If a cure was proposed, would you try it?

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^^^ I agree re the anxiety, Carlos. Anxiety is the dominant emotion in autism. Considering that being autistic means we are referenced to people settings, routines, objects and that any change to these in our lives sees a rise in our anxiety levels exponentially regardless of whether we are child or adult, anxiety will always be something we need to keep an eye on. Anxiety I believe without question, is present from birth in those of us born autistic.

Would I want a cure? In my case, a definte no. The one thing I wish I could change, is how vulnerable we seem to be to being taken advantage of and harmed.

I didn't have anxiety then I had it. Aged twenty five. Before that, the only 'anxiety' I felt was when I had to contend with a physical threat.

Being HFA makes me more introverted. Being more introverted makes me read more books. Reading more books gives me more knowledge.

Being HFA gives me good attention to detail.

All the intelligent - studious, good attention to detail, don't engage in bullying/gossip, well read - people I've known have either been HFA or have been nerdy types prone to social gaffes and unusual 'obsessions' who grew up before autism was widely given as a diagnosis to people with IQs above 100. I wonder if that's a coincidence or not?

I'm lucky enough that my autistic brain is something I'm happy with. Not in spite of. Because of.

This is why I think asperger's and LFA are completely different things. I've never heard an LFA person express gratitude/happiness that they're LFA. But anecdotally I've heard it lots from aspies.

Bear in mind, I'm only just on the spectrum though. Only slightly aspie. I was diagnosed but when I go onto psych tests online it says 'you might be autistic and you might not be'.

I was told a list of positive traits autistic people have as well as negative traits. And if I take my positive traits and negative traits away, replacing them with their opposites, I'd be left with someone I liked less than I like myself.

Someone who tbh couldn't cope with lockdown. So many NTs on social media moaning about 'when will I see my mates again and go to the pub' - not for me, I'm happy doing my hobbies.

I like my personality including the parts of it which I've read described as autistic. I like myself. It's sad other people don't like the way their own brain is structured, because this is a big part of what makes them them.

Unfortunately I'm not allowed to express on this autism support site what I think of a lot of NT type brains.

I don't know what psychological treatment for autism would entail, but if it had the potential to eliminate my social deficits, I'd try it.

I don't really have an issue with anxiety, psychological treatment just isn't going to be enough to improve my self-esteem, I'm not sensitive to criticism and I don’t lead a particularly stressful life.

As for gene therapy to cure autism, I'd only consider it now if it only cured part of my autism (specifically the social deficits, awkwardness, inferior spatial awareness, etc). I wouldn't take a blanket cure for autism because it would likely make me a completely different person, and I think it would be hard to adapt to that.

In saying that, I would take the whole cure if I could somehow go back in time and give it to my younger self, but it's too late to take it as I am now.

Just be aware that if you are counting anxiety in the 'would cure autism', you are fudging the data.

LGBT people have high rates of mental illness too. Being closeted doesn't help them. Being pathologised and/or masking doesn't help HFA people.

NT society just needs to learn to tolerate differences and is very bad at it because the NT mind is prone even more than the aspie mind towards tribalism. And heck, look at the tribalism we have on PPR.

In my opinion, the cure found for HFA will be the last cure ever found for anything. Good luck to a token NT 'scientist' who wishes to cure the coronavirus with gossip rather than logic.

Well its good that you`ve made the best of it and like the way your brain works, although as you`ve acknowledged you are only partially autistic so can make use of both worlds with only manageable social anxiety to contend with. Others unfortunately are not so lucky.

Personally, I’m not convinced in the cure would completely change me view.

Most of my issues in theory apart from anxiety, OCD & stimms are an “output issue” especially communication and working memory and a few other small things like facial recall.

This is possibly the case with others on this site, who are intelligent & have little difficulty in expressing their thoughts on a keyboard but like me would find it very difficult to verbally express them even in an empty room.

I don’t believe curing these would turn me into a new born baby again as I would still have other parts of my central brain untouched left, like family, interests’ hobbies, moral behaviour & belief structure + past memories that wouldn’t be changed. Of course, there is the feedback loop from this output that would then change from negative experience to positive allowing my brain to become more efficient less stressed and to get on with what’s left of my life so that negative to positive would be in theory be the biggest change to my central brain.

To use an analogy replacing a very bad monitor with a good 4k one doesn’t change what`s on my hard drive but the better output may influence me to use my computer differently & add different things to that hard drive.

You`ll find not all NT`s are bullying, loudmouth, gossiping potential love island show contestants and “being a nerd” is not being autistic. I have met many NT nerds & intellectuals some of whom have extremely pedantic interests that otherwise lead a normal independent life. Bill Gates & Elon Musk are great examples of this, people who have what looks like autistic traits but are far too functional to be diagnosed with it. Maybe that’s what they mean when they say “'It seems that for success in science or art a dash of autism is essential.

Having said all this I believe autistic people should strike a balance between falling into a kind of dangerous self-hatred that some curebies end up with and the rejection of science & reality facts of autism by blaming NTs for all our problems, we don’t need to adapt ourselves, we need to get NTs to serve us by creating a perfect world of “accommodations” so we can live in peace. That will never happen.

