Autism "cure"= good thing

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i'm not going to make any judgement on whether a cure is good or not until i fully understand its effects (the cure)

I never said someone was wrong for being autistic.

Yes, you did.

He was saying theres something wrong with the situation, not the person with Autism.

On the disease thing though they recently found a fault in a protein called Shank3 in children with more severe Autism, that may count as disease by the definition.

One point to note here ---- "Drug treatment" and "cure" are two very different things -

Above someone was saying that a cure was needed because in the case of some form of disaster aids (crutches) Could become unavailable -- may I point out that drug treatment is susceptible to the same problems even if it were to work well with reasonable side effects. There are a multitude of problems that could cut a person off from their supply of the drug - thus rendering them back into their disabled state.
And yes, like alternate communication methods - it might be worth doing for low functioning Autistics.

A cure on the other hand would make the condition go away and never come back. - AND that is not going to happen in our life time. As far as I have been able to find - we cannot cure even just one of the single gene flaw condition. So for something like Asperger's or HFA the chance of anything approaching a cure is so far beyond what we are doing now that there is no chance that a "cure" will be possible.

So if you are high functioning or mid functioning - stop waiting for a cure - figure out what you like to do - what makes you happy - figure out a way to do it - and start doing it ----- ie: LIVE!! ! Live for today!

PS - a treatment method (therapy or education) may well help people deal with their problems and still work during disasters - and so are preferable to drug treatments - especially for high functioning individuals!

just because one hopes for a cure doesnt mean they are not working to improve there life

Not sure I'd use the word disease, but even a high-functioning ASD is more debilitating than other "conditions" that are undoubtedly diseases. I tend to think my ASD makes it as hard to date as it would be if I were NT and had Herpes. About as hard to get a job and have normal friends as being deaf ...



I don't think you have any idea what it's like to speak late. Even though I am now high-functioning and have a normal job, etc, I, in a way, feel trapped in my own mind and can't communicate with the outside world. 80% of communication is nonverbal. And I cannot communicate with other people. Is this who I am? No one knows who I am, or what I feel. Although my face has few expressions and I cannot communicate emotions, the rest of the world just has no idea that, behind all this, there is a real human being with real emotions, thoughts, feelings, desires, and fears. If you punch me or insult me, it actually hurts. Most NT's would probably be surprised to know that I'm actually human.

But they can never know because everything is behind an invisible glass wall that is transparent only from the inside . Is this who I am? Are my extreme anxiety and depression caused by ASD also "just who I am"? I certainly hope not.

How is a visual processing difficulty and an impairment in the part of the brain that understands human emotions an identity and not a disorder? Especially since it may be caused by toxins or injuries?

If there were as many Aspie females as males the problem would not be so great. But it turns out there are 9 Aspie males for every Aspir female. Therein lies the problem.

BTW I am not giving up the term Aspie and I do not care what DSM-V says.

ruveyn

How do you know he doesn't enjoy living in his own little world? Something for you all to think about...

I lived in my own world for eight years of my life before I became verbal and communicative, and I was really happy living in my own world. I have often wished to go back, although I am glad that I learned language and communication and social interaction. But I did not feel trapped in a miserable eggsistence in my shell, frustrated about my inability to reach out and touch another (sob sob sob, sarcasm). I felt fine playing with my blocks and rocking back and forth in the middle of the room (not in the corner).

I must confess my ignorance to never hearing about any form of autism that is caused by toxins or injury.
As far as the rest of your statement, I invite you to reread my entire post as I feel I cover that pretty well.

I don't think that the idea of a "cure" as such has been fully thought out. People who have mental illnesses have times when they appear normal, and that 'normal' is the goal in treatment. When people say that they what a bipolar loved one cured, they mean that they wish he or she never had mood fluctuations.

If you say you want to cure autism, for some that means you want to fundamentally change who they are, unless they honestly see times when it's 'there' and times when it isn't.

For others the outlook is more grim-being "trapped in the mind" is a common explanation, but probably inaccurate. If mild autism is a small deviation from the norm, severe autism is probably a large deviation from the norm. Who knows what kind of mind is really trapped in there? Is it more cruel to let it out, only to be judged harshly by a world it's only beginning to understand?

As for my personal take, I've struggled with it philosophically for a while. I'm pretty sure a less autistic version of myself would be more successful in almost every regard, so even if it wasn't "me," so I suppose it'd be my duty to cede my place in the universe to him. But actually given the choice, I'm not sure I'd be able to overcome my sense of self-preservation.

The end of the autistic spectrum where we Aspies live is one where our condition is defined by the very way we think, judge, and interact with this world. It colors our perceptions, its presence is felt in every judgement we make. We know no other way to live because we've always thought this way. This is how we function. Our condition is not the defining part of us, it is what colors our definition of the world. We see through the spectrum of our own minds and react accordingly. To "cure" that is to literally change the fundamental nature of how we view this world, how we interact with it. It would take our spectrum and replace it with something new, something alien to us. How could any of us be the same were such a thing to happen? How could we not, on some level, be destroyed by such an act?

to advocate a cure for autism is to advocate for our removal. We would not be the same afterwards. I think I am good enough. It is too bad for the world if it disagrees.

That is unsubstantiated.

As above.
Rhinox you cannot know these things. No-one has created any treatments for Autism yet, and so we do not know what or how they will affect people. And your assumption that a persons Autism is intrinsically related to their identity and way of thinking - well that is only your opinion.

Because apparently autistic people are not able to actually describe what it's like to be autistic, and what it means to be autistic. Clearly, these things must be interpreted for us by experts and NTs.



I don't think it's really "only Rhinox' opinion" and I would suggest that not being autistic yourself, it's not as if your perspective on what it's like to be autistic (as opposed to what it's like to have an autistic person in your life) is particularly compelling. Why do you think you need to tell autistics that we're wrong about what it's like for us to be autistic? Or that it's only our "opinions" or that it's "unsubstantiated." Why discount what autistics say about ourselves and tell us that these are just opinions?

Um. Yeah. It is also the overwhelming opinion of autistics who speak for themselves on Wrong Planet. As you admit in your profile, you are not autistic, while Rhinox is. To start telling one of us what it is to be one of us, especially in a forum created specifically for autistics, would be kind of like attending a musician's convention not being a musician yourself, and start lecturing them about what it's like to live as a musician.

If you're going to do that, it should not be surprising if you end up on the receiving end of a nasty backlash.