Alphas (SyFy)

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Its cant very well be described as "paranoid" when the rest of the world is trying to find out the cause in order "treat" autism. Current "treatment" all revolves around trying to make us more acceptable to the rest of society. They do not understand that not of all of us would like to be like them. I for one would never give up apart of who I am for a so-called cure or treatment.

I wasn't referring to anyone in general, but if you feel like this is referencing you.... Perhaps this is because I'm more high-functioning then most, but I don't really think it's a good idea to try and split yourself off like that. The fact is, even if you dislike human society, you're going to have one hell of a time trying to survive if you don't at least make some attempts to conform. I'm not saying you have to be the average brain-bleached idiot on the street, but in order to get by in the world you're going to have to interact with people to a minimal extent, and that requires integrating yourself into human society just enough so that you don't end up homeless, institutionalized, in jail, or worse.

A lot of Aspies and autistic persons rebel against social interaction because they're not good at it. They lack the skills to function in a normal society, but instead of working to try and obtain those skills, they get all butthurt about it and decide it's a waste of time. I'm sorry, but that is a stupid move. As much as human society has it's faults (and there's quite a lot of them) the fact remains is that NT's outrank us numerically, and until the status quo changes it's still going to be their society. They're not going to change for our sake, so we have to do the changing.

But in no way am I saying we should conform blindly. The way I see it, if we have the skills to socialize, we can socialize enough to make it seem like we are normal, but retain enough anti-socialness to be aware of what we are doing, so that way we can analyze situations objectively and not just follow what our peers are doing. That's the benefit of being a "treated autistic" where we know social skills but are not bound by social influences. To metaphorize, if human society is a mass of lemmings jumping off a cliff, then the normal person is the one who jumps because the person in front of them jumps, the autistic person is the person who stops short because they know the stupidity of what they are about to do, but is bowled over by the person behind them, and the autistic person who has received intensive social skills therapy necessary to function in society... they're the person who knows how stupid it is to jump off the cliff, but do so anyways so that it seems like they're following the crowd. Little does the crowd know they tied a bungee cord to themselves before jumping, so while all of the "normal" lemmings and all of the untreated autistic lemmings are splattered across the tundra below, the treated autistic lemming is dangling a few feet from the ground, safe and sound and laughing their asses off about the stupidity of lemming society.

Also, you fail to make the distinction between "cure" and "treatment". "Cure" gets rid of autism altogether. "Treatment" lessens the effect that autism has on the person until they can function in society regardless. A "treated" autistic is still an autistic - they can just cope with the niceities of day-to-day social survival more so than an "untreated" autistic. And being a "treated" autistic, albeit one with a higher than average logical intelligence to compensate for social ineptitude, I know that this is true.

I take all your points Roxas and the analogy of the autistic lemmings is inspired, it reminds me of something similar I say. I am also quite high functioning, I was diagnosed only recently but growing up I identified how I was different and learned techniques to adapt. I think because my post is so short I fail to get across my frustration of always having to do the work. Its continuous effort put in the work required to adapt to, as you put it, human society. (Sorry, to ask but do you consider us non-human, not a point of contension, I just giggled a bit when I read it because I have used it similarly too).

Your right in saying I didnt differentiate between cure and treatment. I just dont like the word treatment, skills would be a better word to use in place of treatment IMO. Really I just mean cure. However you cannot simply ignore the fact that the basis for understanding the cause of our condition is that they wish to prevent it or at least lessen the effects. One example istrying to identify the condition in infants while their brains are still forming, so that "approriate treatment" (the term of a journal I am reading) can be applied to perhaps restructure the neural pathways to that more similar to an NT or human .

Saying that, I believe that is a very small part of the human race. Today it is all about individualism and as you quite rightly pointed out, we are very individual. Every NT strives to be unique and they majorly fail. We dont strive, we just are. One quote I love is "When you have met one person with aspergers, youve met one person with aspergers". I think that sums up how I feel about being aspergian. Thanks for your reply though, its easy for someone to post rudeness but quite another thing to post a constructive arguement.

Ok, I can kind of see where you're coming from. For me however, treatment is anything and everything that helps the quality of life of a person with a disability short of doing away with the disability itself. In the case of autism, that can be anything from social skills therapy to medications designed to treat some of the comorbid anomalies that are present, such as ADD and Bipolar Disorder. I take medications for both of these, and I have been put in social skills classes from the age of 5 until I turned 18. If it weren't for both of those, I would have a hard time coping with daily life. Hell, I still have a hard time coping with daily life, but I do better when I'm on the meds, and my philosophy is that if it helps, stick with it.

