If you could choose not to be Aspie would you?

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I know that I wouldn't. I've always loved being different, always liked that I have a unique way of thinking compared to most people in the world. I'm going to school to be a software engineer and I love that coding just seems like my natural language ( Everything is literal and a logical process, AND I get to be creative in my own way). I've also felt that being Aspie has HELPED my marriage, my wife accepts that im different, and I like that I have a great perception on the world and people. My wife (the most emotional women you will ever meet) understands that I'm different and we each help each other understand our own way of thinking.


Yes of course there are negatives and it gets frustrating when no one understands you. And it sucks never fitting into a group because there is WAY to much stuff going on. But for this (even on my worst days now) the pros outweigh the cons for me

Oh dear god, yes!

For the chance to be 'normal' for just one day....do what 'normal people' do... I am totally jealous of them!

I would gladly give up the last 10 years of my life if my Asperger's could be 'cured' tomorrow.

I would choose not to be an Aspie. I know I am on meds now that have lessened the depression, anger, self-loathing and some self-esteem issues and have made me be more in control of my emotions and stop the outbursts, but I still would choose to be NT any day. Having Asperger's does make me feel like an outsider, when I want to feel like an insider. I would love to be able to be less socially awkward and have a better ability to make and keep friends and be out and about more. I feel like the Asperger's is stopping me from doing that. I know I could meet people with the same interests as me....but I don't think I'm going to meet many people that are obsessed with a certain bus company and all it's drivers. I speak to one person on Facebook who appears to be obsessed with the same bus company I'm obsessed with, but I see on his profile that he is happily in a relationship and might feel uncomfortable being seen out with a girl, even though we would just be friends but I do know a lot about how local people gossip.

But anyway, drifted away a bit there. But, yes, I would love to not have Asperger's. It would also be so nice to just walk around a town without being laughed at. I know I don't do anything weird to encourage it, blah blah blah blah.... (and if anyone says ''you probably do without realising it'' then just shut up because I know I don't and I'm not going all into it), but I must give off some sort of vibe that just tells people that I am nervous or unconfident and for some reason people find it so hilarious (not all people, thank God). But, yeah, it would be nice to be able to just have some dignity.

Being an aspie in a predominantly NT society has its difficulties, but being NT is not a vaccine against social insecurity and difficulties.
No, I actually like what I am. I don´t think, I miss out on anything human just because of ASD....apart from having a job, I could function with.
I do not cope well in NT workplaces as most of them are.

Last edited by Jensen on 05 Jun 2014, 2:10 am, edited 2 times in total.

Are you asking 'would you stop being an aspie now?' or 'would you have prefered being born NT in the first place?'. The two questions are going to get very different answers

For me the one big issue would be do I still get to keep my intellect?

Another engineer at work had a stroke, and when he came back, others have said he isn't quite the same. He recently resigned when asked to sign a document that he was underperforming.

When unemployed, and desperate, and going on the theory of "you tried this for x months and its not working, try something else", I tried a job at a mortgage broker being a telemarketer. LOL fail. Of course now I know why. Point is, looks like I only know how to be an engineer, and with three kids all needing to go to college, I would be fearful of losing something.

If all three were out of college, my opinion would probably change.

It is conceivable that someone comes up with something within say 20 years.

No, it's part of who I am. I'm disabled, and my life is objectively harder than it would be without autism; but I've also had opportunities and been able to look at the world from a perspective it would be impossible to access if I had been neurotypical.

As odd as it may sound to people who aren't disabled, I would choose my life with a disability over someone else's life without one.

This topic has been brought up before. but I will say it again. Yes and No, I would like to be NT for a day just to know, or to better yet "comprehend" what it's like. Being a temporary NT would greatly increase my knowledge and understanding of other NT as well as improve my social (uh! um! acting.) skills. It's just a theory, but I believe that the main reason that aspie's can't learn the social language is because we can't comprehend it. It also could be that an aspie's brain simply can't process it as well, but I do believe that if we got a brief moment in time to be NT and could comprehend what's in that moment. We could become near NT (fully NT if the problem is not directly link to our brains wiring) through knowledge and experience via comprehension.

Being an aspie is who I am as a person. I've live my entire life this way and I don't think i can just give it up that easily. But I would love to have the chance to be NT for a day just just to know what it like, that's for sure.

You might as well ask somebody in a wheelchair whether they would choose a miracle cure in preference to staying on wheels.

People in wheelchairs get all sorts of privileges and priorities, but I'd bet that they would willingly give all of that up in return for the opportunity to hang out in the 'normal' way.

Whoops. Thought it said if you had the choice to be aspie would you and I said yes.

If you mean now I would do it temporarily out of curiosity. Even with much improved adjustment abilities I would need a lot more then a day to figure it out but it would help me understand navigating the NT majority world.

Permanently I would do not want to change it at this point. We need people to advocate and be an example for acceptance because the world needs both neurologies. Even if I do a little bit whether it's here or in the outside world that is better then if I just gave up.


A harder question to answer would be would I choose to be born neuromainstream in 1957 instead of Aspie-Autistic in 1957? Most likely my life would have been much better without all the misunderstanding and discrimination of my autistic traits (but there is no guarantee a NT version of me would have lived a better life, it might have been worse). But as I said above somebody had to be the guinea pig and example of late diagnosis. My late diagnosis has tended to bring a more positive view of the condition, a better understanding of both how(and how not) to fit in and the long-term costs of living a life trying to be a fake NT. I have also seen other minorities that I never thought would succeed (and whom I had my own prejudices towered) gain a lot of acceptance and advance. If I took the easy way out I could not pass this knowledge along.

No - I'm happy with who I am. I understand the mix of talents and challenges and wouldn't like to be someone else.

I wouldn't either, despite some difficulties, it would be like taking a big part of who I am away. I started feeling his way later tho, within the last 10 years or so. I used to believe that I wanted to "fit in", but ultimately realised that I want to be me, not someone else.

I also think we are idealising the neurotypical mind and person, they have issues too, plenty of them.

Would a "cure AS pill" change my personality? Make me lose some qualities and/or talents that I have? Make me a different person? I don't know, and that's why I would never take that pill, because I don't want to lose any of it.

I don't think it quite works that way. For example, Stevie Wonder was born blind and was later on told that their was a surgical procedure that could be done to restore his sight and he refused it because he was worried that it could ruin his musical talent. Their was another case of a man who was born blind and they did the same surgical procedure on him and the psychological effect on him where devastating because he could not deal with it. The only real negatives I can think of with aspergers is the lack of social skills and that we have it be mindful of are environment because of sensory issues. Aspergers is not a sickness. It's that we have a brain that's wired differently. We where born this way, we will die this way. Just like those blind people I just talked about, to change are neurology could have very negative psychological consequences.

I would, without hesitation, choose to remain autistic.


I just wish that I could get rid of the sensory issues that accompany it. But I guess it comes with the territory of Aspergers.

In a way it's like asking if i would prefer to be someone else, other people must have nice lives, but it's not my life, or the life that was meant for me. Plus my obsession pretty much defines me, without it I would really be a different person, and I don't want to be a different person, since my identity is entirely in that one place.