Spielberg. But yeah, I got depressed in my twenties when I realized everyone else is more educated and has a better work ethic than me.I doubt that I know several female aspies who are highly intelligent.

Yeah, I have that problem a lot, usually when reading. Even if it is something related to my special interests. Gets frustrating at times. I think part of my is due to brain damage from partying too much in college. I don't remember having that problem when I was a kid.

I can absolutely relate to this, word for word. I never, ever want a special interest again.

To Retro Gamer:

I get the narcotics thing, but high levels of dopamine alleviate some of the symptoms nevertheless. I took a swig of cough syrup when younger and felt let irritable, more aware, etc. It doesn't fix the problem but smoothens it's edges.
I also get the female thing, maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.

To everyone:
Just stay alive, every day we live is a victory for ourselves. One thing both pro-cure and anti-cure people can agree on is that there should still be a cure/treatment for all the negative symptoms like thought impairments/depression/OCD/sensory issues/meltdowns at least. Every day we live is another day more research gets poured into autism anyway. So have a good meal, get some sleep, stay alive!

You know what? This is good stuff right here. I'm going to treat myself tonight.

Then by definition they might be OCD compulsions instead of autistic special intersts. It is not uncommon to be an Autistic OCD sufferer

No, because it would mean significant changes in my personality and i don't know if those changes would be positive or negative.

I suppose, but I don't have any other OCD symptoms, and the kind of things that make me feel this way don't tend to be characteristic of OCD sufferers.

I have had special interests before, and while they used to be pleasant they got less and less so with age until they became oppressive and burdensome. The way the whole thing felt tended to be like what recovering drug addicts have told me they felt like before they got clean... like something that used to bring pleasure became an obligation, but they just kept trying to get more out of it to no avail.

I won't. I used to treat myself with ice cream. That was before I got obsessed with dieting.

I used to treat myself by buying gadgets but now I'm in debt. Yes I'll pay it off but that makes no difference because after I pay it off I have to save, save, save. My peers own houses while I rent. In the long run it's cheaper to own than to rent. My peers buy shares, so should I. Else I won't be able to retire. I'll never have disposable income again. If only I didn't get burgled I could now have the gadgets I already had. They're gone and I can never buy them back. Mature people save their money. Childish people spend their money. I don't want to be childish again.

I used to treat myself by watching a movie or playing a game or something. That's all a waste of time. I should be training for my ISTQB exam or fixing that website I'm supposed to be assistant admin for or learning a new programming language in my free time or something.

Free time is the wrong word for it, there is no such thing as free time. Time spent on recreation is not free, it's very costly. Mature people don't waste time on that stuff, they spend their days working and they spend their nights learning new skills.

I don't play games anymore but I don't learn knew skills either. I spend my nights surfing the web and comparing myself unfavourably to other people. Most nights I don't have the energy for games. On the occasions I come home from work without feeling exhausted I use my energy for exercise or useful projects.

All of that fun stuff comes at a cost. Ice cream makes me fat. Buying stuff uses money I could invest towards my future. Fun stuff uses time that could be spent improving myself. The most successful people I know have virtually no free time.

Doctors are successful and as med students they have no free time. Judges are successful and as law students they have no free time. These are the ones we're supposed to look up to right? They didn't waste their time, when they were young they invested their time so they could get it back at a higher rate of return.

It's like a video game. If life was a fighting game you could use your special bar now but if you let it get twice as full the special move has four times the power. If life was a strategy game you could attack now but if you spend twice as long preparing your attack has four times the power. Everything in life is like an investment, you can use it now but if you use it later it will be twice as effective.

I feel really guilty about having free time when there are med students and law students who study all the time or when there are athletes who train all time time. I read about Olympic athletes who train so hard while I sit on my ass. I read about violinists who train for long hours while I sit on my ass. In any endeavour success takes hard work, dedication and sacrifice. That goes for sports, careers, anything.

We all have the same amount of hours per day. The choice is to either spend them in pursuit of some goal (athletic, career or musical) or spend them playing video games. Successful people have the same 24 hours per day we do so I guess they don't spend as many hours on video games. It's a choice between recreation or success.

Anyway, video games are goal oriented. You pass the next level, you feel accomplished. You complete a mission in the game, you feel accomplished. If the game is really hard, you feel a greater sense of accomplishment when you complete it.

That's the same sort of accomplishment you can get in real life from passing an exam or completing a project at work. If you can work really hard on a difficult career or work really hard on a difficult video game and they both give you a sense of achievement, you might as well choose the one that also gives you a paycheque.

I'll respect you if you can beat Dark Souls but everyone will respect you if you can become a doctor or a judge.

So I can't do stuff to treat myself because the cost is too high. Anything pleasurable I do now will cost me later.

Last edited by RetroGamer87 on 22 Jul 2016, 9:27 pm, edited 2 times in total.

If there was a cure I would be reluctant to take it, not because I think a cure is bad because I feel like it's too late. If there was a cure I could take when I was 15 or younger you can bet I would take it. But if there was a cure I could take today, that would give me a normal life than it would give me half a life. The first 28 years of my life have already been wasted so to be normal after today wouldn't give me a completely normal life.

If it made me the same as my peers I would still be far behind my peers because they were normal before I was. The years from 15 to 25 are the most important. Every year you spend wisely at that age is worth ten years at a later age.

Do well in education at that age like I didn't and you can be a success.

I know people say you can get a degree at 40. The university will still let you in. It doens't matter if you're the oldest in the class. You can still graduate.

My father did a bachelor of economics in his 40s. The university still let him in. It didn't matter that he was the oldest in the class. He still graduated. He applied for jobs in accounting and was told he was too old.

Any 40 year olds who got hired were experienced. Any inexperienced guys who got hired were young. Who would want to hire a guy with no experience and is less than 20 years away from retirement age?

Even if you could have a career from age 45 to 65, that's half the normal length for a career. Not enough time to buy a house or save for retirement.

I'm financially dependent on my job and I don't want to be a 32 year old graduate. My youth will never come again so a cure would be wasted on me. Give it to someone young who still has hope.

I feel the same way about curing my depression. Waste of time because I'm too old. It would have been better to cure that when I was 15.

Technical school? learn how to do a job instead of wasting time at a university. In European countries they have trade schools and such, most people don't go to a 4 year university for a philosophy degree, they learn a skill and do it.
The mindset you have seems to imply you think of yourself as a temporarily inconvenienced millionaire. Not every should be a doctor, we need machine experts, repairmen, welders, etc. These jobs actually get far less respect than they deserve. Think about people like garbageman, in my opinion a well trained garbageman should be payed more and respected more than an accountant for a major bank.

^^^a very smart and compassionate man named John W. Gardner [secretary of HEW under LBJ] said, "The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water."