P.T. Barnum would love CNN tonight, watching them being sucked in by an ex-schizophrenic who became an elf and then decided to become autistic. Or, was she an elf before she became schizophrenic? It doesn't matter. This obese actress is obfuscating the truth about autism, making a mockery of the pain that actual autistic children suffer every day.
I hope everyone who has learned the truth about this fraudulent hog writes to CNN to let them know that she is misrepresenting the horror that autistic children and their families endure.
Here's the link to the CNN blog where they refuse to publish comments showing that Amanda Baggs is a fraud. Sanjay Gupta is thereby showing himself to be a lying sack of dung by promoting the sham of Amanda Baggs while editing out the truth of the matter.
People who watch Amanda Baggs' shoddy attempt at impersonating autism need to let CNN know that they don't like being lied to concerning the horror that is autism.
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40 comments:
You're making fun of her because she's *fat*?! Really, how petty can you get? I'm fat, too--you wanna get on my case now?
BTW, autism and schizophrenia do occur toghther; but may I remind you that Ms. Baggs has been in a sustained total remission for years?
Chaoticidealism,
I don't think there are any schizophrenic autistics. Schizophrenia is just a nice term for "berserk". It might fit in with Asperger's but not autism. Autistics are not "with it" enough to become crazed from difficult experiences.
Start jogging and the pounds will come off. You'll feel better too. I suppose someone who accepts autism would also accept obesity, sloth, gluttony, call it what you want. It's the result of being lazy and eating like a hog. There's really no excuse for it and it shows you have no self-respect.
"It's the result of being lazy and eating like a hog."
What about something like an underactive thyroid, or polycystic ovary syndrome?
Yuh, there are a few people who gain weight because of a condition they can not control. Most obese people are just lazy, eat way too much and never exercise. When they croak from heart attacks in their 20's and 30's, it's their own fault. There are so many fat slobs walking around now, it's hard to walk through the supermarket with all the blubberbutts blocking the aisles.
I'm already actually in the "very active" category--I ride a bike for my primary transportation because I'm unable to drive a car. (That's about ten miles a day--shopping, work... well, for the past two weeks, "looking for work". Stupid economy.)
The pounds don't come off because my body wants to be compensated for output--meaning that when activity increases, appetite increases. Basic science. If I wanted to lose weight, I'd have to literally starve myself (that is, take in less than I put out, causing the symptoms of starvation).
I became fat very simply: By eating approxmiately 50-100 extra calories a day (that's the equivalent of a small apple) ever since puberty. Currently at age 24 I weigh 200 pounds, 80 pounds over the ideal for my height and weight. Divide 3500 calories per extra pound into the number of days in 14 years, and you have the answer--about 57 calories extra per day.
I am not lazy, nor do I eat like a hog. And I don't see how being fat has anything to do with self-respect.
Have you ever met anybody with schizophrenia? If you had, you wouldn't call them 'berserk'. I met several when I was in the hospital, and they are for the most part more "disorganized" or "confused" than anything else.
Generally they have trouble getting their point across when they talk or keep getting distracted; or they aren't quite sure what's real and what's not (and that's pretty hard to tell, anyway, when you're in the middle of hallucinations and delusions). The most coherent people have generally got the paranoid type of schizophrenia; and they are usually scared out of their wits that whatever delusion they're having trouble with is going to get them.
Schizophrenia is highly genetic in origin; it is not the result of trauma. Being "crazed from difficult experiences" would be a better defintition for PTSD, panic attacks, GAD, or possibly depression; but it's not a good way to describe schizophrenia. Twin and adoption studies show that 60% of schizophrenia is genetic (that is, 60% of identical twins, adopted separately, of schizophrenics also have it); it usually has an onset in early adulthood, when the simple pressure of independent daily life for the first time is enough to trigger what has been there all along. Most schizophrenics do not have a history of abuse or other bad experiences.
PTSD in autistic people is fairly common, however, since abuse of autistic people is fairly common.
