Can we drop the D?

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Ha, you were lucky ... I was given the label "shy," and left to rot in whatever corner I chose.

I have a personal motto that I generally use as a signature on emails, forums and such like. It goes like this... "Whatever you think that I'm thinking... you're wrong."

To quote you, "Please just stop" telling people what they think, you have no idea.

No matter what it's called, how you think about it affects your decisions and actions.
To me, it doesn't matter what it's called.
As long as I think about it in my mind in a way that works for me, I am happy with that.

Well, if we lived closer, androbot01,

I'd invite you out for coffee ... or tea, which I prefer, actually.

I did say genius is subjective. I am not going by tests I am going by multiple organizations saying he is. I disagree that genius should only be measured by contributions. I do think a person can be a genius but if in the wrong place or circumstances contribute little

The subject is Earth people. Not folks like you who obviously grew up on Planet Neptune.


If you (a) grew up on Planet Earth, and (b) are over a certain age and grew up before the ASD spectrum was officially recognized, and (c) and were on the ASD spectrum, then you would never have been labeled "gifted". You would have been labeled "sick", "wierd", "neurotic", or "ret*d" (or some combo of the above).

So when the modern era arrived :modern labels like "aspergers", and "ASD" (even with the 'D") would all have been HUGE improvements and huge steps UP. And you wouldnt care about the D word either.

I realize that that is hard for a Neptunian creature like yourself to comprehend. But thats how it was for us folks growing up on Planet Earth.

One side of the discussion itemizes, breaks everything down, into finite pieces. You are observant, have a firm grasp of reality, remember and never forget it. Structure and form. These are like nouns. Proper names, descriptors, persons, and places. Trivia.

The other side of the discussion is pure association. Continual movement. Busy for the sake of busy. It is the verb.

In my way of thinking, AS people think in nouns. NT people think in verbs. Neither of these forms a complete sentence. NT's have a different set of shortcomings.

You're speaking as a male.
You don't speak for me.
And no, Neptune's not even close.

Well, that would be lovely.

That's cool. We can disagree.

It's an interesting question; reminds me of "if a tree falls in the forest..."

I can not speak for others but I do not believe that society is persecuting Autistics. I do believe if you are a very small minority for whatever reason be it skin color, impairments and so on you are at a considerable disadvantage and life is often going to suck. Most people will ignore you, misunderstand you, and think what you do is wrong and usually a combination of the 3. With Autism this reality is compounded by the fact that differences/impairments are in the realm of social presentation most valued by most people. I do believe many elements of Autism are disadvantges not defects but it varies with each individual.

The question is how to approach this bad, complicated and frustration situation.
We can be like the Aspie Supremicists, think of ourselves as having similarities to Einstein. Do that and we will be laughed at and ignored and give people reason to find defects to disprove our "superiority" and at the same time give reason for people to descriminate against us because not only are "we" defective but since we claim superiority we deserve scorn not accomodations.

We can say we are born broken and are defined by our defects. That means all efforts must be made to cure autism and until that time fix as much as possible. This is a continuation of the mainstream narrative and the attempted solutions society has been trying for the last 70 years. Finding a cure has been a b***h because Autism with its hundreds genes combined with envirmental factors, combined with wide variation in presentation has made curing Autism very very complicated. Fixing us or making as NT as possible had led to mixed results and caused issues such as burnout, PTSD, and depression. You recommended facing reality to the point of suicide ideation if need be. Suicide is the leading cause of early death amoung autistics without intellectual impairments and the suicide rate among diagnosed adult aspies is not only way higher then the general population but significantly higher then with other people with disabilities. This is why the idea of that there is this massive Neurodiversity belief is BS. I only wrote the first paragraph because the belief of massive amount of ND autistics in denail is so widespread and perception effects reality. Nobody is cured or fixed or improved if they are dead, the last thing we need is more suicide ideation or continuing the current course of bieng defined as a set of impairments.

