RE: Autistic woman speaks out (4)

RE: Autistic woman speaks out

erkolos Wrote:
Then who's saying the truth?


I first became aware of and met Amanda Baggs online on a thing called Second Life as well as another live-time chat known as IRC.

She can forget that tired old 'its only people who knew me the last year or so that are upset by my history' -- because first of all I need to point out that my first awareness of Amanda's fakery didn't come from her suspicious history - it came directly from Amanda herself.
In dialogue after dialogue (wherein btw she, master typist as she claims could not keep up with me, resorting often to simple 'ok' responses when not inspired to the problem responses which were a screaming 'clue')..

our conversations quickly became riddled with Amanda's responses of 'me too me too!" and basic attempts at one-upmanship. Any statements I made about myself or my history were instantly met with these. If I taught myself to read at 18 months as soon as eye patches came off, well she taught herself to read at 9 months. If I excelled in a particularly rare way on a fine motor skills block test, well Amanda was right there 'me too' and working to make her's 'better' and I was really uncomfortable with this, but I wanted to make a friendship so badly, I wanted her to be real, I was so impressed with the idea that just maybe I wasn't the only one with this level of autism, this level of disability out here, but she pressed on.. to the point where very specific events in my life she was right there 'me too me too' and even justifying all this claiming with this being her 'communication learning experience' and even warning me that she is inclined to use my words verbatim. This did not settle well with me and about the time she was encroaching on my very specific and important to MY life experiences with the typewriter in the grouphome, typing Beatles lists and lyrics, and me-too-ing away even at my specific hearing/recall ability and experiences I have had with this regarding the Beatles.. that's when I had enough, dared ms "me too" queen beatle-fan of the world to answer a question she couldn't google about The Beatles and logged off to prevent myself saying something really hostile (in the aim of trying to befriend this person).

This only got worse and we ended up in emails about this with Amanda giving me windy long discourses on how I'm a nut, this is my problem (all said very nicely and in her smarmy cooing persuasive manner of course) and me going along wit this 'yeah right its my problem" because I'd had two separate minor-by-comparison events with individuals, both of them schizophrenics btw (and this was again, before I knew any of this background on Amanda), but oh I'm a nut I'd better talk to my counselor guy, etc etc and when observers who'd witnessed our dialogues (there was more than you and Natalia onboard on those chats Amanda), supporting what I'd seen, agreeing, calling her histrionic, even suggesting words and ways I might nicely advise her to be her own person etc, she raged at these attempts and insissted we should have no 'private' friendship bout a 'public' communication would do. This suited me perfectly fine and I even went around telling people Amanda and I had it sorted, as I thought we had.. save for one thing..

Amanda kept on emailing with these little insistances that I deny what she'd been doing and when I wouldn't, she flew off into a rage and sent me emails crossfiring with mine to her that said the same things:
"Do not email me again. Go AWAY"
That's the gist of how it started one on one, nothing but her direct behaviors to me to cue me. That and inexplicitly her wondering if I was 'a fake' until her friend Laura T identified me to her.
I never could get a clear answer from Amanda on that one.
Amanda has since taken other issues I'd referenced and included them in her stories, like my vomiting problem. She had warned me of her intent to make movies staking claim on stuff of mine (specifically typewriter and Beatles stuff although there were gobs more things involved in this) and advising me if I don't like it, don't look, etc.

I also want to point out here that Amanda is fully aware through those email dialogues how particularly devastating this is to do to me, a person who had to be taught hand-over-hand 'sense of self' or 'self awareness' before a mirror in the special school I attended.
I don't understand who I am the same way as others do, I understand myself the same as I understand others, through these bits of data about myself (I have alot more about myself than I do others but everybody is a composite of data, a sort of mental index card to me) data, owned like objects or limbs or bodies, and she's aware of how particularly cruel it is to be taking from me and the total mindfuck this is for me. She may was well come into my apartment and attempt to rip my limbs off or take my possessions, in fact I'd rather she'd tried that, THAT I could deal with (ei, "knock her into next year") this psychological/intellectual property theft being performed from across the country however is something entirely differnet, a real mind messer, and one I so far have been unable to do a damned thing about.

Someone on YouTube had even asked me if I thought she was autistic or schizophrenic and I had said "probably schizophrenic.'

I had no idea at the time. Not long after people began to contact me with this "I think you're absolutely right, I think you should have a look at this" and pointing me at data and places online where people I don't even know to this day were looking and posting her rather telling background as it is and not the way she'd have you believe.

as 'promised' she posted several movies, some of them using words of mine I had said verbatim to describe myself and my abilities/experiences, some very specific ones.

I quickly realized though the collected data that Baggs and her cohort Laura ("Muskie" to me for a decade prior) had been fleecing me for my life through conversations I'd had online since 1994 with various members of 'the autism community'

Thats not the entirety of it but that's a good summary, a good start, I suppose.

She has some crony who's also a a lawyer (apparently the same who's threatened Vermont services to force them to give into whatever Amanda demands?) to silence me. Not the throngs of people revealing all kinds of stuff about her and saying the most severe things about her for it, no, just me. Why? Because I'm telling the truth. I am the one person who's got a legit beef with her about what she does. Offence being the best defense, she had her neurodiveristy california lawyer buddy threaten me.
This messed me up, hard, for months. TO be screwed and then intimidated to silence about it is a really bad place to be mentally. being a survivor of abuse and institutionalization (and I'm not calling attending a normal school and being a 'joy to have in the classroom' being 'institutionalized' either. I mean special schools like I went to, and lived in, and later was warehoused in.. 20 years of my life.. where's amanda's time to be so affected? She was never offline, never stopped talking about her schizophrenia and elf-hood etc long enough that I can see).

