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To be honest, the first thing that went through my head when I read that press release from her family was that if *my* family regarded my natural brain wiring so negatively as to think it was something that was "ravaging" me, I'd probably become deeply depressed and off myself too!

For those unaware, Asperger's is another way to say "Autistic that speaks" -- a neurological design, NOT something that does damage to our brain or otherwise harms us. It simply means that our wiring causes us to communicate, think, and perceive sensory input differently, in ways that match others of our own kind. It is also a perfect example of how society's refusal to accommodate anything but the norm can make even the most innocuous difference a disability.

I have congenital physical disabilities as well as being Autistic. Just like in other disabilities, being depressed is considered "normal" for Auties -- except in our case, now there is this ridiculous assumption that it's part of our brain!

What is depressing is constantly running into what is basically hate speech about what I am, with awareness that most of society is dead-set on eliminating everyone like me from the planet. It is seeing what is done to the majority of my kind, watching dear friends and my own former mate slowly lose relationships to the psych damage done from years of attempts to make them stop being themselves. The intense bigotry and prejudice they all encountered, living in "the closet" as gays have, always knowing that the "real" them was unacceptable even to their own mothers or fathers -- that is what "ravaged" their minds. That is probably what that poor woman was trying to escape.