no cure? Why not?

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am classically autistic,and do not want a cure [on self] either,many people automatically assume those with c/k autism would want cures but always ask the aspies opinion.
am on the mf/lf end and require 24 hr res. support,but am have grown up this way,have improved along the way and don't know any different,am would not want to change the very core of am with a cure,am do not want to change like that.
Am would like something to help at least weaken and/or help with the worst traits,which would not be a cure,but more management of autism to a copeable level.

Am think there should eventually be choice for people,but only if they were able to tell the child was going to be profoundly disabled by it,and therapy and support wouldn't add much improvement,and only if autism specialists,neutral people etc were involved in giving say as well as parents.
For those born,and able enough to say if they would want a cure,there should be an option there,it is their choice afterall.


Am can't actually see how a cure would work for anyone but people who were still babies inside belly though,how would it work on an already established autistic? am can only see better management of traits being more likely,but then am know nothing about science beyond how to spell the word.

Reasons for the rejection of the idea of a cure.

(1) There is, and has never been, a treatment that significantly impacts our core symptoms of autism/Aspergers. (I consider this kind of treatment to be a "major treatment"; and for other treatments that do not impact the core symptoms of autism/Aspergers in a significant way, I'd consider them either "not treatments" or "anecdotal treatments" or "minimal treatments"

(Many with autism and many neurotypicals tend to focus on the issue of a cure for autism, and express differing views about this, though it would seem that one important step before this issue has relevance, and importance, is the issue of a major treatment, and, there has never been a major treatment).

Due to the lack of a major treatment, there has been no basis for many with autism and many neurotypicals to say anything (whether positive or negative) about the issue of a treatment or cure for autism. That is, in the absence of any major treatments, many find themselves left with the alternative to reject the idea of a major treatment and cure, and reject any efforts directed toward developing a major treatment or cure. The rejection is psychological. The idea of a major treatment and cure is rejected because there has never been any.

Many persons who have been imprisoned for most of their lives, such as 30-50 years, gradually become dependent on the prison walls, and have no need or interest in leaving, are frightened to do so, and will reject doing so. At first they hate the walls. Then they get used to them. Then they depend on them.

(2) All people with autism and Aspergers have never experienced anything different than autism and Aspergers, and as such, many find they do not have a sufficient basis to accept the idea of a major treatment or cure, nor efforts made in developing both. If, hypothetically, autism was acquired between 10 and 15 years old, then there would be a basis for all with autism and all neurotypicals to say they would like a treatment or cure that restored their prior level of functioning. In addition, since we have never experienced anything different, many with autism and many neurotypicals will reject the ideas of major treatment and cure as things that are aimed to not treat or cure, but rather, change the very nature of autistic people into something different than what they are. That is, they no nothing different than autism, and as such, will consider any treatment to be a threat to their very persons (identity, personality, self, mind, thought, emotion, beliefs, ideas, dreams, desires, goals, abilities, life style, etc).

(3) Lack of courage, and cowardice. Many autistic persons and many neurotypicals, due to some or all of the factors mentioned above, and likely other factors, have at the core a lack of courage to be open to possibility that a major treatment or cure would be beneficial for many or most with autism. Instead, many with autism and many neurotypicals fear the idea of a major treatment or cure, conceiving of them as things that will change their person hood so dramatically that they will cease to be who they once were. A consideration based on intense psychological cowardice and speculation. And a lack of courage to be open to other possibilities.

(4) Anti-social psychological aggression. Many with autism and many neurotypicals will move beyond the ideological rejection of the possibility of a major treatment or cure, to personally demeaning, threatening, mocking, and libeling people and organizations who are devoted to the possibility of autism treatment and/or cure. This conduct arises from the above discussed considerations, and likely others, and seems to be a further psychological step beyond the more passive ideological rejection.

(5) Depraved indifference. It seems reasonable to consider those who refuse to take part in the possibility of major treatment development as people who are engaging in depraved indifference about their own well being, or the well being of their children, etc. A distant speculation: Hypothetically, if a major treatment was developed, and it was rejected by many parents of autistic children on the various bases mentioned above, it would seem reasonable to consider the parents to be committing the crime of depraved indifference to human life. On the other hand, if hypothetically the major treatment caused, as many speculate out of psychological fear, autistic people to radically change in nature as people, to the extent that their former selves, personalities, identities, etc, were no longer present, then it would seem obvious that this major treatment would be rejected with good basis by medicine and those with autism and neurotypicals.