Be aware that sometimes autistics are *too* "with it"--that is, we notice everything, and the problem is more that we need to sort out what's significant and what's not. Right now I'm aware of the feeling of clothes on my body, the hum of my computer monitor and hard drive and the refrigerator in the kitchen, the slight pain in myshoulder from playing racquetball, the feel of the carpet under my toes, the difference between my forward field of view (through my glasses) and my peripheral view, which is blurry. Those are things that you probably only notice when you pay attention to them; but I have to constantly filter them out. No wonder it's sometimes hard for me to figure out what people are saying, or to pay attention to what I'm 'supposed' to pay attention to!
We do have feelings, you know--and not just those of us who can talk. Not expressing them doesn't mean we don't have them; not reacting doesn't mean we don't notice. It's just that there's so much in the world grabbing for our attention, and we'd get tired in five minutes if we reacted to it all.
PT Barnum would love your blog more than CNN, JB. Amanda never was schizophrenic. That was a wrong diagnosis and she's been paying for it ever since!
She's no fraud. You wish she was because she proves that Autism is not all bad. There's some good in it. That is the truth.
Amanda Supporter,
You're probably right about the schizophrenia. She had been sexually abused by relatives and blown her brain out with magic mushrooms and LSD. Some might call that scizo but screwed up from drugs would probably be more accurate.
I knew lots of people who were screwed up from drugs. Some became Hare Krishna's and used to enjoy running around exposing themselves. One used to try to beat up brick buildings. That was back in the late 60's and early 70's so I guess it never dawned on any of them to hop on an in vogue diagnosis like autism. They were diagnosed as wackos instead. That was before "bipolar" replaced "wacko" in the DSM. Lots of those wackos became "flower children" but I don't know of any who became elves. With no more flower children around, maybe an LSD crazed kid in the 90's figured being an elf was where she would fit in.
Chaoticidealism,
I've met lots of schizo's. Bizarre may be a better word than berserk, that is, unless they were drinking or on drugs. Then, berserk would be quite appropriate.
Bicycle riding isn't great exercise. It's better than nothing but jogging is a lot better. Even walking is better than bike riding to lose weight. Try walking and you'll see the pounds come off much quicker. You'll see your energy go up too.
If you really don't see what lack of self respect has to do with being obese, get naked and look in the mirror. Do you like what you see? Do you think anyone else would?
I see you subscribe to the idea that all wackos can be categorized. Sorry, that's false. Nobody is born a wacko. People become wackos through their experience. Your adopted twins probably got messed up by being split up and adopted. That's a difficult thing for a child. That's why kids who grow up in crumby environments wind up with lots of problems.
Since you recognize problems in your life due to autism, why don't you look into solving those problems by addressing the cause of the autism?
The fact that she is overweight has absolutely nothing to do with autism. Resorting to petty insults to discredit someone in the end just discredits you.
Anon,
Amanda was not a 300 pound hog before she started using LSD. Do you think the drugs had something to do with her losing all self respect? Could it have been the sexual abuse? How does her talk of suicide figure into this before she became autistic? Has she ever gotten over wanting to kill herself? Is her phoney autism a safety net where she can fit in someplace while avoiding the real world? Did she decide to become autistic before or after she switched from being heterosexual to a lesbian? Did she become a lesbian because she was too large for any man to look at her? Did she pull her hair out or did she shave it to look like a bull dyke?
No, she's being made fun of because she's a fat FRAUD, because she's making fun of autistics everywhere.
Baggs has not been in any remission. Baggs does not magically get to pick and choose from her lofty list of hot sought after then discarded (by her and no one else) windy list of diagnoses to pick and choose which she 'likes.'
Baggs is fat, as it turns out, from years of heavy doses of anti-psychotics such as Zyprexa, not given to her for 'autism' but in fact for her schizophrenia. There's no shame in that,
there is substantial shame however in lying and claiming the drugs 'caused' the schizophrenia, attempting to minimize the 6+ long years Amanda windbagged about her 'elven' adventures, then attempted to write these off as a 'momentary passing thing induced by Wellbutrin' etc, and most of all there is tremendous claiming you have disabilities that you don't (such as say, severe autism).
