AS people, please can you help me?

I am trying, with great difficulty, to understand something. I could really use your help with this, it's literaly taken me over (you know the one) and I need the thinking of others. Call it an intervention!

Before I begin, please can I ask you to look over the following article?;

nymag.com/.../

I have seen many posts from NT parents about 'treatment' for AS.

The question I have asked myself is, 'if I could go back and be changed into an NT by 'treatment', would I choose it?'

My firm answer is 'No'. I am the sum total of a life spent as an AS person. I can't change my past, so my best option is to use the learning that is 'the sum of who I am' to help others if I can, and especially for the next generation. If any of you think that I can be helpful and supportive, understanding and insightful, fine. If you think the opposite, also fine and I am sorry that I wasn't helpful. I do what everyone does - the best I can.

I'm an egalitarian by instinct. I will state my thoughts and opinions, but they are mine alone. When I read other people's posts, I assume the right to agree or disagree, and simply expect the same fairness back.

Thank you for listening this far, and now I've come to my taxing absorption.

I read this post under the title Stem cell treatment for autism: 'Has anyone undergone stem cell treatment for autism?'

I responded with '

This is my personal opinion. I don't argue my personal opinions, just for them.

How about 'tretament' for being NT? Their capacity for being the most illogical, spiteful, self-destructive creature on this planet leaves me staggered. I pity the poor creatures and their lack of insight, but what can you do? No-one is researching 'treatment' for them, because they collectively agree that their unsanity is 'normal'.

The inmates are running the asylum.

Now, I thought that I was humourously disparaging the idea of 'treating' people just because they are different. It is my belief that most people will be able to see that I have reiterated the concepts of the same thing as the poster, with our roles reversed. Here's your mirror, as it were.

I just discovered that I got moderated for this post . Apparently, I should watch my language. A particular word picked out is asylum because it is derrogatory towards past attitudes to mental health (?).

I am totaly confused. I don't know why 'mental health' is being brought into it. Given the various current uses of the word 'asylum' I don't know how it becomes offensive, even in context, 'the inmates are running the asylum' is a common concept and has been the root idea behind several award winning books, plays and films, yet it appears that some ignoramus doesn't like it. And apparently, I'm supposed to know this and understand it in their particular case. Que?

Please, any insights will do. Sooner or later one of you will say something that will help me get a grip on this. You know the one where the more you try, the more you're shaking your head, you're laughing bleakly, you don't know whether to be angry, offended, confused, puch drunk, weakened, disempowered, desperate to understand, shocked, fed up with mods public messages yet again, privacy invaded, and a whole bunch more, and because you can't choose one, you have them all at once instead. That's where I am right now.

Phew! Bit of a maze. Ariadne, the thread!

