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 10 years ago

Technophobe23 said:
I'm still wondering what the hell this was all about. Guess I'll never know now.
What do you see when you look at this thread?
a) a puzzle
b) persecution of disabled people
c) wilful attacks on defenseless parents and their disabled children
d) an emerging and interesting socratic debate where people have been challenged with more understanding and knowledge from the parties involved.
e) A conspiracy
What do you think when someone mentions "curing autism"?
a) Eugenics
b) enforced medical intervention with quack medicine
c) harmless biomedical interventions like avoiding particular types of food
d) treating people humanely to enable them to lead fulfilling happy lives
e) The erasure of the thing that defines your personality
Do you see your autism as
a) A debilitating ruination of your life
b) An irritating handicap that stops you fulfilling your potential
c) The thing that makes you a quirky interesting person
What do you think of the moderators of the site
a) A living embodiment of the SS
b) A bunch of guys doing their best despite lack of training and an incomplete understanding of autism.
What do you think of the other contributors on the thread
a) A set of interesting people with different experiences and attitudes
b) A bunch of children who are throwing their toys out of the pram
c) A set of people who systematically struggle to communicate and make themselves understood by the others on the thread.
d) a set of people who struggle to find the grey compromise solutions to questions when everything seems clearly black or white to them.
There are no right answers! This thread and others on the forum have challenged me to think more carefully about what autism means to me. It has nudged me into reading Neurotribes. It strikes me that it is like looking in the mirror, I recognise my own traits in each of the other posters. We are all the same but all different, making sense of this is far from trivial. For me it has been an unexpected, and at times unwelcome, journey.
I really hope that CC and Longman and the others do not leave. I hope that nobody has suffered too much trauma and I apologise for anything that I have said that has offended or distressed. I'm here to learn and it is inevitable that my half understood knowledge and very personal experience of autism is not the same as everyone elses.

Reply

Former Member over 10 years ago

Technophobe23 said:
I'm still wondering what the hell this was all about. Guess I'll never know now.
What do you see when you look at this thread?
a) a puzzle
b) persecution of disabled people
c) wilful attacks on defenseless parents and their disabled children
d) an emerging and interesting socratic debate where people have been challenged with more understanding and knowledge from the parties involved.
e) A conspiracy
What do you think when someone mentions "curing autism"?
a) Eugenics
b) enforced medical intervention with quack medicine
c) harmless biomedical interventions like avoiding particular types of food
d) treating people humanely to enable them to lead fulfilling happy lives
e) The erasure of the thing that defines your personality
Do you see your autism as
a) A debilitating ruination of your life
b) An irritating handicap that stops you fulfilling your potential
c) The thing that makes you a quirky interesting person
What do you think of the moderators of the site
a) A living embodiment of the SS
b) A bunch of guys doing their best despite lack of training and an incomplete understanding of autism.
What do you think of the other contributors on the thread
a) A set of interesting people with different experiences and attitudes
b) A bunch of children who are throwing their toys out of the pram
c) A set of people who systematically struggle to communicate and make themselves understood by the others on the thread.
d) a set of people who struggle to find the grey compromise solutions to questions when everything seems clearly black or white to them.
There are no right answers! This thread and others on the forum have challenged me to think more carefully about what autism means to me. It has nudged me into reading Neurotribes. It strikes me that it is like looking in the mirror, I recognise my own traits in each of the other posters. We are all the same but all different, making sense of this is far from trivial. For me it has been an unexpected, and at times unwelcome, journey.
I really hope that CC and Longman and the others do not leave. I hope that nobody has suffered too much trauma and I apologise for anything that I have said that has offended or distressed. I'm here to learn and it is inevitable that my half understood knowledge and very personal experience of autism is not the same as everyone elses.

Children

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