Fat, gluttonous, greedy, selfish, a hog?
you bet those apply to her
and it has nothing to do with her exterior.
Twins of schizophrenics who were adopted separately actually have a lower risk of schizophrenia than those raised together--the ones raised together have the same environment, y'see.
Me naked in front of a mirror actually doesn't look bad to me. Curvy and jiggly, yep--but not ugly. Before this age of abundant food, I would actually be considered beautiful. It's all a matter of taste, really. What's so wrong with having a belly, butt, and boobs anyway? I'm healthy, I can do more physical work than most skinny people, my blood pressure and cholestorol are normal... the only reason my weight's a problem is whack jobs like you who think it's horrible, horrible, horrible to weigh 200 just 'cause it offends your narrow-minded sense of aesthetics!
Regarding categorizing mental illnesses: They are categorized by their symptoms; so it's pretty easy to do, even easier when you can put the "NOS" tag on a category when something doesn't quite fit. What's harder is categorizing people with those illnesses, because they're individuals with hopes and dreams and favorite pastimes. They fall in love, create art, hold jobs... they make up a substantial minority of the population. I may categorize their illnesses, but you seem to be categorizing them all as "whack jobs"... a much broader and more restrictive box than a DSM-IV category ever tried to squeeze them into.
I shall quit posting now and leave you to your Amanda-bashing... after a while, it's rather funny to those of us who know her.
Chaotic,
Did you know Amanda before she decided to become autistic? If not, I'd say you don't really know her at all.
She makes a big deal about moving across the country to be with her obese lesbian friend. That was after LSD and elfhood.
Before LSD and elfhood, as a 12 and 13 year old, it was no big deal for her to travel across the country to go to schools for gifted students. In that case, "gifted" does not mean special, it just means she was very intelligent.
Sorry, but you're wrong about wackos making up a substantial minority. If that were true, we'd never be able to control them all. I think you're confusing wackos with people who have disabilities. The DSM is a mishmash of nonsense created to give some credibility to the pseudoscience of psychology. It doesn't even include feces smearing as a symptom of autism. They have no clue what they are doing.
The comment you left at my blog yesterday evening moved me to post a response this morning. I'm sure you will not be altogether in agreement with what I wrote, but it seems right to alert you anyway. My response was too long and too important to get buried in a comments thread. I hope you understand.
Amanda Baggs is a schitzo, plain an simple. There are tons of crazy people around who think they are something else, space men, elves, whatever. They used to not be able to bother folks as they were in mental hospitals getting treatment. Now since the hospitals are kicking so many out they get to go home and sit in front of a computer all day and jabber all day. Amanda is like the crazy bum on the street corner saying he is the president. Only now the bum gets to spout off to everyone on the internet.
Sanjay has been taken for a fool here. How can he not see the mental illness that is Amanda.
This is Neurodiversity's answer to the media blitz from Jenny McCarthy. How sweet. Let's see how many parents this crazy cow will recruit compared to Jenny. We all know this is the plan, it's clear as day.
Finding Amanda?
Was she lost? It would be hard to lose something that big.
Are these people for real? Has CNN lost all journalistic integrity that they do not research the veracity of the people they interview? Gupta seems so interested in being Amanda's friend that he has forgoten he is working for a news show. Maybe he has adopted her as his gimp friend. But isn't he supposed to be a doctor as well. What happened to his medical training if he can't tell when someone is mentally ill?
"In that case, "gifted" does not mean special, it just means she was very intelligent."
It also means HIGH FUNCTIONING AUTISM.
Amanda supporter,
You scumbags will go to any lengths in your lies to support this bitch with LSD induced brain damage, won't you. She didn't have any sort of autism. She used to make eye contact normally and talk normally and have sex with males normally. Wake up, it's all an act.
Speaking for Indians - it takes a while for us to get Jaded and cynical, and not everyone manages it as well as you'rs truly. So that doctor has prolly been swept up in all this "everyone loves everyone, and I'm so autistic and I'm so beautiful" crap GTTO spews.
