EUREKA

When people talk about curing autism they seem to have the idea that autistic people are basically ‘neurotypical’ people who HAVE autism (they view it as something separate that they’d like to remove to make us ‘normal’). But autism isn’t a separate thing that’s been ‘added on’, or an illness. It’s just the way we are. 

People also often seem to assume that anything negative we experience is because of autism, and anything positive we experience is despite autism. If you’re autistic, everything you experience is basically filtered through your ‘autisticness’, if that makes sense. So if you were to magic away that autisticness, it wouldn’t just remove negative things, and because autism is complex there can be traits that have both positives and negatives (for example, sensory issues: some sensory input might bring massive amounts of joy and feel really amazing, but then some sensory input might cause lots of pain and make you feel ill - sometimes I’ve thought I’d be happier with more normal sensory reactions to things, but ultimately I like the good feelings and I’d rather put up with the bad (and be able to try to find coping mechanisms to deal with the bad) rather than miss out on all the good).

Autism is inherent. You can’t remove it/cure it. So it also seems a waste for people to focus so much on that instead of focusing on our current wellbeing. Also, the knowledge that people do so desperately want to basically get rid of us (as we are) is obviously very unpleasant!

The idea that there should be a cure suggests that there is something wrong with us, and makes it very clear just how strongly a lot of non-autistic people feel about that. So even if there was a cure and we would (genuinely) have a choice as to whether we received it or not, it’s still not really pleasant to be told that you are something that needs curing, that there’s something so wrong with you that there should be a cure for it whether you want one or not. A lot of our difficulties would be somewhat diminished if we received adequate support (which most of us don’t - probably because all the resources that would go towards providing support are being spent on trying to find cures).

Realistically, if there was a cure, it’s likely that autistic people often wouldn’t get a choice. Parents would choose to cure their children (and that would include dependent adult children). Adults who were able to reject a cure would probably still get a lot of pressure to accept a cure (by family, doctors, possibly even other people like employers or colleagues who all just think that, “Life would be so much easier, why wouldn’t you want to be cured of something as terrible as autism?”) which would either result in people unwillingly ‘consenting’ to a cure, or would just cause lots of autistic people to live pretty miserable lives constantly being told how much better they’d be if they were just… not the way they are… and how much more wanted they’d be if they weren’t autistic… and likely that they’re not deserving of support because they could have ‘fixed themselves’. Thing is, we’re not broken. Having difficulties, even significant ones, doesn’t make us broken versions of real people. We’re real, we’re here already, and we could have really great lives and opportunities if people actually took the time to learn more about us and to embrace our differences.

As touched on above, if there was a cure, those of us who didn’t want to be cured would probably lose access any support we do already have. Why put money/resources into supporting autistic people if there’s a cure that makes that support redundant? Why would anyone (particularly those who thinks autism should be cured) support people who haven’t chosen to cure themselves?

The people who want to cure autism also want to find ways to prevent it, and lots of autistic people fear that if it was possible to screen for autism in the same way that people can screen for other conditions before birth, people would decide to terminate a pregnancy if they’d been told that their child was likely to be autistic. Basically, if you’re autistic, you’re constantly being warned that you don’t really deserve to exist. We are constantly trying to fight against that, trying to explain our experiences to people and trying to convince people that we are worthwhile human beings as we are, but the damage that’s already been done (by companies like Autism Speaks, and people like Andrew Wakefield) is really hard to undo. So I think most of us would expect that, if cures or preventative measures were possible, there would eventually no longer be any autistic people. And the ones who slipped through that ‘net’ would still suffer because the world would be even less inclined to want to support autistic people/there’d be less autistic people around to make them feel less alone.

Even the idea that autistic people can be cured is dangerous. That rhetoric is linked to fear-mongering, and the idea that autism should be hated and eradicated. Lots of children have dangerous ‘treatments’ forced on them, and  are basically abused under the guise of being ‘cured’ or ‘improved’. Lots of autistic people are murdered by their caregivers (and the reports are usually more sympathetic to the caregiver than the murdered autistic person). Lots of people refuse to have their children vaccinated, which also puts those children at risk of serious illness and possible death, and also risks the lives of other children who aren’t yet vaccinated, or can’t be vaccinated for some reason. There are parents giving their children potentially lethal bleach enemas, because risking their life and their health is somehow acceptable just because they’re autistic? 

It’s a massive waste of resources! We’d rather people spent time and money on trying to improve services for autistic people! So much money gets wasted on research into the causes, all with a view to eradicate us. It would make a much bigger difference to autistic people if the money went towards services to support us.

Often, people claim that those who don’t want cures are trying to speak for/over those who have more obvious difficulties, or have specific presentations (for example, being completely non-verbal). They’re making assumptions, though, because there are lots of non-verbal people who communicate in other ways and have made it clear that they wouldn’t ever want to be ‘cured’. I know that some autistic people dislike being autistic and would want to be cured, but no one really asks why. Is that purely because they’re autistic and that makes their life hard/miserable, or is it because of lack of acceptance, lack of support, etc. Considering all the history and negative experiences autistic people have (often not actually because they’re autistic but because of how other people perceive us, or how things are structured to cater to allistic people), that does make me wonder whether with more genuine acceptance and with more effort going into support rather than ‘cures’ the people who do dislike being autistic might actually be much happier. It is hard to see so much negativity surrounding who you are and to not start to feel like you are somehow wrong or a burden. It’s also hard to have difficulties and see information that focuses purely on positive aspects of being autistic (which are often there to fight against the negativity, but can alienate people who are having a hard time). Basically, we either get told how awful our lives are and what a burden we are (which can hurt all of us), or we get told how gifted we are and what amazing contributions we make (which hurts the people who aren’t gifted, and who don’t feel that they contribute towards anything in any way). More recently I think there’s much more balance, and if that can continue we’d all be better off. 

Chad Muska // Feedback