Aspies For Freedom

Not sure what you specifically are for or against.

Ofcourse there are many in each side of a debate who don't understand the viewpoint of others' whether or not they are in the same camp of the debate.

I guess some people who are very inspired by AFF's viewpoints go around on "crusades" without really knowing what they're arguing against - I was once caught in thinking that all ABA was like the one we see in Judge Rotenberg Center with skin-shock devices. Things like that may give you a bad impression, but it also gives a bad impression when people like Cure Autism Now demonizes a condition that many more than just those aggressively seeking a cure have.

All anti-cure are high functioning?

Yeah and all curebie parents are wealthy snobs who think they can "fix" everything.
</sarcasm>

That's the trouble with science... the more we learn, the more we realise we don't know.  It's amazing how incredibly complex something as tiny as a strand of NS is.

I just realised my uncle and I probably prove, well, something, to do with environment v's genetics:

I am 100% certain my uncle had Aspergers, considerably more severely than I do.  There's no AS up other parts of the family tree, so I'm sure whatever I have, it's from genes I share with him.  He had enormous trouble socially, his self-care skills were minimal at best, he had special interests and persevation in spades.  He was a mechanical genius.  If you imagine a machine, from a potato harvester to something to take the skin off peaches, he could build it, out of old baling wire and tractor parts and bits of wood.  He could stare at a light bulb flicking his fingers across his field of vision for hours on end - only many years after he died did I realise it was probably a stim, not just the random actions of an old drunk.  He had a very dodgy Epilepsy diagnosis that the doctors admitted didn't fit, but it was all they could think of.

Now, here's the rub.  He was never vaccinated for anything.  He was brought up on organic, home grown food living out in the bush.  Lots of exercise.  Mostly home-schooled, with dances and the like to socialise with the neighbours.  Never had red cordial or any processed rubbish, very little dairy foods, and what bread they ate was all rough wholemeal stuff.  

You would THINK that those kind of conditions would result in someone pretty healthy, right?

So how come his AS was much more severe than mine?  (I can 'pass for normal', my uncle never really did.) Is it really just because he was male and I'm female?  Or how many other factors were there, that we just don't know?

How many diagnosed autistics are there who have not gone through any kind of bullying or abuse anyway?

I often wonder how those not bullied or abused are different.

Yes... while it's amazing what the will to succeed will do, it isn't fair to say to someone with autism "well you COULD (make friends/stop stimming/find a partner/whatever) if you really wanted to".  There's a limit to how far just wanting will take you.

I once really, really wanted to be able to run my finger along the metal hand rail across the back of school bus seats, and have it turn into a big poisonous snake that would bite the people teasing me.  I visualised it so clearly I can see the metal melting into scales to this day.  But that wasn't going to happen just coz I wanted it to.

Yeah, willpower don't last.

At least that's my experience with homework.

Odd that the blog is dated at March 20, 2006.  Who is this person posting up this?  The original author?  

Please check links and dates!!!!!!!!

Oh, so the recent readings couldn't have been...

I learned exactly where excessive willpower (which I've had most of my life) gets me:  It gets me to crash and burn, really hard, and then get treated like crap and/or laughed at by people who expect me to continue doing whatever it was that made me crash and burn in the first place.

Also my experience - except this....

...it enabled me to live when if I hadn't of had it I would have died.

I can see where that could happen.  I know people that's happened to.

In my case, my willpower didn't allow me to avoid hunger or dehydration (I would not have survived forever the way things were going).  It just meant that I'd hit the (invisible) wall I kept hitting whenever I tried to function enough to do various things, and I'd hit it harder than usual.  It kind of turned into a feedback loop where the harder I tried the worse I could function, but if I went easier on myself that didn't make me function either.  (Where "function" in this sense -- not a universal sense by any means -- is only tied to eating, drinking, using the bathroom, and keeping the apartment above minimum standards of livability.)

Even with some assistance after awhile, it got really, really bad.  

Basically, after a point, and especially when I'm not getting proper nutrients or anything, I can no longer perceive anything, including my body, in ways that allow for extensive (or, sometimes, any) purposeful movement, let alone complex intentional activities.  Nor can I at that point form enough of the right kind of conscious thought to even conceive of what the necessary activities are, let alone do them.  At that point, even if raw willpower is preserved, it's got nothing to work with, and even if exercised, will throw me in the wrong direction entirely.  And the effort itself will decrease my ability to perceive, move, and understand the right things to do what I'm supposed to be doing.  That's the feedback loop right there.

It's sort of like you are told to drive somewhere that is only a block in front of you, and you have to do it by car and only by car, and the steering does not work so there is no way to turn sideways, and the only gear you have is reverse.  No matter how much engine power you have, you'll either ram into something or fall off a cliff or into a body of water or something, or run out of gas, but you won't get to where you're going.  Even if where you're going is not all that far away by anyone else's standards.

So, for me, willpower has definitely done amazing things at times, but it's certainly got limits and isn't infallible.  I guess it did save me in one very different situation, which was during bouts of severe depression.  I have always had a will to live that thwarts nearly all suicide attempts no matter how determined I get.  (And, just so anyone's not confused by this, the description I gave a couple paragraphs above, isn't severe depression, it's severe overload combined with severe neglect.  I've done severe depression, it's extremely different than that situation.)

I there's a big difference between motivation and willpower. Somehow reading a piece of homework is alot more effort for me than reading five times more of Autism Hub blogs.

I think there's a big difference...

Anti-cute, hilarious typo.