The narrator's mom seems to have schizophrenic episodes and could also have a bipolar disorder. She would never be the best person to be consulted on whether to be healed or not. Obviously she should be healed. Specially with such a deus ex machina option of alien healing. I'm surprised the aliens wouldn't be already performing this kind of healing without asking anybody's consent.,
Have you ever read Elizabeth Moon's
The Speed of Dark? Me, neither. But, I worked in a bookstore for a while, and it was my job to know all about as many books as possible, including books I've never read.
The Speed of Dark is about a man with autism in an age when autism can be cured, dealing with an interesting question: if my brain is where my disorder lives but also where
I live, and you change my brain, are you also changing me? What is the difference between the disappearance of me and death? Why should I consent to die in order to give birth to a version of me who is more convenient for
you (it's worth noting that the protagonist of
The Speed of Dark is relatively happy in his life, although he understands it to be limited in some ways).
That, in a nutshell, is the difference between neurological conditions and physical conditions. Me without a leg is just that - me without a leg. I'm still me, shaped by the experience of losing and living without a leg, true, but still essentially me. Me with an addition or subtraction performed upon the way I think... that's a pretty terrifying possibility.
The fact is that not everyone
wants to be neurotypical. There are artists and athletes with ADHD who enjoy the energy and hyperfocus of their condition, there are schizophrenics whose hallucinations and delusions are generally pleasant and give them a sense of power and purpose, and there are people with mood disorders who thrive in the ups and downs. It's one thing to describe a certain state as "normal" or common, but it's another thing altogether to attach a value judgement to it. Who are you to say that some ways of thinking are better than others? You can argue for your point of view, certainly, but ultimately that's all that it is - your point of view. Not sacred writ.
I'm not suggesting that anything is wrong with offering neurological "normalcy" to those who want it, but I'd fight tooth and claw for the right of people to make their own choices about their brains.