He's easily impressed is all I can say. Probably a result of having lived the good life all his life. OK fine except for the few years in NJ so have I, but atleast I am a grease monkey by choice who likes to slum in junkyards.
Cool.
Srinath.
How do you know she made normal eye contact. JB? What is normal eye contact? And HFA's are capable of speaking and having sex, so you just blew your own argument to smithereens as usual. Stop talking about stuff you don't know about!
Fraud Supporter,
I talked to people who knew her before she decided to become autistic.
And they wouldn't know any more than you. If you met an HFA person in real life you wouldn't be able to tell. I'll bet if you met any one on your blog in real life you wouldn't be able to tell.
You don't know, JB. The only sort of Autism that can be seen at a glance is low functioning Autism like that in Sam.
Yes fraud supporter :
Amanda has called her self as Low functioning, using a typing device to communicate and as wearing diapers on autismweb. She also has claimed she freezes up while doing things for a few minutes at a time. And told everyone to look for a person with that quality when she and the other neuroinsane went to a autismone I think conference.
So, she has already cast her lot as Low functioning.
Now the high functioning autistic people in this conversation think you're a moron.
Cool.
Srinath.
Uncool, Srinath.
All the problems you described are physical problems. Amanda has been diagnosed on those problems when she shouldn't have been. And those physical problems were brought on by those neglectful doctors who mis-diagnosed her with paranoid schizophrenia and damaged her brain with prescription drugs (the LSD played at the most 0.1 percent part of it and wasn't prescribed).
You don't know any more than JB does.
"the LSD played at the most 0.1 percent part of it and wasn't prescribed)."
You get the nitwit of the month award.
We are in agreement that ASD kids would like to play and be like other kids!
What I am curious about...I have never heard these "rumors" about Amanda before and am curious about where you learned them. Just for a little added information, the fact that she is fat or gay has nothing to do with it.
I think you would get more followers (like myself) if you would stick to the facts. You've got me really curious now.
Kay
Kay,
http://hatingautism.blogspot.com/2007/07/amanda-baggs-prelude-to-becoming.html
Here's one post on this blog that discusses her sham. There are a bunch of others before and after that date.
"And those physical problems were brought on by those neglectful doctors who mis-diagnosed her with paranoid schizophrenia and damaged her brain with prescription drugs"
Or maybe someone who thinks she is an elf really is schizo. It is not easy to get that type of diagnosis without some sort of clearly screwed-up behavior. Hearing voices and thinking you are an elf queen are pretty screwed up behaviors. LSD probably did not help things.
@chaoticidealism
People with Schizophrenia lie. That is what they do. They just do not think they are lying. I have experince first-hand with a relative who was on the border but luckily was just having a bad biploar episode. He lied up to the point when he was on the phone with his wife slitting his wrists. Good thing the cops move fast.
You have no clue about mental illness and what it does to normally rational, sane people. Shizophrenics are alot closer to berzerk than "disorganized". A tired parent is someone who is disorganized.
I talked to some one from her past that tried to get her help when she was going nuts. She has claimed that he was stalking her online when in reality he was a friend that got her help when the elf episode was going on.
He watched her go nuts in a matter of months on the constant LSD trips she was on at college. This guy keeps a low profile because he actually does care for her and her condition makes him sad. Before she went nuts she was a bit eccentric, extremely talented and a genius. She had no problems communicating, walking or taking care of her daily needs. She did not wear diapers at college or need a wheel chair.
I find it funny that CNN won't report the facts as they are. All it takes is a good search on Google if you use her old user names on Google chat. BTW, she is registered as Amanda Baggs under her Google chat account (sometimes in here signature), I'm sure if it were a scam she would have reported it and had that information removed many years ago.
- Maxima
Did CNN have a sudden bout of conscience?
There was to be a 'part 2" to this carnival show on tonight (November 23rd, Friday) at 10PM EST.. but suddenly there are no adverts for this whatsoever and something else entirely, a Larry King thing about some hotheaded Black guy doctor stomping off an interview is set to take its place?
The replacement show doesn't look exactly like hot pressing news, so one has to wonder.