As with anything a healthy middle ground is best.

There is only ONE sure fire cure for anything: death.

I used to think anxiety was part of autism and I assume others probably do as well so what I meant was would people want to cure anxiety or do people think it's part of being autistic. I agree a cure that only affected anxiety wouldn't cure anyone of autism.

The Neuronal Migration problem in the womb leads to Autism which in turn has its symptoms that some people have & some not.

Bit like COVID 19 list of symptoms attached. Most people with COVID have a fever like most people with autism have anxiety, some people with COVID have a headache, some people with autism have no speech. Same principal autism is a container of things brain related where the core symptoms are present.

You can have these symptoms like Anxiety on their own as disorders where autism is not present, just like you can have a headache by not drinking enough water, but if your positive for COVID 19 the headache is probably part of the virus. If you have autism your anxiety is probably part of the autism.

Its possibly unlikely you would be able to cure anxiety without curing or treating the fallout from the original brain malformation that causes the autism, unless superficially through anti anxiety drugs.

Its likely Bumetanide will be licenced to treat core autism symptoms in the next 2-3 years, its going through stage 3 trials at the moment, it seems to have a positive effect on reducing core autism symptoms (in some people).

The brain is very complex and not everything is black & white and brain disorders cant be divided by thick steel walls, the future is treating autistic people is in groups where something may work on some but not others, AKA personalised medicine tied to genetics that may take another 25 years to come through in general for all health care.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12692308/ ... mmon-cold/

curing stress would be useful

Your description of depression is similar to what I experienced. I tried a variety of methods without success and thought I'd always be depressed. I eventually found something that worked for me and am no longer depressed. You can read about it here - viewtopic.php?t=390750

What you're describing sounds like classical conditioning. I think that's what happened to me. Fortunately, it's treatable. Some might even say curable. The anxiety is due to conditioned responses and the treatment can result in them become extinct (meaning they no longer occur). I was able to get rid of my stress, anxiety, sensitivity to criticism, and improve my self-esteem by following what researchers found works best to treat classical conditioning. I started a new thread to explain what I did here - viewtopic.php?t=390750

Since there was enough interest, I decided to propose a cure for stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, depression, and sensitivity to criticism. I discovered it on my own and it basically eliminated those problems for me although I found out later that there's a name and treatment for it that's been known for awhile. It's just never been studied to treat emotional issues in autistic people as far as I know (it's mostly used to treat phobias, social anxiety, and PTSD) but it worked for me. I started a new thread to explain what helped me - viewtopic.php?t=390750

I voted all of them and none because, I dont' think it'd want them to be permanent becuse teh few times they've tried to treat my anxiety It'd had adverse side effects and I dispise the feeing it gives me. It feels like i'm just void of emotions. and It's different from being emotionally blunt it's just like emotional static almost. AS for autism Only way i'd take it is if it was just for like one day. CAuse it'd be interesting as for stress definitely would be opne to that. I think the only one I'd take no questions asked would be if there was one that could cure burnout.As for self-esteem ti seems ike i both have a high self-esteem and a low self-esteem at the same time. cause I'm like a perfectinoist with low self-esteem but it comes of ass narcissm or it can really go either way. i' not to sure. but Imean a cure for my perfectionsim would be adouble edge sword cause while it's incredibly unhealthy to the point of being self-harming in some ways it also allows me to do incredible things. and I don't know if I'd want to give that up. sensitivity to criticsm I don't how to answer this part f me is liek what sensitivity to criticism I have no sensitivity to criticism but i feel liek that is a sensitivity to criticsm but another part of me recognizes that I often put alot effort into things and when i'm trying so hard to do something and people are just like no you aer doing it worng ti can be very upsetting. And I feel like the only way for that to go away si for me to get rid fo said perfectinoist streak and would liekly not be advantagous if it might be somewhat beneficial.
TL;DR THe only one i'd consider permately taking would be the redue stress one.

Thanks. I will look.

It depends on your definition of "cure". Would I want to change my inability to pick up on social cues and eliminate my social anxiety, ameliorate my awful executive functioning skills and make me into a fully functional young adult? Of course I would.

I have to say, the idea of changing all aspects of my "autism" isn't desirable given how synonymous my "autism" is with, well, me. But if "curing" means erasing my flaws, yes, I'd like to be "cured". In fact-- heck-- let's just make a bunch of cures for all personality flaws. I'm sure plenty of NTs would like to be "cured" of their flaws too, whatever they may be.

Some autistic people notice they have a harder time reading social cues when their stress level is higher and studies show it's because of how stress affects brain function. Some autistic people have been able to get rid of their stress and anxiety by addressing what causes it. That's what I did and I can read social cues much better and hardly have many problems socializing anymore.



I understand. Autism affects your personality and change can be scary. Some personality flaws can be "cured" although researchers usually don't study it unless they consider someone's personality to be disordered. The biggest obstacle is that many people don't want to change.