If you could become NT, would you? seen on twitter

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No way in hell. I like who I am, and I don't want to change. If people can't accept my weirdness, too bad for them.

It's interesting, I work in the Deaf Community and this question is posed quite often. "If you could take a pill and become a hearing person, would you do it?" Many (not all) say no, they like themselves the way they are.

Now there are Cochlear Implants, which can turn a profoundly deaf person into a hard of hearing person. There is just one catch: the surgery has to be done when the patient is very young or it won't work very well. That means the patient, who is often an infant, has no say in the decision. It is the parents, who are usually hearing and want their children to be hearing as well, who make that decision.

If there are medical interventions for Autism, chances are they will have to be performed when the patient is young, before his/her brain is fully developed. That takes the decision out of the Aspie's hands and places it squarely in the hands of his/her NT parents.

I think there are times when I might say no, but overall yes probably, I probably wouldn't have half the problems I have now if I was NT.

No, I don't wish to be NT, however, I do wish for my weaknesses in my mental capacity to be nonexistent/strengthened. My NVLD is a broader scope than just social problems, it's stuff like visual spatial, multitasking, etc, so I wish to not have those weaknesses. At the same time, without those weaknesses, I'd more or less be superhuman, so I don't know if it's "fair" or not. But at the same time, even with my NVLD, people often think I'm some sort of genius, and I just find it impossible to see that in me, considering I can barely drive without being stressed out, so in many ways people envy me, gift with a curse I guess. Meh.

Well I'm in the minority then, because I would say YES. I would jump at the chance. I would love be soooooo happy to just be like everyone else, being able to go out clubbing on Friday and Saturday nights and actually enjoying it, being able to meet new people without being socially odd to them, being able to walk down the street without giving ''I'm a little strange'' vibes, not getting agitated and upset and extremely angry when my mum just sneezes or clears her throat, being able to have more friends of my age, having more chance of finding a boyfriend, not having crazy obsessions and getting involved in it all then making a fool of myself, not having uncontrollable outbursts when something happens that worries or panics me, not having other girls giggle at me, having more chance of finding a job, being more able to fit in, being less anxious and only being anxious about normal things, not needing to worry about whether I should stay on/claim disability benefits or not, not needing a support worker to support me in finding a job, not getting distracted/agitated by all noises most people can filter out........

And the list goes on and on and on. But you need your head tested if you love being laughed at, being stared at, being misunderstood, sitting alone every week-end night, coming across as odd to everyone you meet, getting angry at odd things others don't, being able to have more friends and having more opportunities of doing things, getting extremely obsessed and letting it take over your life, having insane outbursts over odd things, living in an NT world where everyone expects you to be NT, being anxious over little everyday things most take for granted, not having sore ears at everyday noises, and so on.

I know being NT isn't great, and NTs have quirks and they are not perfectly well-adjusted and some can be weird, but even if an NT (with no other psychological problems or anything that affects behaviour) is weird, they can still seem to fit in somehow. I worked with an NT who I thought was weird, but she was more accepted than I will ever be, probably because she still met the normal social standards, despite her weirdness. I'm worse off because I can't even detect my odd ways. I'm just odd in some way, and I give off these vibes what I don't want to give off but can't stop them no matter how straight I stand up or how much I smile or how good my hair looks, etc etc etc.

I would just love to be NT. Just so I can be like everyone else a little bit more. I am not opposite to NTs, because I believe that ''no two people are 100 percent the same and two people are 100 percent different'', but I would still like to have better social skills. Even if there was some sort of a ''cure'' that would just make my social skills more natural and make me know what to do in social situations, I would also be happy.

I just hate being odd. Don't convince me that it's OK because it is not. I am high-functioning, I have to function in NT society, I have to work with people, talk to people, and so on. I can't expect other people to do these things for me, I am expected to do things myself, so how can I not hate being odd?

I would most definitly want to become an NT if the oppertunity were given to me. Then, I could be myself around ANYONE I want and not have to deal with my peers getting annoyed with me or think of me as an embarrassment when we're out in public.

I'm curious as to what being NT would feel like. So much so that I would probably take the chance of becoming NT if it were possible.

That's the real underlying question of this thread and AS in general- is AS neurological damage or neurological difference?

I can't speak for others, but my NVLD seems to be neurological damage. Basically, my verbal IQ is 130+, about genius level, but my nonverbal IQ, not just social, but general visual spatial, math, and then social/emotional is like 80. So it leads to a very...unequal dichotomy of "smartness" as people will marvel at my verbal explanations for things, random stuff I figure out, then I'll miss some "simple" thing and people will go "wtf." I think my life would be much easier if I suddenly had a 130 IQ on the other side of my brain, the right side that's probably damaged. It wouldn't make me "NT," it'd just fix the massive IQ gap I have, and I'd be a better, faster, stronger person. BUT, at the same time, that can't be guaranteed, as without the NVLD to grow up with, well, who can say. I do think having equal or even just a lesser gap as I do now would be really cool, as right now to "fake" close the gap, I'll take energy drinks, coffee, or caffeine pills, basically any stimulant, I just feel dumb without them now.

But yeah, for me and my NVLD, it's neurological damage. But other people with AS, it's not, it's really a case by case basis, and it's unfortunate that AS, NVLD, etc, aren't being studied very much on a neurological basis. But yeah, for me, it's definitive neurological damage, whether or not it "works out" is a different matter, but NVLD is basically really concrete in the way it works, damage to the right brain, then the left brain compensating for the right brain sucking.

And as far as if I have AS, it's weird, as my NVLD is severe enough that it has most of the same impairments as AS, just I might not be "wired" AS, if that makes sense. There's probably a lot of people with AS who are misdiagnosed, and "just" have NVLD, but NVLD is a really specific neurological pattern, and AS is more broad and abstract of a pattern, and unlike NVLD, it's not based off neurological testing, it's just based upon observed behavior.

Last edited by 1000Knives on 05 Mar 2012, 5:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm not sure if the question makes sense. I mean, how could you change just one thing about me without affecting anything else?

For all I know, I might lose a lot of my intellectual ability if I became an Entie. I suspect that an Entie's brain is crammed full of trivia. There might not be much room left over for the things I really care about.

No. I would not want to become NT.

The question is irrelevant because I cannot choose. ^^ I wouldn't want to be because then I wouldn't be myself. And because the way I am, I am not used to anything else.

If I was NT anyway, I would be happy about that, too, I guess.

Trivia as in common knowledge?

No I would not.

Absolutely not. I'd want to let others who wanted to do so, but have absolutely no sense of why someone would make a decision like that. It's quite silly to me.