'Cured Aspie'

One of my relatives described herself earlier as a "cured Aspie". After making a joke about 'cured Aspie' sounding like 'cured bacon', I said that I don't believe that Asperger's can be cured. It can be overcome, certainly, by learning to adapt to the social world, but it's still there. This relative then said that of course she didn't believe that people with Asperger's could be cured, they just overcome. And anyway, she claimed, she was normal. I hope that this isn't confusing to just me!

A bit later, she said, "You probably didn't have depression. It was probably just Asperger's." While the two often go hand-in-hand - here's a short blog post about it that I found earlier - I would never say that one contains the other. I know plenty of depressed people who aren't Aspie, and depression isn't a defining factor of Asperger's. Furthermore, a lot of the depression that I've experienced over the last year or so has been linked to certain events and thoughts about them, rather than being related to my social difficulties. Plus I didn't like being told that I probably "didn't have depression": it felt as though this relative was trying to ascertain my feelings for me, rather than allowing me to have and know them for myself. Story short: yes, I was depressed. Yes, while I'm often content now, I accept that it's still there and will probably pop up again when something upsets me. And no, while Asperger's and depression can be linked, they are not interchangeable.

Lately I've been having more depression-spells and Aspie-moments, I hope that these soon become less frequent.