I'm basing my comments on your own words, zendell. You state hypothoses as fact, even when you have admitted that you don't understand what you've read. You continually bring up correlations (cocaine and autism, allergies and autism) and confuse them with causes. There are tons of these speculations going on and just because someone has found correlations, doesn't make them "evidence".

Introducing environmental causes by default primarily blames the mother. Cocaine use? C'mon! The problem isn't just you, it's more widespread than that. It's a pain to constantly read, "what the mother did" to contribute or cause her kid's autistic traits. Let's see, what have I read as possible "theories" by so-called "researchers"?
alcohol
cocaine
tv
stress during pregnancy
vaccines
use of bismuth in make up, pepto bismol during pregnancy
cellphones
lead in toys

These are some of the more recent so-called theories of possible causes of autism. All blaming the mother as the primary caregiver and vessel that provides the nutrients for a vulnerable fetus.

Don't confuse the genetic correlation with blaming the mother. Anyone knows that genes are the result of a family tree, a collective of DNA that produces combinations. Unless women are cloning themselves without any sperm, genetic causes are never blaming the mother.

Correlations are evidence. That's why researchers look for them. A correlation may not be able to prove that one causes the other, but it certainly suggests it. I bet if it was a genetic correlation, you would state that its evidence.



If a mother is smoking crack while she's pregnant, then she deserves to be blamed. If the mother is responsible, what's wrong with pointing it out? The majority of the time, I don't think the mother is responsible. Also, I wouldn't hold the mother responsible if she unknowingly did something that caused her child to be autistic. Most mothers don't know about an autism-vaccine connection so I wouldn't blame them for that one. I hope you don't think women are so superior that scientists shouldn't dare look into the mother's contribution to autism. It's important to look at and research all possible causes until every cause is found.

Actually, you answered the question of why autistic people didn't want to be cured with, "Because they're high." There was no "maybe" or "only some of them" to it. (If it were made a more conditional statement I wouldn't have objected so much.)

I know what opiates feel like (having taken them for pain at times) and I know that the rest of the time I'm not experiencing anything like them. And I don't want to be cured. So the reason I don't want to be cured is not "because I'm high", since I'm not high on anything. Hence, not wanting to be described in that way. And I don't "think I don't want to be cured," I know I don't want to be cured. (I also know that I have a really low potential for addiction to most things. Anything I've ever tried that lots of people get addicted to the high from, I haven't liked, whether opiates or anything else. And I definitely don't feel high all the time. I think I'm just not wired to enjoy most highly addictive drugs.)

The idea that people just "think" they don't want to be cured, because they're "high" on something, also suggests that people don't actually think it through and come up with real reasons, that it's just some sort of spur-of-the-moment decision. Given that for most people living life as an autistic person is very difficult, I suspect that most of us who don't want a cure have good reasons for it that we've had to think through because the world is constantly telling us otherwise.

And a lot of us do have an underlying sense that there's nothing wrong with how our brains work. To trivialize that into a "high" is insulting. We have the same lack of problem with it, that Mary Duffy describes having with the fact that she was born without arms. She describes how she was pathologized her entire life, and then she says something like, "But through all this I had this sense that my body was how it should be, that it was right for me, as well as being whole, complete, and functional." Many of us also have that same sense about our brains. That sense doesn't come from fiending for some kind of casein-induced opioids or something, any more than it does for someone whose body is shaped differently and doesn't mind it. Many of us have thought this through a lot and fought for our ability to state it very hard, and your explanation of all this (that you can't possibly know about us) was, as stated, flippant and insulting.

Last edited by anbuend on 24 Jan 2008, 3:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I never said mothers were superior, don't put words into my mouth to insult. My point to that list is that they are, for the most part, wild speculations that point to the mother. How many speculations point to fathers?
age
the likelihood that he's also on the spectrum

The fact is that if we were to go with environmental sources as causes of autism, then we ought to also name activities that the father does. No one does. Notice you use an unrelated analogy including mother's behavior, "if the mother smokes crack. . .". Would zendell ever post a link to a "study" that suggests "fathers that drink tonic water with gin. . . "? These speculations originate in a biased manner. As if someone were presupposing where the "blame" would lie and then coming up with possibilities. As wild as they are, you would think that some of them would indicate paternal responsibilty, they don't.

