Asperger’s Syndrome – Could the concept of Superpowers be causing more harm than good?

You couldn’t find a super-power in me even if you tried looking for one with a microscope. I am average in most areas, terrible in others and a little above average in a few. Why would people want a super-power anyways? Do we (the asperger/autism community) want to become THEM to such a degree?

Seventh Voice

There’s been a lot of talk about the increasingly popular idea that people with Asperger’s Syndrome possess some kind of superpower.

Indeed, many people seem to genuinely believe it.

Search any website on the topic and you’re sure to find groups of people who freely name their superpower and then describe in minute detail the extraordinary things that whatever their particular superpower of choice may be, enables them to do.

To me, such talk of there being any form of an Asperger type superpower is ultimately harmful as it reflects the misbegotten and much argued against concept that those with Asperger’s Syndrome view themselves as being, in many ways, superior to everyone who does not have Asperger’s.

It wasn’t all that long ago that we were fighting against the claim that all people with Asperger’s Syndrome were arrogant, detached, cold, sub-human, robot type intellectual beings, who were capable of memorizing…

View original post 1,107 more words

4 thoughts on “Asperger’s Syndrome – Could the concept of Superpowers be causing more harm than good?”

Interesting. I wonder if some people with this syndrome want to feel like they have superpowers to balance a feeling that they may be looked down on in other ways?

LikeLike

humanitysdarkerside says:

2015-07-24 at 22:07

Perhaps. But I get the feeling the ones who want us to have these super-powers the most are the parents who have to face the reality of having an “abnormal” child. Most aspergers I have been in contact with are baffled by the idea of super-powers. If one of us happens to be obsessed by super-heroes, the desire to have a super-power would most likely be strong, though.

LikeLike

Reply