Comments About Amanda (Sham) Baggs

At 15 March, 2007, Anonymous said...
An interesting little 'audio/visual rendition' of Amanda's 'group of beings' statement can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88ahwuKabxU

Here's Amanda's immediate (damage control) response:

http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/?p=333

At least this time it wasn't "my psychiatrist brainwashed and made me do it."
To her credit, she does keep it 'fresh' by periodically swapping the excuses around.

No, this time no conspiratorial mothers, no evil brainwashing shrinks;
this time it was merely the drugs, one little anti-depressant to be exact
-- one taken in 1999, a full two years after she posted this in 1997 -- that's a really amazing drug!

Amanda has a long list, advising of which things she's said that you can believe and which ones you can't.
"This was real, no that part wasn't, okay THIS was real, that part wasn't.."

Just how many of these selective instructions are people willing to take anyway?
When does not only the very existance of these instructions, but so many of them finally begin to raise its very own set of questions and doubts in people's minds?


At 20 March, 2007, Watson said...
I see the video has been removed.

"This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by a third party."

I wonder who the third party is....


At 20 March, 2007, Anonymous said...
The sly minx.
Oh what a tangled web she weaves!


At 20 March, 2007, Anonymous said...
I didn't get to see Amanda on CNN. Does anyone know if it's on you tube or anywhere else?


At 20 March, 2007, Watson said...
I don't think so, but the transcript is here:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0702/21/acd.01.html


Oh what a tangled web she weaves!

That's EXACTLY what I thought.


At 20 March, 2007, Watson said...
Amanda has a long list, advising of which things she's said that you can believe and which ones you can't. "This was real, no that part wasn't, okay THIS was real, that part wasn't.."

Yes. Reading through her posts on various forums, on her own blog and elsewhere, it's very difficult to know what's true and what's not. Although what she wrote before she found out about atypical autism is probably more accurate.

I wonder how she explains away earlier hallucinations, delusions and voices which definitely pre-date the anti-depressant....

"I have seen things all my life that weren't there, but I only started hearing voices regularly when I was eleven."
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.schizophrenia/browse_thread/thread/c712bdb543fb0f16/bb73479c04694fc0?lnk=st&q=eleven&rnum=3&hl=en#bb73479c04694fc0


"As soon as I stopped speaking to her I started having memories from the elf-forest. And those memories guarded me against her continued (psychological) attacks on me." "Is it also coincidence that soon after I broke off contact with her I started showing signs of schizophrenia?"
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.schizophrenia/browse_thread/thread/62dab6bf34e3391/1bf028da398e92d2?lnk=st&q=Abby&rnum=4&hl=en#1bf028da398e92d2


"I would have hallucinations that I didn't know were related to any of this, like seeing spiders and/or butterflies literally covering the floor, crunching under my feet. I didn't like seeing flower petals and would go to great lengths to avoid them, thinking they were dead butterflies. " (Click on quoted text in first post):
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.trauma-ptsd/browse_thread/thread/4360e1b8d7daa26f/d494dbb6f8b6e185?lnk=st&q=&rnum=69&hl=en#d494dbb6f8b6e185


This, after Clorazil which she took at 15-16:

"Elves, while on Clozaril. I was forced not to believe in them, and not to connect with trees in the way I had before them. I was especially not
allowed to believe that I was not human (which I'm not, for what it's worth)... those medications can take a lot out of you. I had never believed in things like demons, but I don't think it's a coincidence that it was /after/ these medications when I stopped looking to the trees and the stars and the elves and started looking to the glowing red eyes in the window... "

"They said I was "depressed" at that point, but it was a direct result of taking things out of me. There was a "hallucination" they couldn't seem to get rid of (well, they couldn't get rid of the voices most of the time either but they got rid of good things) which involved a large, spiny, fractallene, black, sometimes flashing hole."
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.schizophrenia/browse_thread/thread/9e999a9424875de/c33adaad3cb8a902?lnk=st&q=Wellbutrin&rnum=35&hl=en#c33adaad3cb8a902


This is what Amanda said about the anti-depressant:

"the Wellbutrin keeps me awake I think... I'm on Seroquel/Wellbutrin/Lithium now... it doesn't make me psychotic particularly..."
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.schizophrenia/browse_thread/thread/456e1a991b21d0a1/39dc0c0ce356d2db?lnk=st&q=Seroquel%2C+Lithium+and+Wellbutrin&rnum=9&hl=en#39dc0c0ce356d2db


I found this exchange from December 1998, before her PDD-NOS/atypical autism diagnosis, very interesting:

"The Others are still up there, I'm still an elf (despite other people's beliefs on that one :)) and as far as I know the "place" I came from still exists, complete with intact elves (not stuck in a human body) and whatever their kind of humans are there... and trees. And I have "thought as one" with the Others, while on medication... since this medication tends to take away that which is psychotic in me, I don't think this other stuff would be possible now if it weren't real. ":
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.schizophrenia/browse_thread/thread/9e999a9424875de/c33adaad3cb8a902?lnk=st&q=Wellbutrin&rnum=35&hl=en#c33adaad3cb8a902

After reading that, it occurred to me that despite her new diagnosis, Amanda might still believe she is an elf, sent by the Others to study humans.

Then I came across this:

http://www.autistics.org/library/conversation.html
Conversation on Institutions

Amanda: Like in my case I'm supposedly out because I'm not schizophrenic, which in part is not diagnosed simply because I stay away from the sorts of people and saying the sorts of things that worry people.

Laura: Yes. Yeah. Well in a purely practical sense, I think anybody who can get any loophole to get out of that system, can and should use any loopholes they have. Because they have no right to keep anyone, so therefore anything and everything that will keep someone out of there, including if necessary lies, it's perfectly fine with me."


So what if by not talking about delusions and hallucinations, schizophrenics can have their diagnosis changed to "resolved schizophrenia", or, like Amanda, "single episode, full remission", and then, given the 'right' background, they could fit the criteria for atypical autism - and be free to call themselves autistic?

Perhaps adults who claim to be autistic or say they have autistic traits in the family are confusing mental illness and eccentricity with autism.

For instance, Amanda wrote in 1998:

"Genetically, I have a family history on both sides of schizophrenia and on one side of perceptual disorders sometimes like autism..."
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.autism/browse_thread/thread/86be5a79713db563/b8503c223bc3d350?lnk=st&q=Wellbutrin&rnum=29&hl=en#b8503c223bc3d350


But today, she talks about her successful brother who was once a low-functioning autistic who smeared, and Gupta says in the CNN transcript:


"There is a belief, though, a strong belief, Kiran, that it is genetic. Even in the case of Amanda, her brother and her father had autism as well. "

I guess he got that from Amanda, but that's not what she would have told him in 1998:

"Genetically, I have a family history on both sides of schizophrenia and on one side of perceptual disorders sometimes like autism..."
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.autism/browse_thread/thread/86be5a79713db563/b8503c223bc3d350?lnk=st&q=Wellbutrin&rnum=29&hl=en#b8503c223bc3d350


I guess "autism" is currently a far more socially acceptable diagnosis - and suits the agenda.


At 20 March, 2007, Anonymous said...
Thanks Watson,

"I guess "autism" is currently a far more socially acceptable diagnosis - and suits the agenda."

I totally agree.
I think that everyone who has contributed to this thread with information and links etc, have proven without a doubt and exposed Amanda Baggs for what she really is - a lying manipulative schizophrenic, pretending to be autistic.

BTW anti psychotic drugs do not cause auditory or visual hallucinations, but LSD does...

You can fool some of the people, some of the time...

The games up Amanda.