Correlations aren't necessarily evidence. I don't know where you got that idea. A correlation doesn't suggest causation, just a relationship between two events.

anbuend, I should have wrote that opiates apply to most autistics but not all of us. I wrote based on my own experience and assume it applies to other autistic as well. It's a different kind of high as well. If you asked me when I was 10, I would have said I'm happy the way I am because the opiates made me feel that way. It wasn't until I got around more people that I realized what I was missing. I thought I didn't want to be cured, but I thought wrong. I read your links on another post of "lower functioning" autistics who didn't want to be cured and it reminded me of how I used to think. I think the only way to really know would be to treat them first to let them see what it's like being NT and then ask what they prefer. Psychiatrists will treat people against their will because they are thought in medical schools that some people don't know what's best for them and I think some of their patients are thankful they received the forced treatment. I don't think anyone should be forced into treatment but I think it shows that some people don't know what they really want.

One study found:

Pentoxifylline improves blood circulation. Studies have found that (some) autistics have circulation problems and reduced blood flow to the brain that may result in symptoms of autism. I'm willing to bet that the formerly autistic children who were "no longer considered to be autistic" after taking the drug prefer being normal and don't want to stop taking the drug. You really have to experience being NT to really know whether you want to be cured. I also don't see what's wrong with correcting known medical problems. Why should autistics be denied treatment that NTs receive for the same problems simply because it bothers some people that others are made less autistic by the treatment?

KimJ, I never said you thought mothers were superior. I merely wrote that I hope you don't think that way.

I really don't know how to respond so sorry if I write something offensive. I worked in tech support before and heard a story about someone who didn't realize that their computer wouldn't work when the power was out. So I have to ask, Do you realize that only women can have babies? It's impossible for a father to get pregnant and give birth to a child. A mother who smokes crack while pregnant can harm her baby. A father can smoke crack and get drunk as much as he wants while his baby's mom is pregnant and it won't affect the baby. That's why I would never post a study that fathers who smoke crack while pregnant are more likely to have autistic children.

I see that you don't want to have an honest discussion if you're gonna instruct me about who can have babies or not. Give me a break. I can see you have an agenda that prejudices you concerning what constitutes prenatal environment and the biological contribution that fathers provide.

On the other hand, a father who gets drunk a lot at a certain point in his life can permanently affect his sperm so that any future babies will have certain problems, and there's all kinds of other ways sperm can be damaged too, so it's not as ridiculous as you make it out to be.

If the mother is who's carrying the baby, don't you think the mothers actions would contribute more to the health of the baby? I think that's a more logical explanation than accusing researchers of being biased for focusing more on women.

Good mothers care about their babies and want to know what they should avoid so they can have healthy babies so I really don't see why you're opposed to this. The only thing I could think of is either you're a feminist or don't know how babies are made. If you're not either, then what's the problem?

...which is usually a bad move, although a common one. I mean, nobody's totally unique, but it's a good idea to know (or know a lot about) a lot of autistic people before making statements about a lot of us.

When I was 10, I would've likely given anything for a cure, had I known that "autism" was the word for a lot of what I was experiencing.

Except there are millions of examples of diversity without AS.

Seriously guys, if Aspies learned or attempted NT social skills, then they would be accepted. All these comparisons to gays and blacks are really not justified because they as a whole do not have problems with socializing and sensory abnormalities. Being black or gay isn't something that can be diagnosed with symptoms by a doctor, nor is it defined in modern medical dictionaries or characterized by nonstandard brain structure.

I personally do want a cure because I see Asperger's as a disorder with both widespread long-term psychological and emotional effects. I'm not donating money to cure organizations left and right or anything, but I'd be perfectly happy if a cure were found.

I'm also agreeing with what zendell said - you have to know what it's like to be an NT before you decide whether you really want to remain AS or not. I personally lean far to the NT side, and I'd be perfectly fine being a neurotypical completely because most of the people here are in situations I would like to stay out of.

If someone wants a cure then that's fine, but I'd never want one. I like my personality and a cure would most likely mean taking away my personality. So, no I don't need a cure.

If there were a cure, which there is not, I would simply tell people that I honor both neurodiversity and personal freedom. It is none of my business what other people do. I can only say that I would not want to be cured myself.

Judging by all the comments concerning a cure that I've read on this board, I think it's fair to say that most people with Autism/AS (especially AS) don't want a cure. There are better ways for us to be able to fit in with an NT society than to be cured and thus forced to conform to normalcy. Even if any cure that may be developed isn't forced on adults with Autism/AS, I'm concerned that young children who get diagnosed may have it administered regardless of their consent.

No matter how Autism is caused, I am who I am and refuse to have myself changed to fit in with the crowd. Sometimes, I suspect it’s people like zendall that are high and need to be cured .