Aspies For Freedom

I think the only time I ever put that in words was when it was tagged on the bottom of an e-mail I sent her or many years ago when I actually did them on the end of a written letter, somehow I can do it when it is in writing.

Very well put.

I feel very fortunate to have my Aspie son and his (somewhat hyper and obsessive) little sister.  They are bright and creative children who invented all sorts of games to play with each other when they were younger, who have very interesting conversations, and who are thoughtful, responsible, and caring human beings.  Yeah, when they were younger, they wrecked the couch by jumping on it, broke a few things around the house, wandered off sometimes, et cetera.  So what?  Parents shouldn't expect kids to behave like miniature adults at all times.

GreenTroll, you and Autism Speaks are not speaking for me with your despicable propaganda about anguished and miserable parents.  And while we're on the subject of misery and empathy, how would you feel if your parents treated you as a defective monster, invited a camera crew to the family home for a sobbing interview about what an enormous burden your existence was to the other family members, and talked in front of you about driving off a bridge with you in the car?  Don't you think that would make you just a teensy bit agitated?  Or are you too lacking in empathy to comprehend that?

Some autistic activists in the United States were so upset by the abusive treatment of the children in that video, they contacted Child Protective Services and asked for an investigation.

That's certainly not what I'd call being self-absorbed...

That's the usual attitude of those who hold prejudiced views toward a minority group; the bigot totally fails to examine his or her assumptions and takes everything as "confirmation" of those prejudiced assumptions in one way or another.   :roll:

I'm a mother that has Aspergers and ADHD myself, I have a 5 yr old son with Autism and a 3 yr old son that is potentially AS and may have a diagnosis within the next year or two. Sorry but I'm appalled at that video honestly. It solely represents the 'misery' of the parents that instead of trying to understand their child seek to cure that child and make that child of ashamed of their whole being and may confuse a child by some of these biomedical interventions, diets and therapies that are not always proven. I don't look for pity or express my misery over my challenges or the challenges my children face, my sons will learn of acceptance for being unique and different and that everyone has challenges in life, on the autism spectrum or off and the sooner people accept that, the better the world will be and that it is our duty to inform the world about the autism spectrum and dispel the myths that all too many sources of media and all portray. You won't find a single NT parent that will recognize my problems and all in parenting moreso I'll be looked down on as I don't feel I need a cure and neither does my oldest son and potentially my youngest.

:shock: "Terrible burdens and difficulties"!? I'm diagnosed as autistic (originally high functioning autism, then Asperger's Syndrome) and find that it DOES NOT impose terrible burdens and difficulties on either myself or those around me, In fact I lead a full and prosperous life that anyone my age could, albeit I do things a little different from others.  Tell me, where on earth do you get your ideas from?

I mentioned I live out a full and prosperous life, I'm perfectly independant, have a job, and will even be able to drive a car in the near future, and lots of people I know are saying that they are happy for me.  Explain to me where the terrible burdons are

Difficulties, everyone has them, some people are better at some things than others, doesn't make it terrible though, autistics are better at some things than NTs are and vice-versa, doesn't make it terrible in any way, shape, or form

Very good DM Andy  :grin:

GreenLion can you please watch this short video and it might give you some insight into how some of us feel:

http://www.autisticculture.com/autisticvideo/cure.wmv

It certainly makes a difference to us.

If you are not a parent of an autistic child, if you are not on the spectrum, and have no interest in autism, then we would wonder why you are here.
Do you have a connection to autism in any sense?

Are you connected to Autism Speaks in any sense?

It's very simple, easy to answer, and makes a big difference to us.

Greenlion said "No one is attacking or blaming you for the burdens your condition imposes on society, and on you as well. You should be the most fierce proponents ever for a cure for autism. Your insistence on taking efforts to cure it as an attack on you worthy of feeling insulted or angry are deeply baffling.

In a sense, autism attacked and changed every "aspie" on this board, inflicting lifelong limitations, problems, and burdens. If you're feeling sad or frustrated, autism itself should be the target. Not people who see what you and your families have had to go through and vowed "not for anyone else."

It's almost like Stockholm Syndrome or Battered Wife Syndrome; identifying with someone / something that has victimized and harmed you. Sorry, I hate amateur pop psychology. But those are the analogies that popped into my head."

