Do You Believe Autism Can Be 'Cured'?

I keep coming across parents dangling bunches of herbs in front of parents saying "This is the cure to autism!" 

Every time I hear parents promoting the lie that they can cure autism I feel so hated and unwanted by this world, it is autism that makes me who I am, if it were not for my Dad's unconditional love giving me a sense of belonging I would probably be dead by now. 

It hurts and depresses me so much that parents so willfully hate their child's identity and think it needs to be 'cured'. It's disgraceful they so carelessly fall for lies and love to promote them, especially as it can increase the liklihood of suicide. 

Parents
  • I don't believe so as there's nothing to cure. Rather than looking for cures people should focus on more support for autism and more knowledge and rights on it.

    Autism makes me who I am I don't want that changed.

  • Well said Fleur, I’m just getting used to being the 1 in 100 and I’m finally starting to like me. We aren’t broken, I’ve most probably said this before, as children we weren’t the ugly duckling, it turns out that we are actually swans. The rest of the pond will always just be ducks!

  • I'm pretty sure there are many different neurotypes it's just that autism is a collection of certain traits and there's a name for it to be labelled with. I'm pretty sure most of the population have at least one trait or another. Or something which deviates from the norm. What is normal anyway? Do we cure everyone? Homosexuality was a disorder to be cured and look how far we have come with that.  There will be a shift eventually but it'll take time.

  • Yes I often think autistic people (and I'm speaking from my own exoerience) are less likely to be bound by social conventions - authenticity has always been very important to me and its something I struggle with when I don't see it in others. (Eg someone likes something because it's a trend and not because they have a true affinity with it...this isn't authentic) But then there's the double bind of masking where we are not being authentic to oursrlves and yes it causes a heck of a lot of anxiety. I don't think masking is pretending in the social sense but a built in and often unconscious mechanism to get by.

Reply
  • Yes I often think autistic people (and I'm speaking from my own exoerience) are less likely to be bound by social conventions - authenticity has always been very important to me and its something I struggle with when I don't see it in others. (Eg someone likes something because it's a trend and not because they have a true affinity with it...this isn't authentic) But then there's the double bind of masking where we are not being authentic to oursrlves and yes it causes a heck of a lot of anxiety. I don't think masking is pretending in the social sense but a built in and often unconscious mechanism to get by.

Children
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