Did she ever tell anyone and offer up that she's been diagnosed with fictitious disorder? I suppose not. That would have been before the trek across country to start her new life after paper-trail - and spare me the 'documents as proof' one of them looks like a stolen prescription pad with Amanda's telltale block writing on it. Give me a break.

side-note: Amanda has a 'closet-full of communicators' -- innat nice?
I'm struggling along to get myself ONE full-sized keyboard I can type on at the rate I am capable of that can't be touched with my lightWRITER and she's got a closetfull? And she doesn't even need them, not one. How nice

erkolos Wrote:
I come to think about Silentmiaow's (Amanda's) video called In my Language. Many parents were very enthusiastical to that video because of how their autistic children reacted to it. I think it would be a shame if that was just playing.


Yes that is a shame and I agree. claiming to speak for people like me and deluding parents and trying to tell them about their children, sentences that start with 'autistics' and going on national tv to that end was particulary nasty in my opinion.

erkolos Wrote:
Droopy seem to be on a side of a complicated conflict few other individual autistics have chosen independently.


I didn't pick it. It (or rather she) picked me.

I'd be quite happy if she'd unpick me and just crawl herself back to wherever it is people like her who obviously think they are some sort of 'fairy elven Gods' come from, and I would be most happy if she crawled right back to her King Cockroach origins. (yeah I saw that movie, no I didn't make the offered assumption. Based on several things she's offered up, its pretty clear that mankind is King Cockroach Option #2 on the poster is where Amanda is 'coming from" -- and its right where she can go back to as far as I'm concerned.)

I'll even tell her I'm a damned elf god myself if that's what it takes, whatever I have to say or do to make this bullshit game of her's over, get her stepping right back off of me.

Listen up, Amanda Baggs: I am shorter than you, I have bigger ears, I can sure as hell hear with them better than you can (I'll take you on national tv and show you up if that's what it takes, if I ever get a damned lawyer of my own, I'll see it done before a judge in court -- that's how confident I am in my abilities and not in yours) -- I'm Elf God, okay? I'm "the others" -- you can back right off now because *this* elf God telling you to. There. Is that "in your language' enough for you?

and as for 'but does it matter if she's fake, she says such lovely words' -- is that what Buddhism teaches you? that its okay to lie as long as you make it pretty sounding enough in the process?

How come no other activist type person.. not Gandhi, not Dr King.. nobody else had to forge and falsify an identity or their history to say what they had to say?

Lies and pretty words built on lies are still just that, lies.

Its an extreme hypocracsy as well to make use of someone that you claim to be activating and advocating for.

I got used and I continue to be used due to my autism and my interesting life (which I am trying to get into a biography as it seems Amanda is smart enough to ask permission and give due credit to those who are established and published).

I get used for my disabilities by someone who claims to defend the rights of people with my disabilities.
I have no words to express how wrong that is.

I also have no words to express how wrong it is that because I am autistic and because I have led this life that its apparently some obligation as far as she (and others?) are concerned that I, unlike the rest of the citizenry out there MUST document my life, must do these things in order to preserve my same rights to privacy and NOT having my life published or secured etc, that others come by naturally.

This whole thing has messed me up, badly, and its not like Amanda Baggs is unaware of that fact. Mutual friends have forwarded this information on to her. Her only concerns in response? Exclusively concerned for herself only, her precious 'reputation,' and a fear for her own physical safety after stupidly exposing herself on international tv and the potential that someone might go after her based on what she's done to me.
Does she have any regrets for the pain she's caused me? Not one.
Any regrets that I've gotten so sick and had major behavior setbacks to the point that my independence and ability to live on my own have been at their highest risk in 12 years due to the stress she's caused me? Nope not a one.

Any regrets for having sent a lawyer to bully me? That being the most devastating act (and one I am told both her her lawyer, a mother to an AS son as well as Amanda's well autism-versed not to mention well droopy-versed were clear on how that would affect me and how I'd react).
Not a regret in this world, not a one. Not one iota, and no signs whatsoever of slowing or slacking her charade.

I have to wonder where and how she actually expects this to end up?
I mean, I know now, and I've made it clear this is unwelcomed, right from the use of adaptive devices she doesn't need, to the "Getting the Truth Out' mockery of the way I pull my hair and places I have been in onward.. its enough, its really more than enough.. it has to stop.

Does she expect that I will somehow magicaly concede and give up and give in and allow her free uncontested access to my life for her disposal and usage? Does she expect this to go on indefinately, for ever?

Not in my lifetime.
Nobody has a right to do this to another, nobody has a right to mess with me the way that she has.
There is no reason anyone can conceivably give me to justify this.
Its not okay and its never going to be okay. I will never magically rollover and give up rights to my life.

If she's got plans to make a book out of my life, rotsa ruck Amanda. I can prove I'm me and while I won't post details for sake of stalking prevention (yeah, I know, its a bit late now), a lawyer, a biographer will have full access if I can get them, and I can prove I am me my capabilities and disabilities and that my stuff actually happened to me, etc
Can she?
Bet she can't.
Bet she can't pack my 42 years into her currently 26 and make it viable, feasible in a book, especially not with most of her back data out there, courtesy of herself