This really is solid proof of the absolute lack of empathy from some NTs towards others.
To others reading this, this is the type of harmful attitude that is given by some people in real life, to our faces.
Directly telling us that we are a burden, and directly after watching a video that tries to explain how disturbing it is to be called that!!!

Who can possibly understand the mentality of these people?
It seems that this person does support, and is involved with Autism Speaks in some way, this person is proving all the negative stereotypes of NTs, and curebies, and of Autism Speaks.

It is very alarming.

This same person who thinks we must have ANOTHER condition to autism in order to not want a cure, is the type of person who will support a forced cure on people who appear 'mentally ill' and can't see what is best for them.

SOJAW said "If I understand correctly, most people on the autism spectrum would love to have a cure for their sensory sensitivities, most would like to be able to read facial expressions and body language as well as NT do, and most would welcome a pill that would instantly teach language and communication skills to children that are having trouble learning to speak. If I understand correctly, however, many of the people on this board see these problems as co-morbid conditions, rather than central aspects of autism.


Well you don't understand my perspective at least, it is way off. I can't say specifically for others.
If I changed my sensory sensitivities, it would affect how I perceive everything.
Your fingertips are sensitive, would you want them to become coarse so that you couldn't feel things the same way? They would feel pain less, but you would not enjoy touching things.
I can read facial expressions of my husband and son who are on the spectrum. I cannot read them/have great trouble with NTs.
I can detect autistic facial expressions where NTs can't. I never want to lose that, just because we are in a minority.
I assume that you do not think that NTs need a cure to be able to read autistic faces and body language.


Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe that most aspies and other autistics see their autism as being a more central and fundamental part of who they are. I think that most would still see themselves as autistic even if they suddenly gained skills in reading facial expressions and body language, suddenly lost all of their sensory sensitivities, and suddenly gained the skills necessary to more consistently interact successfully with other people.

No. If you took a pill and lost the ability to multitask, and could have superfocus for one thing at a time, and could no longer read NT expressions, but could for autistics, and lost interest in looking at faces of strangers, instead preffering to look at patterns in the floor tiles, would you feel like the same person?

From our perspective, curing what they are calling co-morbids would almost amount to a cure for autism. From their perspective, they would simply be autistics that would have lost some annoying limitations that go along with autism.

My life and behaviour is not an annoying limitation.
Co-morbids are co-morbids, they are additional conditions, the things you are talking about are central to autism, such as differences in reading body language.
Your gross distortion of the cure issue is worrying, you do not have any fundamental understanding of how autistics feel about it, from what I can see.

The gulf between understanding between NTs and autistics is very obvious on this thread and it is depressing indeeed.
If people are coming here to post that are NTs, and have not even got a basic grasp of what we are talking about, simple things that could be read on the front of the page and in the aims, it makes me wonder if we have any chance of increasing awareness away from the site.

Greenlion, does that mean that you have no connection to autism? You are not a parent with an autistic child, or relative, and are not on the spectrum yourself?

Did you just come here randomly and wanted to post?

Greenlion, you are now refusing to state whether you have any connection to autism, if you have no connection nor experience of autism, I have to seriously ponder whether you are simply trolling to cause a disturbance to others.
Please respond honestly as to whether you have any experience of autism, if you only knowledge of autism has been derived through viewing the autism speaks website and video, then we are utterly wasting our time here.
If you are just repeating what you have seen there, and you clearly seem to not want new input or ideas from us, then its a 'John Best' type situation.
Do not post again without answering the simple question of your connection to autism, it is not fair to other people here to keep ignoring it.

If we marry as soon as possible and concieve immediately, our first child would be born when she is 35, the "magic age" at which risk factors for conditions such as autism begin to rise dramatically. She is also overweight, another substantial risk factor.

Your fears are based on the possibility that your own child might be autistic, and so you want a cure just in case???

The chances of having an autistic child does not increase with age, you are thinking of Down's Syndrome, and some other conditions, not autism. And being overweight, that has zero to do with a baby having autism.
You have astonished me with these comments!!!!

It seems like you have a small amount of knowledge, and are applying it erroneously.

I cannot believe your nerve to tell us we are burdens on society, and you want a cure, as a back up plan if your girlfriend marries you, if you have a child, and if that child is autistic.

Greenlion! You own link proved you wrong! Did you even read it yourself??

