Published on 12, July, 2020
I was reading an article on Zerohedge today,a well known "far right conspiracy nutcase site" which was about the rising prevalence of Autism.
We all know that many people claim that vaccines (or mercury used as an adjuvant in vaccines) cause Autism, (which doesn't work in my case, but what the heck, people claim all sorts of unlikely things to be true nowadays) and that position is made very clearly in the comments sections amongst many others.
Where I agree with the strident people here who ALWAYS pop up to rubbish any ZH link I publish, is that there is a lot of rhetoric, misguided or actually 100% false opinion and information to be read in the comments section, and some of the articles are not much better, indeed.
Where I disagree with those same detractors is that reading them is a useless or even BAD experience. JUST as this forum has ME, Malojian & Juniper from Gallifrey all very different posters with different styles coming from quite clearly diffferent places ALL of us have a "place at the table" (even if it does mean putting up with the likes of me!) and a right to be heard*.
SO that being in mind, I read a lot of them as well as the article..
Sometimes a comment really makes me sit up and think, such as the "Autism can be cured but the cure is being suppressed" comment, not least because the author has put a lot of effort in and has added citations and evidence that can be followed up on... and I did do some of them before I needed to do something else. (It's not just laziness, I am struggliing through interruptions and "new tasks" even during the writing this post, and am now irritated with how long everything takes to get done...
I saw a well dressed person clearly more successful, comfortable, and articulate than me, telling the audience to her you tube video that "yes Autism can be cured". I would rush to believe but for the fact that I've also had a bunch of very similar appearing people telling me that a succession of MRNA injections can make sure I don't catch covid I believe "Safe and Effective" was the psychologcial "baited hook" in that case, so why should I believe her?
BUT nevertheless, the question having been raised in this "fixers" head remains:
COULD Autism be "Curable"??
Not interested in the modern idea of "treatments" which are about as effective as the "servicing" that modern cars get, I'm wondering if it can be CURED like my own suicidal ideation was a few years back.
God! I hope it can NEVER be cured! It's bad enough that society oft tries to pressurise us into masking and behaving like NTs, without them trying to force a cure on me. What if that had been done to me as a kid when I'd no say in the matter?
Anyway, all brain types have their strengths and weaknesses, I wouldn't want the gifts of my autism "cured out of me", even if there are down sides. Anyway, most of those down sides are only downsides because society does not accept difference, not because I was born in any way defective.
Even my sensory differences that cause mayhem in trying to access healthcare wouldn't be as big a deal as they are, if they had been known about by medics treating me as a kid and better respected in those contexts now.
Should we try "curing" non-autistic people of their "deficiency" in being non-autistic? After all, not very logical are they? Waste a lot of time with "small talk" and following fashion, and some of them invest too much importance in social status and hierarchy and other assorted silly prejudices, and poor things not very good at sustaining intense interest in a single hobby, are they?
OK, I'm taking this to silly lengths now and I don't mean to be mean to non-autistic people, but you gather the point, I hope. Both autistic and non-autistic people were created to knock about the human genome for a reason, - both have something to contribute. "Cure" anyone of their given brain type and humanity at large ultimately loses out.
On balance, we have a lot of common ground with the LGBT community who as Lady Gaga sings, we are “born this way” and there is evidence for the existence of a “gay gene”
Dawn said:"Cure" anyone of their given brain type and humanity at large ultimately loses out
Very well said, not just this bit, but all of your post. Thanks for writing this, it was very inspiring!