Do you think aspergers Is a gift or a curse?

Post Reply New Topic

OK, the ONLY gift with my AS is I can easily tell the differences between somebody being nasty and aggravating on purpose, and somebody having social difficulties and not meaning to sometimes slip out inappropriate things. I also can understand and empathise with both NTs and non-NTs. It seems that NTs can only empathise with NTs unless they're proffessionally trained to work with non-NTs or they have a relative or friend in their life who is non-NT and so understands a bit about it.

And the snag is what I said in an earlier post, about the social double-standards, and that NTs seem to get more chances and Aspies only get one chance.

Curse for sure! I feel like NTs expect me to be perfect, if you make a mistake, you're a ret*d. Ah, the wonderful life of being a aspie...

Obviously it has many downfalls, but you must have all seen what you can do when you put your mind to it. I wouldn't trade that for anything.

Its got its ups and downs. Sucks the 'downs' is in one's personal life though. I'd rather have my problems outside that that in.

I would view it as a gift and a curse, but for different reasons than others have stated above.

I have primarily viewed autism as a disorder/disability throughout my childhood. A hindrance, if you will, a fence to climb over, a demon to fight. Because of this, most of my maturing in life, my achievements, have been related to my 'conquering' my autism, getting a grip on the 'quirk' in my brain.

These days, however, I look at autism differently. Still, as I've grown quite intimately familiar with this aspect of myself, I feel as though it is a side of me that is very much under my control. I'm aware of it every passing second of my life. As a 'burden', it has made me stronger. As a 'challenge', it has made me more versatile. I have come out of my childhood far stronger than I was born, and I'm still as autistic as I was then.

I don't see why it should ever necessarily stop anyone from doing anything they want to in life. I've never had it as a problem in that way. I guess everyone is different, though.

Without it I wouldn't have my original ideas (which are very welcomed in an arts/design industry), on the other hand it causes incredible loneliness (not being able to 'click' with people straight away). I don't speak for everyone here but myself. That is my experience

Curse or gift?

A little of both. But really, most people have to deal with that kind of duality in their lives, condition or not. Instinct VS rational thought. It exists in all minds. Something to keep in mind. Inward struggle is universal.

The problem with people like us (I hate to use that kind of tribal vocab, but you get what I mean), is that we are acutely reminded of the aforementioned dilemma every second of our lives. Then, to that we have to add the question: ''Do I want to integrate society? On which subjects must I compromise, and on which must I live according to my nature?''

That is the curse part. While everyone has to decide whether or not they want to live life as primates or human beings, we must decide if we want to associate with whatever most people decide to be. It's one more choice we gotta make. It makes life harder, don't kid yourselves. Being different and the minority is a curse and there is no way around it. We have 3 fundamental choices to make, opposed to the 2 most people have to make. A HUGE deal, imo.

The gift part is being able to easily choose Rationality over Emotion/instinct. Emotions being a thing we, in most cases, have trouble dealing with, we mostly stick with logic. Regardless of what anyone can say about this, logic will always be the most efficient way of obtaining favorable results in life. It is the most attuned to facts, thus reality. It delivers in calculable ways. That's what we have that most people don't. We can answer one of our 3 questions more effortlessly than most. We are further removed from animal instincts, thus better at making decisions that impact the real world in a concrete way.

In the end, we can answer one of life's fundamental questions easily, but we still have one more to answer than normal folks. Seems like a definitive downside to me. However, it's up to the individual to judge if being able to elevate itself above it's animal origins is a fair trade for having more questions to answer about life in general.


I'm not sure if I'm making sense here, but to give you a TL;DR, I think being an Aspie is a definitive con, but I would not trade it for an inability to look inward and go beyond my nature.

I can be a useless POS and not care.

I wish I had that one figured out sooner may be if I wasn't so mental.....