"Buried amid the soothing noises designed to placate people who personalize everything, the following cold hard fact emerged from the CDC: http://www.webmd.com/content/Article/88/...genumber=2"

As a group, autistic children's mothers gave birth at an older age. And autistic children tended to be firstborns.

None of these problems caused autism, Glasson is quick to point out.

That is the top paragraph from the link YOU posted as proof that ageing mothers are at greater risk of having an autistic child.

As for huffing and puffing, I have not insulted you, your nasty sideways digs at my posts can be construed as a personal attack.
Complain about facts if I get something wrong (which in fact I didn't) and you did.

You are creating your own personal scare tactics that are influencing your judgement.

Hi SOJAW, no I wasn't annoyed.
I don't post when I'm annoyed because we don't allow lots of swear words. :wink:

You said "You wrote:

Quote:
People unfamilair with Aspies for Freedom often ask if we are against the treating of comorbids as part of the aims. As far as I personally see it, treating comorbid conditions is relevant to helping individuals, as long as they are not forced that treatment, or the treatment is abusive.

The huge difference between someone choosing to take a medication to help their depression, or having speech therapy to enable them to communicate to the best of their ability, and having an actual cure for autism is that autism is at the core of the person, most often genetically so, and present from birth.


I interpreted this to mean that you consider language and communication problems to be "comorbid" conditions, and that you support speech therapy. I would say that speech therapy is an attempt to "cure" language delays and other communication problems.

I wrote that thread to try and clarify feelings on therapy and comorbids, therapy for certain aspects of autism, and for comorbids. Speech and language differences are part of the main issues with autism, and are not comorbid conditions.

Speech therapy does not cure autism, it doesn't alter the person, it helps them to develop their speech and language. it is non-invasive and not abusive.

Regarding sensory sensitivities: In this case, I was referring to the fact that many autistics find certain sounds, sights, etc, to be very upsetting. Just speaking for myself, if I found certain common sounds to be very upsetting to me, and a treatment were available that would have no effects other than eliminating the discomfort I experienced in the presence of those sounds, I would welcome it. On the other hand, if ridding myself of my sensitivity to those sounds meant radically changing the person that I am, then I would not want it. Is that how you feel about it?

To put the question in a slightly different way: Suppose you have an autistic child:

1. If your child is having great difficulty learning to speak and communicate, would you give him good language skills if you could?


From a pill? No. From a well respected long standing and regulated therapy that works with the child over long term, yes.

2. If your child has so many food sensitivities that it is difficult to give him a healthy diet (because he will only eat a small number of foods), would you change some of those sensitivities if you could?


This question is too broad to answer, and I would need to know the specifics of the sensitivity. As in phobia, or allergies?

3. If your child found the sound of an automobile (or some other common sound if this is not a good example) to be so upsetting that he screams and cries when he hears one, would you want to do something so that he would not find these sounds to be upsetting?

Earplugs.

4. If your teenage son was depressed because he felt socially isolated, and you had the opportunity to teach him social skills that would enable him to make friends and get along with others well enough to be successful at a job, would you do it?


That is a false question to me, anyone could try that right now, but it does not work in my experience. I think its better to help a child be confident and make friends with other aspies, at the moment most of the opportunities for this are online. Then the child would not need to act differently, could be themselves and under less pressure.

To put it another way, what I am trying to learn in this thread is this: What traits, exactly, do you consider to be comorbid conditions that should be treated, and what do you consider to be things that you wouldn't change because you consider them to be core aspects of who you are?

I don't think any traits are comorbid. Do you know what comorbid means?
Traits has a specific meaning, and so does comorbid.


I am also curious about how you feel about "forcing" therapy (speech therapy for example) on young children. All parents force their children to learn things that they may not care about. We do it because we realize that young children (NT or autistic) do not yet know enough about the world to make wise choices for themselves. So, do you agree with the practice of forcing a three year old to go to speech therapy? Is that, in principle, any different from forcing children to go to school?

A reputable speech therapist would not force therapy, and I have never heard of that happening, or it being practiced abusively.
Do all parents force children to learn things that they may not care about?
It never happened to me.

I don't know where you have seen a child having speech therapy by force, do you mean locked in the room and screaming to get out?

But to potential parents freaked out about what the future may hold, I can only suggest you let it go. You can't control or predict the future. And I wouldn't want to even if I could.

So true.