I wonder if maybe somebody's finally adequately pointed out that the Baggs' family took six long years before finding a quack to pronounce Amanda "severely autistic' at the age of 20?
Maybe somebody else clued in that pretty boy idiot Gupta that the only way Baggs ever got her "DD services" was by that lawyer (yes that same Anne Bevington personal buddy of Amanda who's been skulking around trying to intimidate everybody) wrote threatening letters to agencies in order to intimidate and force their hands to give services, starting with that California 'regional center' Baggs is so proud to hold up as further 'proof' of her 'autism.'
It takes a real skank to impersonate the disabled.
It takes an even bigger skank to be the participating parent who creates and condones the situation.
Dr Gupta meanwhile needs his medical license revoked. I had no issue with him, some indifferent assumption of validity on his part prior to this, but now as I pay closer attention to his stories and CNN overall (which honestly the whole network is a waste of "People magazine' and "entertainment network' type crap), between Gupta's other stories of obesity (there's another spot for Amanda if she wanted it, and would be a legit one at least) and cosmetic surgery (hey, there you go, again Amanda could surely benefit) and other excessively trivial drivel, it kind of puts him and his agenda in a sad little new light.
When are people gonna learn that everything Amanda Baggs touches turns to ashes?
They think they're lending her a hand, lending her some of their own credibility when they get involved, but anyone who gets near her, from Donna Williams onward ends up with their own credibility severely under question, and rightfully so, for knowingly harboring this complete and total sham.
what is most bothersome is the way Baggs wants the world to set up personal group homes for these people, real autistics who have no hope in hell of living on their own in imitation of her non autistic ass, the assumption that all services and funds should be drained to attempt to accomplish the impossible.
I really felt for that "DJ" and his family during the episode we were 'treated' to.. the total snowball job being done on him and autistics everywhere, the false hopes.. and the way Baggs had her spoiled star actress tantrum when even in her ND hornets nest in Edmonton there, parents came asking real questions and she pitched her fit because they would not be coaxed into fantasizing their children's capabilities will ever reach unrealistic heights and wanted to know about guardianship for them, etc.
"I'm not to be considered typical" she says on her blog, yet blows a gasket when this rather obvious fact (given its an outrage she's even considered 'autistic') was brought out at her little conference production. that was no autistic meltdown, that was a carefully staged act of dramatics, and it failed her.
I found Baggs looking particularly pathetic as a result of that whole idiotic production.
The fact that so many are evidently involved in the screwing over of autistics, from the ones Amanda blatantly imitates to the ones she fools to give false hope, to the communities that she expects to set up the same excess of services she's sapping off her own community for each and every actual autistic who no matter how many people you put into place, no matter how much of the already limited funding is sucked dry for them, will never be living independently, never be capable of it.
Parents, you think its tough to get your IEPs and core services for your children met now?
Wait until your county has a few adult autistics each set up in their own little constellation of services like Baggs there, people who don't even know where they are or their own name, don't even know they are 'living independently' in their own little apartment-sized institutions, complete with an army to keep them from self injuring, breaking the windows, making all their decisions etc etc.
This fraud very much wishes to steal from your children for her shtick -- and she's not even autistic, this is because her and her parents view her 6 long years and paranoid schizophrenia as "being the high school whore' (as Amanda once described her battles to squelch her real diagnosis and past).
Gupta, the entire Baggs family, every "ND supporter' of this shit, everyone who's participated in this sham should really be held to criminal charges. Feigning disabilities to glean and steal services from those who actually have said disability of autism is a crime and nothing less.
Anon @ Fri Nov 23, 04:25:00 PM EST
I believe that is a home run people.
Cool.
Srinath.
CNN @ 10pm.
"Larry King Live:
Dr Jan Adams"
(ie., no Gupta, No Baggs)
Also, I just caught that the 'reason' Baggs 'uses a wheelchair' is because she 'can't coordinate walking and typing at the same time'
Well.. duh..