Parents

Former Member over 9 years ago

electra said:
Regarding the limits of free speech I once read the following 'your right to swing yoiur fist ends at my nose'.
I take your good point recombinantsocks but would we defend anyone here who wanted to 'cure' gay people and make them straight? The idea of 'curing' autistic people is just as abhorrent to some of us.
I do understand that point of view but I don't agree with it and we have to debate the points carefully and in a civilised manner. Some people, myself included, understand autism as a problem whereby I have a missing sense that informs me about what other people are thinking. This leads to misunderstandings and fights with other people (NT or autistic!). I liken it to being blind or deaf, I am one sense short of the complete set. We appear to be "different" but the difference can be diagnosed with a set of clinical tests and we benefit from, and expect, care from the NHS and other services. Our difference is apparent in our behaviour, we are often indifferent to peoples feelings, are often beligerant in arguments and have problems with rigid and black and white thinking. It seems to me that people react against us because of those behaviours. People who are gay are also different but their sexuality does not make it hard to perform a job or to go about their lives. If their sexuality is evident then people do discriminate but that is based on prejudice rather than on their ability to do particular tasks. I am comfortable with the condition and do not expect a cure but my life has been made significantly more difficult because of it and I think a cure could have benefited me. I expect many blind people can come to terms with their blindness but they would also welcome a cure.
The avoidance of thinking about a cure is as abhorrent to a parent with a disabled child as is the idea of a cure is to you. People may have interpreted CC's post as an attack on those who wish there was a cure and his colourful and grown up language have added fuel to the fire and the moderators have stepped in.
Autistic people here constantly find their opinions and posts subject to change at removal by moderators. This leads to self-censorship - we don't post anything we think wil get removed even though this means we cannot express our opinions and must instead conform to the NAS idea of autistic people - meek, compliant and deserving of support and fundraising by neurotypical people.
I think the NAS should wake up and smell the coffee, we are defining ourselves, are proud of what we are and don't seek to be like neurotypical people. We want a voice here, our voice. And if we can't have that then the NAS can't speak for us or say it represents us.
It seems to me that NAS puts more effort into those with the greatest disability and we, high functioning adults, have less influence. I don't see it as a great conspiracy or a great impediment in my life and I really value the facility to have discussions like this with people who are in the same boat as me. Adults with autism do have a lousy deal with life in general and NAS have evidently not fixed that but I don't wish to be angry about it, I think they are perhaps doing as well as can be expected.
It is evident to me that our black and white thinking and lack of social imagination encourages the tendency of discussions here to become holy wars and conflagrations and this suggests to me that moderation is even more necessary on this forum than other forums where people are linked by common interests and enthusiasms.
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Former Member over 9 years ago

electra said:
Regarding the limits of free speech I once read the following 'your right to swing yoiur fist ends at my nose'.
I take your good point recombinantsocks but would we defend anyone here who wanted to 'cure' gay people and make them straight? The idea of 'curing' autistic people is just as abhorrent to some of us.
I do understand that point of view but I don't agree with it and we have to debate the points carefully and in a civilised manner. Some people, myself included, understand autism as a problem whereby I have a missing sense that informs me about what other people are thinking. This leads to misunderstandings and fights with other people (NT or autistic!). I liken it to being blind or deaf, I am one sense short of the complete set. We appear to be "different" but the difference can be diagnosed with a set of clinical tests and we benefit from, and expect, care from the NHS and other services. Our difference is apparent in our behaviour, we are often indifferent to peoples feelings, are often beligerant in arguments and have problems with rigid and black and white thinking. It seems to me that people react against us because of those behaviours. People who are gay are also different but their sexuality does not make it hard to perform a job or to go about their lives. If their sexuality is evident then people do discriminate but that is based on prejudice rather than on their ability to do particular tasks. I am comfortable with the condition and do not expect a cure but my life has been made significantly more difficult because of it and I think a cure could have benefited me. I expect many blind people can come to terms with their blindness but they would also welcome a cure.
The avoidance of thinking about a cure is as abhorrent to a parent with a disabled child as is the idea of a cure is to you. People may have interpreted CC's post as an attack on those who wish there was a cure and his colourful and grown up language have added fuel to the fire and the moderators have stepped in.
Autistic people here constantly find their opinions and posts subject to change at removal by moderators. This leads to self-censorship - we don't post anything we think wil get removed even though this means we cannot express our opinions and must instead conform to the NAS idea of autistic people - meek, compliant and deserving of support and fundraising by neurotypical people.
I think the NAS should wake up and smell the coffee, we are defining ourselves, are proud of what we are and don't seek to be like neurotypical people. We want a voice here, our voice. And if we can't have that then the NAS can't speak for us or say it represents us.
It seems to me that NAS puts more effort into those with the greatest disability and we, high functioning adults, have less influence. I don't see it as a great conspiracy or a great impediment in my life and I really value the facility to have discussions like this with people who are in the same boat as me. Adults with autism do have a lousy deal with life in general and NAS have evidently not fixed that but I don't wish to be angry about it, I think they are perhaps doing as well as can be expected.
It is evident to me that our black and white thinking and lack of social imagination encourages the tendency of discussions here to become holy wars and conflagrations and this suggests to me that moderation is even more necessary on this forum than other forums where people are linked by common interests and enthusiasms.
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