The other course is complicated and can go against the Autistic black and white thinking inherent in the first two approaches. It is to what I said for Autism the difficulties are as much about if not more about disadvantage the disability/impairment again fully reconizing this is going to vary greatly amoung individuals. People if they do not feel horrible about themselves have a better chance of treatments working for them. But society has to have a better understanding also in order to provide better treatmeants and to get the benifits of whatever talents there are. There are many who believe that this will never happen and this is understable because of the reasons given above. History says otherwise. This is no guarantee, society may never change, and it is likely the change will not be as dramatic as has happened for LBGQT. But a slight chanch and a slight change is better then no chanch and no change.

If the anti neurodiversity backlash based on the largely false beliefs ND is based on elitism, supremism, and denial continues to grow the likehood of us continuing on the failed path of the last 70+ years will grow with it.

There are people who would oppose a cure if it were to come out tomorrow, I would allow people to choose if they wanted to, allow children the choice as well. Neurodiversity may not be slowing down progress but the less moderate wings are certainly preventing it from speeding up. True compassion for autistic people can only come if people acknowledge we don't have it as good as them, and that it's not just because they don't accommodate us. Alzheimers and cancer are also tough to crack with numerous enviromental factors and hundreds of genes too, but that won't stop people from rallying behind putting in research into treating them someday. People with autism on this forum keep having children, they could adopt but they don't. Alzheimers is a great threat in the coming decades as people live longer, should we stop trying to put in research despite little progress being made so far, (same with cancer)? A compassionate rational medical view of autism is better than creating division among us with any identity ideology.

I would support a truly voluntary cure. I just do not think if a cure is found it will be truly voluntary. With the autism "epidemic" panic it would not surprise me if the cure, like vaccines is mandated but what I would expect is significant peer and finiancial not legal pressure for individuals take the cure and parents to give thier kids the cure such as insurence companies either not writing policies, or tripling the rates for people who refuse, employers not hiring people who refuse. People will look at the refusal to take a cure not as a rational choice but as a sign of mental illness or charactor flaw. Supports and treatments will dry up as the attitude will be why spend money on treatments for a disease that has been cured, why should we help people who do not want it?. Compassion will radically decrease in a post cure world.

Cancer is cured in a significant number of people, but also treatments that help significantly with the symptoms are available even in terminal cases. In any case we do not say to cancer patients your treatment is a much lower priority then curing it someday as is the case with autism. For visual impairments most of effort has been on treatments (glasses). Hearing impairments are an interesting case in that similar to autism there is a group of people who do refuse treatments. There does not seem to be a backlash against them. They are not accused of bieng in denial etc. Implant wearers for the most part do not seem to believe the people who refuse treatments are hurting them by deligitimizing thier difficulties. For most other conditions there doesn't not seem to be accusations of elitism and supremacism against advocates many of whom presumably have more "mild" versions of the condition. This is probably because the other conditions are mostly physical and visible. With mental conditions there is still the stigmas of weakness and moral failure which is why I do not think an Autism cure will be truly voluntary.

It is false that ND advocates do not want research. They have a different view then the mainstream about research priorities.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 19 Sep 2016, 7:39 am, edited 5 times in total.

Then again: if one is "cured" of autism, what does the person "pick up," instead?

Maybe some other psychological condition?

Because, to me, "curing" autism totally is akin to somebody getting a lobotomy.

I believe, more, in the mitigation or amelioration of troublesome symptoms.

A full-blown "cure," I believe could have consequence which can't be anticipated.

No, older folks who don't need accommodation that dislike the medical diagnosis should understand that there are people that do need real assistance more than they need their self esteem reassured to feel apart of 'the club of Autism'. If you don't need accommodation and don't have any impairment then I question your self-identification, be happy you are so mild.

You cannot cure a disorder.

A "disorder" by literal definition is something that falls outside the perceptive boundaries of an experienced sense of normality.

Go back 500-odd years & being a scientist was a disorder.
Go back 200-odd years & having black skin was a disorder.
Go back 100-odd years & being a woman was a disorder.
Go back 50-odd years & being a homosexual was a disorder.

Thus disorder will always exist within the minds of those who choose to deem what is different to them a disorder.