If anyone here has actually used or even seen the typical keyboard-based AAC (augmentative and alternative communication) device), it WOULD be awfully damned hard to type and walk at the same time..
for ANYONE, no matter how proficient the typing skills, in fact the more proficient at typing one is, the more the difference would be painfully noticed (and and Baggs likes to make outrageous claims on her typing abilities)
One hand would be required to hold the device, the other hand given to a rather one-handed hunt and peck method. This is an issue any mobile AAC device user is going to encounter.
Test this out for yourselves, right now:
Anyone reading this,
Take your computer keyboard and/or laptop right now and attempt to walk a few paces (as far as your keyboard or wireless allows), and type in it, carry it and type on it. Right there you have a real close facsimile to what 'using a keyboard communication device while walking' is all about as that's essentially what it is, a keyboard just like your own computer keyboard or laptop's sized:
Didn't work out real well did it, even for you touch typists out there, did it?
That is basically what Amanda as well as any other AAC device user would have to do.
NEWSFLASH:
Wheelchairs are NOT automatically supplied as some compensation for this to otherwise able-bodied AAC users so they can 'walk and type at same time.'
About the best possible method there would be to solve this might be carefully jerryrigging, using the shoulder/hip strap system (often supplied with such devices but not intended for this purpose) as to have the user wearing the device strapped and supported in front of them to them in a way similar to a peanut/hotdog seller at a baseball game.
This 'inconvenience' typically unthinkingly experienced by those who actually do rely on such devices (and are happy to just even HAVE a means to communicate that this 'inconvenience' goes unnoticed) would explain why Baggs wheels herself about in a manual chair (probably procured off of ebay or possibly flat out stolen from some facility), no doctor in his right mind is going to prescribe this woman a wheelchair so she can keep on 'gabbing' while in motion as she's padding around in her bare feet.
I've never met an autistic, let alone 'severely autistic' (verbal or otherwise) that was just sooo social and so talkative, so appropriate3ly spontaneity responsive and normal in absolutely every other way that they, like a normal person, couldn't tolerate propelling themselves somewhere without constant access to gab.
She's using that communication device and wheelchair to hide behind because if that woman exposed her ordinary ability to speak and walk it would be even more obvious than it is even with them that there is absolutely nothing 'autistic' about her responses, behaviors, etc otherwise.
those ARE the only two 'autistic' trappings about her and anyone is going to 'look disabled' by the mere affect of using such tools.
If they replay the piece from February or the crap from earlier this week and I'll go so far as to say any thus far unseen footage of her, you're going to see time and time again perfectly normal responsiveness from her from behind the trappings she's hiding behind, its kneejerk to normal people to instantly catch and laugh at a joke, spontaiously repond and appropriately to conversations, etc physically respond, etc etc,
If she'd spoken her words there's have been nothing at all to look 'severely autistic' and it boggles my mind that so many people can possibly miss this.
Nobody in a million years would ever see her as 'autistic' and how anyone could possibly consider her 'retarded' based on her actions (as she perpetually claims takes place) remains a complete and total mystery here.
I think she's only fooling people who are a little overly eager in WANTING to be fooled.
There is so much about this woman and the picture she gives that is so easily dissected that its not even funny if one is a keen observer at all...
What is she doing padding herself in her wheelchair down the hall of her subsidized housing in bare feet?
thats against federal housing regulations, there are all kinds of laws against being without proper shoes in common public places, not the least of which is in public housing...
And when and where did any sheltered workshop ever refuse this woman, telling her she's 'too disabled' for them? Something else I caught from her blogs and I can tell you that too simply does NOT happen.
These are just a few from recollections of the show earlier this week and a random glance or two at her blog, God help her if anyone should ever actually LOOK CLOSELY what they'd find.
I cannot perceive how anyone, let alone lots of somebodies, could possibly be that stupid.
Maybe Gupta finally got his key to the clue mobile? it'd be about time.
All comments about Amanda Baggs e) should be characterized by maturity, and by respect and sensitivity towards her.
Amanda is not a fraud. She is autistic. The idea that she has been living a lie for the last 8 years is to me absurd. She is a person of honesty and integrity. Her family and friends believe that she is autistic, and Dr. Ridlehuber who diagnosed her with "autistic disorder" in the year 2000 is not a quack.
