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Edited on Sat Jan-22-05 07:52 AM by Banazir
For autism in particular (not necessarily all other conditions), the problem with cure is that autism is simply a word for the outward manifestations of a set of very deep and fundamental differences in the way the brain works. Even when some of these differences cause extreme difficulty with certain ways of doing things, they're still outgrowths of that basic brain organization. Autistic people (and a number of other people with different kinds of brains) are not neurotypical people with a piece missing or broken, so curing autism (of any kind) would be more analogous to a brain transplant than to setting a broken leg or curing a disease.
So the reason many autistic people oppose a cure is that regardless of how difficult living with an autistic brain may be at times (and few of us will deny that part), it's our brains and the structure of our brains affects far more of our lives than the criteria for autism cover. Moreover, most efforts to cure us only see those superficial outward manifestations rather than the deeper differences.
Unfortunately, most people read this and decide that self-advocates think that everything about being autistic is wonderful. It's not and we know it's not. But as an illustration, I recently read a book in which an autistic boy showed his mother affection, in a very autistic sort of way, his movements and choice of ways of touching her were all screamingly (and beautifully) autistic. She wrote that for that moment he was not autistic anymore, until he ran off stimming on something. She illustrates that dominant perspective that autism is superficial, and that it doesn't underlie and affect nearly everything we do and think. She simply saw him showing affection and turned off her own awareness of his internal nature for a moment, presumably because autism and affection or happiness didn't mix in her mind. Most autistic people do not have this mental block or this view of autism as superficial, and I think it is the view that it is a superficial thing which can therefore even be cured that drives the hunt for a cure. If people knew how deep it ran, they would know it was impossible.
I agree with everything else you wrote, but I don't think that just because something has a medical name necessarily means it needs a cure. Some things that have been medicalized are deep differences in brain configuration, and the medical definitions are only the most superficial manifestations of that difference. Other things that have been medicalized I see no problem in curing, provided the person wants a cure. I hope that by my other message I have made clear that this is not a message against helping us live in the world in the best way possible, but searching for a cure detracts from that (and many of the things touted as cures are extremely dangerous, physically or emotionally). I hope that explains a little better why many autistic people have a problem with the attitude that we just need our brains transplanted or something.
I do wish people realized how deep any form of autism runs, because I think if they did they would understand this, and I do think their attempts to cure us stem from the myth that there is a 'normal' person hidden behind autism (which in turn stems from the fact that autistic people often don't have glaring outward physical differences although we do have more subtle ones often, so it is tempting to view autism as something relatively superficial behind which there is something else, which of course there isn't). People are also handed a superficial definition of autism by medicine, a definition which is equivalent to defining humanity by describing the consistency and shape of our skin. It's that superficial definition that a lot of us are trying to challenge, but unfortunately our attempts to challenge it are often taken in a superficial way that portrays us as liking who we are because of savant skills or some similar thing (which is not the real reason most of us would prefer to stay this way). Failure to recognize the depth of the difference also often results in superficial teaching methods that teach us to go through the motions, rather than going with the way our brains react and respond to stimuli and building on much more solid ground that way.
In addition to being autistic, by the way, I am physically disabled. That is something where on the cure issue I'm indifferent by this point: If it went away, I'm sure I'd be glad (particularly because it's painful), but it's not high on my priority list in life. Autism is different, and deeper, and I can't imagine wanting to get rid of it because if you somehow rewired my brain to take out the parts that contribute to the medical definition 'autism', there wouldn't be a lot left that was similar to how I am in the first place. If I woke up tomorrow physically non-disabled, I would wake up with more stamina and motor skills and less nerve pain and so forth, but I'd still be me. If I woke up tomorrow non-autistic, I would wake up a completely different person.
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