Aspergers is good

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I'm tired of NTs claiming that aspergers is a bad thing. Whilst waiting at the doctors I picked up a medical magazine and began to read it. My attention was drawn to some foolish scientists article on aspergers. He claimed that it was a "problematic" disability and his team was advancing in efforts to cure/prevent it.

I just don't understand this guy. Myself, I am happy that I have aspergers; it makes me who I am and if I didn't have it then I wouldn't be me. I'm sure I'm not alone in this though, am I right?

They don't understand us. I am thankful for aspergers, its what makes me the person I am. Without it I'd be a normal person unable to understand the disgusting society we live in. I may not understand social situations and have a number of severe social inadequacies. But I am better for being the person I am, I've always wanted to live in a world of peace and harmony. Only through my condition have I realized the lack of tolerance and litany of excessive violence in the world we live in. Most people have no idea what a mess our society really is.


I feel like aspergers is a perfect example of the thin line between insanity and genius. I believe that many people that supposedly are insane are that way because they collapsed under the weight of their own genius. Someday I hope to be part of my own nation. I want to take the people, everyone who wants to go regardless of reason whether they have aspergers or otherwise to a land of true peace. A land that cannot be reached by just anyone, its a dream and far off. Probably will never happen, maybe if I make a lot of money I can further isolate myself from society.

There have always been people who were different; there always will be. Stories like "The Ugly Duckling" and "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" come to mind.

I have a number of friends/acquaintances with AS, and a number of friends/acquaintances who are NT. Two of the ones with Aspergers have a tendency to violence as a way of expressing emotion and have extreme political views (with which I disagree). Another of the ones with Aspergers likes anything military/violent in the way of entertainment/computer games/books/board games. Other AS friends are peaceful. Some of my NT friends are antiviolence and very peaceful, others are every bit as keen on violence as entertainment. It's not a statistical sample big enough to mean much, but I'd be struggling to say that those with Aspergers are more peaceful than NTs (as a group, on the whole).

Aspergers has been useful for me in many ways, and a pain in the proverbial in many other ways. I will always have an imperfect understanding of other people, but I can concentrate and analyse far better than most people. The knack is finding a niche in life where we can minimise the problems and maximise the usefulness of what we do well.

The trouble is that society perhaps ends up judging us on those people who end up causing problems for society/having mental health issues because of the way society often doesn't help them and pushes them past the point they can cope.

Such people are far more likely to get diagnosed, I suspect, and therefore the docs/society will end up thinking that most people with Aspergers must be deranged/dangerous/not able to function.

I suspect that most people with Aspergers aren't ever diagnosed and people just think they're loners, or just different. I would expect that the majority of those with Aspergers who are now adults are totally unaware that they even have it, but use their skills to be experts in various fields.

It's interesting - I went to a conference where they were talking about Aspergers at a University, and a good number of the professors at the University came up to ask whether they might have Aspergers afterwards and were agreeing with most of the list of diagnostic criteria. It's not a diagnosis, but it makes you wonder how many of our top specialists are AS in some way. I'm not saying that everyone with AS will end up as a top specialist - that's not what happens in life, but I suspect the proportion of top specialists who do have AS will turn out to be pretty high.

In the papers the other day it said that those who have made the most money tend to be those who study a subject for 15 years or more. This form of long study/interest is what we often do, so if we can work out how to use it for a living, it may not be a bad thing.

Summary - AS can be an advantage for some of us, but it doesn't necessarily make us any more or less peaceful than NTs?

First of all,

Aspergers is apparantly some disturbance in development. or a genetic anomaly. That certainly isn't a bad thing, that is how things IMPROVE. The one thing either has in common though is a greater chance of other problems, or comorbids. Too many see those problems, and call THAT aspergers! HECK, I bet the average person that thinks that doesn't even know how to spell the word, or where it came from.

Having said that, NONE of us can truly know what PURE aspergers is like, or even if there truly is such a thing. What I CAN tell you is that if everyone was like I was, it would have been a utopia. Smart, nice(even if not always showing it in the NT way), altruistic, peaceful. TODAY, I am not ANY of those to the extreme I was.

Did Featherways know his friends when they were younger? Probably not. The attributes I had that were best for a society, like extreme passive avoidance, and altruism, are there to SOME degree, but not in the superhuman way they once were. I was literally altruistic to my detriment. A lot of people merely say that, but I mean it. And one way in which I paid for it was being less altruistic. I felt almost like pandoras box had been opened, and even HOPE was gone!

Anyway, I like aspergers. I wish I knew about it 40 years ago. My life would be VERY different. I kept trying to change every little thing. Who knows, with aging and the tweaks here and there I might have seemed normal by 80. How would that help anyone?

From now on, I am going to try to be more like I was. I was happier then. I was better then. As for the people tring to cure aspergers? They have about as much luck as those trying to cure AIDS. When I heard that they planned to cure AIDS in 5 years I considered them all IDIOTS! I thought "You think you can cure it in 5 years? GOOD LUCK! What about HSV? HPV? They have tried to cure THOSE for 50 YEARS or more, with NO success"

Well, NOW they CLAIM to FINALLY(as of a couple years ago) have a vaccine against HPV, but there is SOMETHING they aren't telling us. They are only giving it to SOME females. If it was really any good, they would be giving it to EVERYONE. And with a saturation of almost 100%, they better do it QUICK, before the entire human race gets it! LUCKILY, I don't have it, but I am male, so I won't get the shot anyway.

ALSO, they spend money on Breast Cancer, Lung Cancer, etc.... WHY? It is ALL cancer! They ALL start out the SAME way! They ALL grow the same way! They should simply try to cure the cancer.

