Is an Autistic Spectrum Disorders: Curse or Blessing?

Post Reply New Topic

If you have an ASD, do you see it as a curse, a blessing, or something else?

No Ice Cream option? What?

I was sucked into the (non-present) gravitational pull of Planet X again, but I am completely neutral about it really. It's one aspect of myself. It can feel like a looming one sometimes, but I don't see it as a curse anymore than being a brunette or being nearsighted. You just take what traits you have (positive and negative), and find what works best for you.

My ASD is there and it's both a blessing and a curse. Regardless, it's a part of me that I accept. Now, to wait for the time for others to do so...

AS caused me to lose a career I studied half my life for and to lose numerous friends. certainly not a blessing. I wouldn't call it a curse, either. more of a challenge.

It not a blessing or a curse. Your attitude about your pluses and minuses is what makes you happy or sad.

We all have to play the hand we are dealt. As some of the other posters stated, AS can be a struggle at times but I try to be realistic about having it. I feel it has made me more patient and tolerant of others .

Both a blessing and a curse, at times. At other times it's more or less a neutral fact of life....It depends on the context.

Asperger's itself is a blessing.

The general NT disdain for non-NTs and having to live in a world dominated by them is a curse.

Interesting topic. One I'm unfortunately spectacularly ill-equipped to answer.

First, I can't think of any way I've been "blessed" by having ASD, and I'd actually be curious to read what others consider an upside to the condition. And by that I mean something slightly more concrete than merely stating that it is part of you.

However, I hope I'm honest enough with myself to admit that my basically horrible current existence is not something I can pin on having ASD, at least to any great extent. I am where I am largely because of some poor decisions I've made, some even worse behavior I've engaged in, and only as an afterthought on my diagnosed conditions of major depression, ADHD-PI and, yes, ASD.

In the final analysis, I did say more curse than blessing, but it is something I'm still trying to fumble my way toward a firm conclusion on.

I think it's mostly a curse, especially with how badly people on the spectrum are being treated these days.
I think the only benefit right now is knowing what it's like so, we ourselves don't fall into the whole mess of treating others badly for them being on the spectrum.

Hear, hear

It is neither a curse nor a blessing. It's how I am. However, what I find to be problematic is being around people and in environments which do not accommodate my needs to any particular degree. I find it interesting that people who are willing to demand that their needs be accommodated refer to accommodating my needs in very negative ways, or tell me I have to adapt to them.

If there were fewer double standards, I probably wouldn't have as many problems. I would still have problems, but they would likely be more manageable.

Some of y'all need to stop trying to take your tsuris out on the rest of us. You're miserable? That's terrible. You're angry because the rest of us aren't as miserable as you? Get over it. Not being as miserable as you doesn't mean anyone is deluded.

Also, euthanasia or exile for all autistic people? Where do you get ideas like this? Are you really so miserable that everyone who shares a diagnosis with you should be made to suffer as well? That is hate speech.

I see it as a blessing and a curse.

There is at least one other Autistic who sees it this way -

A blessing and a curse - Autism and Me, by Caiseal Mór:
http://www.jkp.com/catalogue/book/9781843105732

Growing up in Australia in the 1970s, Caiseal Mór was labelled 'ret*d' and 'an idiot', and his parents were led to believe that physical punishment could cure his autism.

In this courageous and captivating autobiography, Mór vividly captures his early experiences of dissociation from his true existence - a common reaction by children suffering from repeated abuse - and the various personas through which he lived through in his teens and early adulthood - the Mahjee, Charles P. Puddlejumper, Marco Polo and Chameleon Feeble. The rocky path towards discovering his true identity and finally accepting himself takes him on a spiritual pilgrimage via several different countries, once nearly getting caught unwittingly carrying drugs over the Moroccan border; forming relationships with people he meets but very often misjudges; to the revelation - the awakening - of love and acceptance.

I am not here to spread hate or make you depressed. I am here to open your eyes to the truth.