To: K-list
Recieved: 2002/04/11 15:04
Subject: Re: [K-list] Digest Number 954
From: Magdalene Meretrix
On 2002/04/11 15:04, Magdalene Meretrix posted thus to the K-list:
At 05:15 PM 4/11/02, Joseph Miller wrote:
>I may have mentioned this in the long ago past but I don't buy the
>medical/psychological communities' take on ADD.
I tend to be out-of-mainstream when it comes to my opinions about AS as
well, so I can relate to that. Many of us with AS consider it to be a great
advantage and we feel that those who, with good intentions, seek a cure are
seeking to eradicate us for without our AS brains, we are not NT people --
we are nothing. As one person with AS put it, "I think it is impossible to
be happy when you hate a part of yourself... and AS is a part of us. It's
not like a rind on a watermelon, with the nice, sweet stuff in the middle,
if only you can cut away the hard, bitter shell. It is more than what we
have; it is a big part of who we are. It's like we are a different species
from the NTs. You can't strip away the elephant and come away with an
armadillo, and you can't strip away the AS and come up with an NT. If you
transformed that elephant into an armadillo somehow, the elephant would be
lost. Let me be even more blunt. An aspie that wants to be cured is, in
fact, suicidal. To remove the aspie is to kill that person. I hate to see
my kind wish to destroy themselves rather than accept AS for the gift that
it is."
There are even some who feel that AS is a step forward in evolution. I
wouldn't be surprised to learn that many people with AD/HD feel the same.
>If 10% is normal
>and 20% is not normal someone's math is totally screwed.
Strictly speaking, 10% is not normal. It can be natural, however. Those who
speak of 10% of the population as being normal are allowing imprecision to
creep into their use of language. "Normal" means "representing the norm."
The norm is a statistical model. 10%, 20%, 30% cannot be the norm. Those
smaller percentages can be perfectly natural and healthy and whole,
however. Never forget that C is a normal grade, 100 is a normal I.Q. and
being crippled or infirm at age seventy is normal. There is nothing wrong
or embarassing about being normal but neither is it something to aspire to
or brag about. It simply means that one falls in with a certain statistical
demographic.
I used terms like "blast" and "damage" because they're easier ways to
explain what's going on in the brain. I agree, they are loaded terms.
Still, it can't be denied that the majority of brains are formed
differently from the brains of those with AD/HD, AS, HFA, etc. When trying
to function in a world built by neurotypicals, it's easy to feel inferior,
but I don't view the Spectrum class of neurological differences as inferior
any more than I view a left-handed person trying to function in a
right-handed world as inferior.
There are many who feel that this "damage" is evolutionarily advantageous.
I fall in a middle ground since many of my AS characteristics force me to
work twice as hard to survive in a neurotypical world. AS would be more
advantageous if we all had it instead of a minority of us.
I apologize that my choice of word-model was offensive to you. That was not
my intent.
Love,
Magdalene
--
http://www.magdalenemeretrix.com
"Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something."
-- Henry David Thoreau
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