I can see that people would find sadness in her life not having taken the course early childhood up to age 14 promised. If she had graduated from Simon's Rock College, and later from university, perhaps followed by post-graduate education - a doctorate, a professorship; while still being autistic and disabled.
http://www.theburlingamedailynews.com/article/bdn/2007-9-23-smc-ayres
Cut and paste the above.
Amanda's doctor, Ridlehuber, is it seems the same man who defends his pedophile partner. Nice guy.
Philip said...
" Amanda is not a fraud. She is autistic. The idea that she has been living a lie for the last 8 years is to me absurd. She is a person of honesty and integrity."
Giving people a false impression is not honest.
Was Amanda born with severe autism? Was she institutionalized because she was non-verbal, soiled herself, pulled out her hair in clumps and banged her head on walls? Was she brutally treated in institutions, and did she learn to communicate at the age of 9 by teaching herself to type?
"Dr. Ridlehuber who diagnosed her with "autistic disorder" in the year 2000 is not a quack."
He did, and he isn't. But why did Ridlehuber change her official diagnosis from atypical autism/PDD-NOS in 1999 to Autistic Disorder in 2000? It looks like he'd known her from the time she was 11 and, being a very experienced child psychiatrist, he would have known if Amanda had been severely autistic as a child.
Amanda wrote this in March 1999:
"I thought that when I first read about autism, too. It explained everything, but it also seemed 'pretentious' as you said, to believe that I was autistic in any way. Now I have an official diagnosis (which doesn't necessarily mean much) of atypical autism (pdd-nos) and am in contact with other people who are similar. I don't think it's pretentious anymore, though I am still nervous about 'using' my diagnosis in public because I've had a lot of those (diagnoses) and am afraid
people wouldn't believe me.
Now read her profile at AFF:
"Official DX LFA"
"I am a 26-year-old autistic woman. I don't use functioning labels or believe in them. When given the choices above though, the only one I've had officially on paper was "low functioning".
Amanda is obviously not telling the whole truth here.
Would you believe anyone who said:
"Unfortunately every diagnosis is another framework I can put myself into and see everything through. Whether or not the diagnosis is true."
Or this:
"I can't remember if I ever experienced that thing you just described -- someone taking my hand and hitting me with it and telling me to stop hitting myself -- or whether I witnessed it.
My memory is vague on the point of who it happened to (it does that a lot -- I realized at one point that I have no idea whether a pivotal event I'd always assumed happened to me, happened to me or whether I was a bystander witnessing it, I just can't remember)." (July 2005)
"I can see that people would find sadness in her life not having taken the course early childhood up to age 14 promised. If she had graduated from Simon's Rock College, and later from university, perhaps followed by post-graduate education - a doctorate, a professorship; while still being autistic and disabled."
What stopped her, and what's stopping her now? In 1998 she was planning to go back to college to finish her degree and become a teacher. What happened?
Gluya,
I couldn't help but laugh..
I wonder if this is even worth the bother to even point out to you but,
or a frank admission on your part which nicely reinforces and establishes yet again what we already knew, that Baggs' family went doctor shopping until they found this character, taking them 6 long years to do so, and this data is in direct conflict with Baggs' more recent claims that she'd been diagnosed or 'considered' etc 'autistic' at 14, and then a referece to at age 8, etc, working hard at backpeddling and rewriting her history as she goes.. but thanks for yet again clearing that up for us.
Are you aware that particularly without Bags' express permission to provide her doctor's name you may very well be violating her country's HIPAA (strict US federal medical privacy) laws?
I'm gonna go out on a limb (quirky anon that I am) that Baggs' hasn't in fact actually given you this permission as while she has made claims that her mother 'forged her records' to get her into that gifted college etc, she is certainly intelligent enough to know that what you've just provided here goes a long way as rather damning evidence to support what is already known about her.
Keep 'supporting' Amanda. I for one, love it.
