Demographics of who does/doesn't want a cure, part 2

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I want to know whether which issue is most severe (not how severe your issues are overall-- though here's a link to a poll on that topic-- but what your most severe issue is, so if you have only mild issues but one is slightly more annoying, pick that one, and if you have a bunch of severe issues, but one is even worse, pick that one) is correlated with whether or not you want a cure. If your main difficulty is autistic inertia (link), please pick executive function.

I'm actually not sure what my biggest issue is, though, so I'm going to hold off answering.

To quote loosely from the X-men movies, there is nothing to cure, as there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way I am.

I chose multiple, because I'm not sure whether social or ED is worse for me. I'm not interested in a cure, but I would like to learn how to deal with the ED so I could accomplish all the things I really want to do.

My biggest issue is non-sensory related meltdowns and I would like a cure.

I'm not sure if it can be separated out. My social problems cause me the most distress, but I suspect that executive dysfunction is the cause of my social problems.

Ouch! I would love for my sensory issues to go away once and for all... grrrr

I would go with executive function. Unless you are a total ass, people give you a pass on quirky if you are really good at what you do. My executive functioning blows a hole in all my best laid plains.

Unfortunately there are probably more categories you could have added.

At minimum, also cognitive issues. Of course, I'm the person whose polls are so overflowing with options that some people can't read through them.

I put sensory issues but I really meant a wide variety of things by it. Sensory hyper and hypo sensitivities are the tip of the iceberg for me. There's also scrambling, distortion (like when crappy speakers overload), and things like that. Then there's issues interpreting what I perceive through my senses. And then there's being what Donna Williams calls "sensing", which is about having trouble with idea-thought and category and abstraction, and instead perceiving the world as sensory rather than conceptual. And that's not to mention the ways I outwardly respond because of these things, such as responding to sensory qualities of objects rather than identity or function. Also, using kinesthetic movement-related means of helping me understand the experience of sensory information (resulting, movement disorder effects excepted, in what most people call "stimming".)

I don't know whether some of those things would be grouped more under cognitive or sensory. But they all involve sensory stuff at one level or another, and are all my biggest issues, so I guess I don't have a problem voting as sensory. Some of them are a far cry from the simplistic view of sensory stuff that's all about sensitivity and tolerance level etc. though.

Here's the minimum amount of categories I'd have used in a poll like this:

Sensory/perceptual. 

Cognitive. 

Movement. 

Executive function. (Might just do a single movement/EF category, might not. I am not comfortable with the EF concept but don't know a better term. It's just poorly defined buzzwords make me uncomfortable.)

Emotional. 

Social. 

Communication. 

Possibly some kind of category dealing specifically with things like compulsions, which don't comfortably fit any other category and have serious effects on many autistic people.

Autistic people's differences seem to me to be divided into perception, thinking, and action, as well as the interactions between the three. This is of course an arbitrary division and one area of difference can affect all three at the same time.

Donna Williams divides autistic people's difficulties into problems of connection, problems of tolerance, and problems of control. All of which van affect perceptions, thoughts, and responses to the world. 

Either way, it's hard to know where to draw dividing lines, especially for people like me who can see how artificial and distorting categories can be (which is part of why I have trouble summarizing and shortening my writing). 

I think if I was going to explain my own autistic traits to someone else, I'd go for something like...

1. A description of the way I perceive the world around me, and how I do and don't handle thought, etc. 

2. I'd probably steal as usual that wonderful little chart describing movement issues affecting perception, movement, complex actions, thoughts, language, feelings, and memories. 

3. Effects of growing up without as many of the normal experiences that shape nonautistic people's lives, and of having developmental stages that are scrambled, delayed, skipped, etc. compared to nonautistic people's stages. 

Anyway, most of these ways of dividing up autism are pretty artificial. Like, the same single issue can cause problems in communication, socialization, emotions, movement, thinking, and perception. So dividing it up this way is mostly about effects, not causes. But talking about causes is messy and difficult in other ways. 

Me 2, I am totally disabled because of ED. I cant even clean a house let alone do something with my life

I have ED issues as well.

Although I have been able to get an education and jobs, my jobs are well below my intellectual ability because I can't deal with the organization required for the "high end" jobs.

Also I have gotten rid of all my non-essential possessions to prevent my apartment from becoming a mess as I am terrible at cleaning.

Although I could afford a house, I will probably never own one as I know that I cannot handle the maintenance and upkeep.

hahaha the conclusion? people that are physically disabled would like to become physically disabled. hahahaa. Sorry but that is so funny if it is true. That you would need a test to figure that out. Not saying that this poll is useless. this one part just made me laugh.

Multiple and no. I'm also on the spectrum. I'd rather give up my most prized possessions than take the cure and have my beautiful neurology screwed with.

I also have Executive Dysfunction issue. I think that this makes some of us, those who are intelligent, to perseverate with our thoughts. So for those who are intelligent its effects may be a positive overall. However for those who are of average intelligence or lower its effects are obviously negative.

Last edited by daspie on 20 Feb 2011, 9:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have a bit of this feeling as well. Take the good with the bad. I like some of what I am and would refuse any cure that changes that.

I'm gradually getting rid of almost everything I own, as I simply cannot organize too many things.