I think I agree with Roxas. We should take what treatment we can to make our lives better, but the treatment can't take away the uniqueness. It just helps you with everyday life. Also, I hate how many of the books we have to read for school talk about being unique, and how many students strive to be different from their peers, but, in my eyes, almost all of them are the same. We had to do a project in my English class at the end of the school year last year, and one person talked about how she is very different from her friends, and as I heard that I was kind of laughing inside, because she still conforms to their rules. They are no different from each other.

But then, let's say we meet aliens and communicate with them. If we try to tell them each human being is unique, they still wouldn't see us that way. They would see how we all conform to a common "human culture", and there's nothing we can do to change that.

Ignoring the typical philosophical and ethical implications brought to the forefront by the portrayal of people with AS in this series...

I'm loving the show, and Gary is my favorite character. Nina is my least favorite. I enjoy the fact that Gary is so much like some of us when you subtract the super powers.

I am going to start watching this show tonight(demand)

I have not watched this show because it was to much like Xman, Mutant X, Heroes or 4400 but it sounds like this show sounds like it really hits the problems of fitting in. I am also happy the one with AS power is to see sound, I sometimes feel I am one step away seeing the sounds only I ca hear.

it's not seeing sound, it's seeing electromagnetic wave spectra.

I've picked up this show. I like it first and foremost because of the actor David Strathairn who just brings an incredible feeling and depth to a character right out of the box. He is the anchor that allows the other actors to work. There have been other "superpower" shows but this one is interesting because the powers here are fairly discrete and not overwhelming. There also is the recognition of how these differences make the individuals have significant difficulties in coping and fitting in. The part I am not sure I like is the fact that there are so many alphas who are bad guys. I would have liked the show to work up to that. I would have expected that most people with these abilities would be more likely to cut themselves off because of their self-perceived freakishness. I do like the Gary character and feel that he (and his mother) are being played consistently. I like the way that the others are annoyed by Gary but tolerate him to different degrees.

Do they have reruns of the show? I've missed some of the episodes, and I can't find any reruns.

Actually, it's HFA.

I saw the show the other night for the first time while at work, as I perform services for the developmentally disabled and work in a graveyard shift in a house where the TV is the only thing that never sleeps. I felt a bit embarrassed and upset the whole time the show was on, as I have little say in the channel selection while working Monday nights and was forced to endure it in the course of performing my allotted tasks. I'm pleased that people are being made aware of the condition through various media outlets, but am growing tired of the nearly homogeneous representation of persons with aspergers as those seemingly incapable of learning common idioms, figures of speech, the concept of metaphors. I have admittedly horrible social skills, but I'm not so thick as to hear something so absurd or irrelevant when taken literally that I don't crunch the phrase like a word "calculator" (since that's what aspies are good at, right?) until it makes sense. The character seems very sheltered and naive, even for an average aspie.

Again, since it's already been mentioned... Gary is HFA, not necessarily Aspergers. He's lower on the spectrum than Aspies, though still cognitive enough to function normally to a degree.

Nevermind. There's one tonight!

I know Optimum On Demand is offering the 5 or so most recent episodes. My family and I all love the show, so whenever we are all home in the evenings, we eat dinner together and then all sit down in the living room and watch Alphas.

Last night I was channel surfing and came across Alphas, and watched the second half of the episode. (It was Episode 6, "Bill and Gary's Excellent Adventure," according to Wikipedia.) It seems to be a pretty good show, which means a lot coming from me, since I hate almost every show that's recommended to me. (24? House? Lost? CSI? Law & Order? Mad Men? Crap, every one of them.) Breaking Bad is more impressive, but I mostly liked what I saw.

Gary is more obviously autistic than me, but a lot of what I saw hit home with me. Obviously I can't see and manipulate radio signals, but the way that he fidgets his hands when doing this is very similar to what I'm always doing, and it made me think, "Jesus, this is what I must look like to others." I can also relate to the constant barrage of sounds around me that others can't hear. He never makes eye contact, he doesn't seem to be aware of what volume of his voice is appropriate, he cringes when someone touches his shoulder, his honesty got him in trouble at one point, and he gets upset when Black Goatee Guy (I don't know their names, but I'm guessing this was Bill) promises to let him drive but then doesn't let him. (Can't NTs ever say what they mean?) So, no complaints with the portrayal.

Now if only I could manage to care enough about a TV show to actually follow it for more than two episodes. This is why I like movies better.

He did mean what he said, and let him drive at the end of the episode. He said that earlier as motivation for Gary to find the girl.