NOW, with autism they figure they should cure "autism". Why don't they just try to cure mental retardation?

Steve

My own personal opinion of this is that autism and Asperger's Syndrome is something that Mr 'I-am-normal-and-must-keep-up-with-the-latest-trends-and-be-a-clone-like-everyone-else' Average (and lets face it, there's lots of them) cannot handle as we go totally against the grain of a conformist society. So what will these millions of Mr Average's want to do? Get rid of the 'problem'. I too don't view having Asperger's as a problem. My Auntie thinks that we think on a totally different level (in a good way of course), a higher level and that we are the way we are because we know how to use that level of thought or intelligence to a degree that 'normal' people can't, so she feels we need people with AS in society as we are likely to achieve great things and make a difference with a greater impact than normal people. She used Einstein and Bill Gates as examples. I really like my Auntie

Fiz,

Your aunt sounds nice! And WELL SAID! Well, I bit the bullet. I told my step mother I have AS. She'll probably end up telling my father. OK, so I'm chicken! You haven't met my father!

And at least SOME nice things are coming out about AS! And the REALLY nice thing is that ***THEY*** are written by people that AREN'T asking for money, and that have AS!

Who knows, maybe I'll write one. The others are young, so they will see little immediate effect, and may see a BIG benefit downstream. I am constantly getting new jobs(I'm a consultant, and I don't come cheap at that), and perception is everything. 8-( Once they see that I act normal, and can really help them big time, they are happy to ask for me back. That FIRST time can be a chore to get though.

I COULD talk about how AS helped me, and all the questions asked throughout my life that AS answers. The teenagers talk about benefits in school subjects. I can talk about benefits some only imagine. The sad part is that I thought some of the stuff I did was minimum wage stuff. After all, it is TOO easy! THEN, I met a lot of people that have MASTERS in this stuff , from GREAT universitys, that just can't do it! And NOW I find that, in theory, any aspie could do it. Oh well, I lived through the whole thing, with interests in computers and electronics, so I STILL have an edge!

I guess it is ALMOST like some of you guys that probably do math better than a calculator, and wonder why anyone would ever buy the silly thing, especially since the only standard functions are so simple.

Steve

ok fiz..i vote ur auntie as overlord of the earth

she sounds damn cool!

Not good, just different. We're just different. No better and no worse than anyone else. Sorry if that wees on your parade somewhat, but that's how I see it. Most (I say most because there are many people who can't function) men and women on this planet have their own unique qualities - they are themselves and no-one else.

You ARE right, TO A DEGREE! The average potential in several areas is BETTER in the most useful areas for the average ASPIE. Over all it may be identical, ASPIES just have a better chance to actually use it. Nobody is reaching their full potential anyway.

Anyway, to deny that is to deny all the useful benefits. You have to deny all the special skills, the higher general IQ, etc... That is silly and self deprecating to the extreme. I'm all for self deprecation, but even I won't go THAT far.

ALSO, if you want to deny that, you might as well deny any social benefit NTs have. After all, that is one area where THEY have more potential.

You ALSO have to take away interests, etc... because those ALSO help to use that potential!

So what are we to say that AS is? You wipe out everything that is common, and accept only the quirky and/or bad.

Frankly, I agree, AS IS good. Over all, the common traits are BENEFITS!

As for NTs being unique among themselves, etc? YEP! Like blacks may be able to tolerate the heat and sun better. Nobody is disputing that any person of any culture could be better than another of any other culture. We are only talking averages.

Steve

I agree basically with what everyone else has said. Some very good points have been brought up. I personally like the AS because it made me have a high IQ and I value intelligence over anything. It also allows me to see things for what they really are with no pretenses.

However, there is a very BIG problem with more and more Aspergers and Autistic people being born. The problem is there is an awful lot of these people who refuse to try to work. Add that to the increase in people with chronic illnesses and you have a huge amount of people expecting SSI, welfare & disability checks with a fewer number of people paying income tax to foot the bill. I really don't know how the next generation is going to survive.

Aspergers is also a problem for the parents as some of the kids are terrible unruly. Plus they have to look forward to supporting these AS kids for life. A lot of them are very expensive to begin with because of their extreme allergies and require special foods and supplements.

"He claimed that it was a "problematic" disability and his team was advancing in efforts to cure/prevent it. "

That quote quite frankly disgusts me, and reeks of eugenics.

I've suspected I've been an aspie after learning about it a few months back. I'm still awaiting on an appointment for confirmation, in the meantime the emotional turmoil and understanding of it, for yourself and the people around you, to me lets you know just what makes yourself and maybe others relate to you. The (what I feel is almost certain) case that I'm AS feel to me more of a relief than a burden, and I wouldn't want to change it.

No person or even breed is perfect. End of.

No wonder some people on the autistic spectrum feel paranoid and that people are out to get them when perfectly 'normal' people spew forth great turds like that.



Very true. As I say, we're all different.

What's your avatar of? Is it supposed to be somewhere in Northern Ireland?

Last edited by Tequila on 27 Dec 2006, 4:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You bring up some good points, but that isn't REALLY because of AS. Also, others have done the same. For the record, I have been working for almost 27 years SOLID! The little bit of unemployment I got wouldn't even pay a portion of one year of the property tax I pay.

Steve

It is indeed, its in the Sperrin Mountains area. The location, until recently, had no mains electricity, water was from a local spring and the nearest neighbour was 2 miles away! No one however lived in that house for the last 15 years and it was demolished earlier this year.