And you can stop with the acting as though Baggs' fraudulant posing as an autistic is as harmless as if she'd merely stepped around back to smoke a little blunt, as if she's some "good hearted person' who's merely performing a 'victimless crime"
Tell that to the parents who've been lied to and run roughshod over by her who've felt the brunt of her intimidation tactics, tell it to the autistic individuals everywhere who will have to deal with the aftermath of misinformation misleading and lies who already struggle to get what's appropriate to their needs who don't need this compounded further by her self serving antics, tell it to the communities she intends to bleed dry by attempting to set up one-man-institutions for those who cannot conceivably live on their own, and lastly, tell it to 'droopy.'
The more you reveal your intimacy with the whole situation, the more you are culpable and accountable to your participation in all of this.
Like Baggs, you are nothing but an overgrown mental patient but not such a lunatic to the extent that you can't be held accountable for your actions.
Additionally you are kinda stupid, while again not stupid enough to qualify for exemption from responsibility, it also fails to be of any benefit to you.
It does make your attempts to participate and 'defend' Baggs a regular delight.
With that in mind, Phil, have you any more you'd like to 'share'?
Philip,
Here's another quote, from January 2004:
"I can appear to have normal conversational ability as long as I restrict my speech to conventional phrases and topics, but it would fall all to pieces if I tried to talk about myself in any sort of personal way. Thus, I am not going to make the attempt.
However, I'm resenting the hell out of the fact that if I give up my right to remain silent, anything I say can and probably will be used to discount me. This is an ongoing problem; just sometimes it annoys me more than other times."
Would an honest person mislead millions of people to believe that she was incapable of speech, and that her ability to communicate through typing was
"remarkable"?
Here's a few questions regarding one Dr. Hugh Wilson Ridlehuber and Amanda Baggs:
What is a "Child Psychiatrist" doing treating and diagnosing a 20 year old anyway?
If he knew her since she was 11, in what context did he know her?
Was Baggs actually seeing this guy as a patient of his at any time? at 11? 14? 20?
Is this another 'friend of the family?
If he was seeing her as a patient from any point from 11 onward, what was his prior diagnosis for her?
Is he in fact one of the ones who diagnosed Baggs as schizophrenic?
Is he one of the ones she now rants raves and rambles on about in her forever attempts to explain away and insert autism into her childhood?
by the math (if he was 74 as of Sept 23, 2007), when he allegedly gave her this dx in 2000 he would have been 67. Was he already retired at this time?
At 6 years intensive doctor shopping search, did Mother Baggs finally find herself a seedy old retiring doctor with little to lose to say what she wanted?
Do you suppose the good doctor, after years of badgering from Mother Baggs finally figured he had nothing to lose in giving the Old Bagg what she wanted on his way out? Maybe take a little extra nest egg for it?
A retiring doctor hasn't got a lot to lose in reputation I guess. How much do you suppose such a thing is worth to a mother with an unreasonable phobic level response to having her child recognized as a schizo (a mother who Amanda has also claimed managed to forge and coerce agreement to conceal Amanda's own actual IQ and documents etc to get her into that Simon Rock College in the first place)?
Sure makes ya wonder.
Anyway, I can certainly see where Amanda gets her general lack of morals and where she gets the concept that its perfectly okayfine to lie mislead and conceal the truth in favor of some bullshit image.
Much more than a "Chip off the Old Block" it seems Amanda sure learned rather well from the Old Bagg instead.
Shame on you, Amanda Baggs mother, for your participation in all of this.
Amanda has claimed her mother is proud of seeing Amanda on CNN and even has a couple of posts on her blog allegedly made by her own mother.
Narcissistic sociopathic self serving bitches, both of them. I guess it runs in the family.
Anon,
Now the loons will be accusing us of the crime of attacking parents. Good perspective.
Anon said: Are you aware that particularly without Bags' express permission to provide her doctor's name you may very well be violating her country's HIPAA (strict US federal medical privacy) laws?
Amanda Baggs provided her doctor's name herself. If you read her website you will find a picture of a piece of paper torn off a prescription pad which says she has autistic disorder. God knows who wrote it, but the prescription was either provided by or stolen from Ridlehuber whose name is at the top.
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