If you could live life without Asperger syndrome, would you?

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Does it having it give you any advantages?

It gives me the advantage of being myself. Without my AS, who would I be? It's part of me. I would never get rid of my syndrome. Ever.

If I was born an average NT, I wouldn't know any better. I wouldn't sit there thinking, ''ohh I'm not me because I am born neurotypical. I am not the Aspie I wanted to be''. So although technically it's true to say ''I wouldn't be me if I wasn't born like this'', but if you was born NT then you wouldn't know any better. You'd just be taking more things for graunted and getting swallowed up in the NT society. I'm talking about the average NT, not NTs who are weird or got psychological problems, I'm just talking about an average NT (otherwise we would go on forever).

I just wish I was born the same as me but having an NT brain instead of an Aspie brain. If the majority of the world were Autistic then I wouldn't care about not being NT or I wouldn't know any better, but because the majority are NT, I have absorbed more behaviour from typical NTs than anything else that I'm starting to become depressed, since everybody else I've ever known are NTs. I grew up in mainstream school, I come from a family who are all NTs so I was raised by NTs, and I work with NTs.....well I'm not sure if one or two of the people at work at NTs or not but they're not Aspies. I only have one friend who is Autistic but I don't really relate to him because he seems a different person to me.

You both have valid points. If I didn't have AS, I would be someone else...who didn't know any better.

Having observed some of what is defined as "normal"...I think I'm happy being who/what I am.

Advantages? Better focus (sometimes), thinking more deeply about things, seeing less desirable aspects of the culture for what they are....

Also, happier with myself in general because I'm not constantly worrying about what others think of me.

I love having AS. Lots of logic and no need to worry about the social pressures NTs burden themselves with. I just get things done. And, you know, I sort of like who I am as well.

If I could have been born NT, would I?

Hmmm, I don't know. I don't mind being an Aspie, it has certainly given me a unique perspective on things, one that I value, and one that I feel might be advantageous for me in the future if I choose a path which is better suited to an Aspie mind. I also think that I have chosen a more open-minded and accepting set of friends due to my social troubles. I could never fit in with the rigid 'you-must-look-think-and-act-like-me' sort of people that typically made up the more 'popular crowds' at school, which I am now grateful for, as I see my friends as such better-rounded people than the shallow people who chose friends based on their social acceptability. I have friends with true and honest hearts who love me for who I am, and I appreciate that deeply. I fear that if I had been born NT I would have also fallen pray to the shallow basis of relationships I see (or percieve) in many NT's.

On the other hand, Asperger's has presented me with a lot of problems as far as life management skills and things like the ability to hold a basic entry-level job. I really suck at most jobs that require social interaction (cashiering, for instance) because I feel uncomfortable making small talk with strangers and find it difficult to choose appropriate topics. However, I can learn these skills through vocational training and such, so it's not as if I'm just SOL when it comes to this, it's just more challenging.

Over all, I am happy to be a bit different, and I am willing to meet the challenges I face. I just wish that society was more accomodating of non-NT's, so that I wouldn't have to constantly justify my struggles to others.

Maybe I just want to be a different kind of Aspie, if I had to be born with an ASD. I would like to be a kind of Aspie who doesn't care what others think and doesn't care is I am different or not, rather than being the type who constantly worries of what others think of me but finding it hard to follow the conformism rules aswell in order to not be different, even though I don't like being different. I just can't help it if the consequences of being different affects me a lot. I wish it never did to begin with.

I've asked myself this question before, and I gotta say no. Right now, I've been considered a nice person, and I have the feeling if I were, as it's said, "neurotypical", I would be more of a jerk who hides motives, or something. Or um, uh, no, I wouldn't. Don't like the alienation and years of torment in school, but I do like having interests like aerospace and dinosaurs years after physical childhood, and enthusiasm for learning and speculation. Plus I like being brutally honest, dedicated to stuff, being isolated to explore interests, and other stuff.

I like being aspie...now that I know what I am. Before I was diagnosed, I was just weird and alone but now I know that I am different than others and I am more than okay with that!

Most humans are disappointing to me. In fact, every man I have ever dated seriously has, at some point, told me that "I have unrealistic expectations of people." To which my response is invariably "I expect nothing of others that I, myself don't do on a daily basis" i.e.
1. Be honest and;
2. Follow-through on promises unless there is a reasonable mitigating factor involved preventing me from following-though.

To NT's, those two things seem impossible to do all (or even most) of the time. At some point, they seem to all make promises that they do not intend to keep or say nice (or mean) things that they do not actually mean.

It would be terrible trying to live with myself if I regularly compromised my integrity as do many NT aquaintances. Poor emotionally-drivien souls.

Of course, but it isn't going to happen. What's with all the hypothetical questions recently?

I wouldn't trade it for the world, but I think a better question would be. "if you could live life from this day forward without AS would you?"

Without a diagnosis of AS, yes.

Actually, I think few people can really imagine being anybody other than who they are. I attended college where the feminists were very strong. One of their tactics involved asking all the men whether they'd want to be women, and to a man, we'd be confused. I'm not sure anybody could really want to be another person. Of course, it should be added that when I'd ask women not wise to feminist angle on the same question, I'd get the same confusion.

I must say though that years ago, I would've taken a cure for AS in a heartbeat if I could. Of course, until recently, nobody but Hans Asperger knew anything about AS. I thought I was uniquely defective.

I think my absolute low point was having a psychiatrist twenty years ago get exasperated with me, telling me she couldn't help me if I wouldn't cooperate and open up. All I could do was meekly answer I didn't know what she was talking about--and still don't. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die; I was in complete despair.

When I hit my late thirties, I became comfortable with who I am. If somebody were to make me a deal where I could become completely average in every way, I'd turn them down flat. Understanding what AS is, and that I'm not simply a freak of nature, makes all the difference. There are some decided advantages to AS, at least for me. It was a matter of figuring out for myself what they were.