🪦 Deceased Amanda/Amelia Baggs / witharoundsmoothstone / ballastexistenz - moonfaced malingering autistic "activist"/SJW

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I don't really understand... everything. Amanda presents herself as a low-functioning autistic person. The videos showing her make it seem like she's incapable of living by herself and needs someone to care for her. And yet she can write and textually express herself, her thoughts, feelings, and perceptions better than most normies?

Are there actually any legitimate cases like this? I'm very curious. Because it just seems pretty unlikely, and yet people are buying it hook, line, and sinker. If there was a precedent for something like this it would make more sense that she's gotten so much attention.
 
Cosmos said:
Are there actually any legitimate cases like this? I'm very curious. Because it just seems pretty unlikely, and yet people are buying it hook, line, and sinker. If there was a precedent for something like this it would make more sense that she's gotten so much attention.
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I think the sad thing is people are so willing to buy into it because they see her as a kind of beacon of hope. From what I've seen, particularly in the comment sections of articles about her, she reassures people that the alarming way an autistic person may present themselves can be totally different to the person they actually are, they just can't find a way to express to us that we'd understand. A large portion of these comments were from parents who had autistic children. Which makes it all the more worse if all the skepticism around Amanda turns out to be true; it's not just about lying for attention it's manipulating vulnerable people. Also kinda sucks that even if the person they've put on that pedestal is legit she's still an unhygienic, deceptive hypochondriac (:_(
 
There are some people like Carly Fleischmann(http://carlysvoice.com/home/) who have had major success via typed communication and still are profoundly impacted by Arutism (needing support workers a the like) and seem like the really deal, the key difference is that those people were always non-verbal. There are also a lot of people with disorder such as Cerebral Palsy who are non-verbal but can type super insightful stuff.
 
Long Sun said:
There are some people like Carly Fleischmann(http://carlysvoice.com/home/) who have had major success via typed communication and still are profoundly impacted by Arutism (needing support workers a the like) and seem like the really deal, the key difference is that those people were always non-verbal. There are also a lot of people with disorder such as Cerebral Palsy who are non-verbal but can type super insightful stuff.
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Well, that's comforting, at least. I knew that people with Cerebral Palsy can be very eloquent with the written word but I hadn't heard of anything like that with other non-verbal disorders.

At least if Amanda is a complete fraud, the hopes of those with loved ones who are non-verbal aren't in vain. As much as we're harping on Amanda, my heart really goes out to those who can't communicate and their families and I hope that someday they can express themselves.
 
ELFairy said:
No, not Autism Speaks. Amanda is with the Neurodiversity movement, organizations like Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, Not Dead Yet, which are run by autistic people. Autism Speaks is mostly parents, and isn't really big on things like self-advocacy or disability rights, so a lot of autistic people don't like them. It's a complicated issue.
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Gee now I want to join those groups, but if they can easily be fooled by this... person... Idk if I want to join anyway.
 
Cosmos said:
Are there actually any legitimate cases like this? I'm very curious. Because it just seems pretty unlikely, and yet people are buying it hook, line, and sinker. If there was a precedent for something like this it would make more sense that she's gotten so much attention.
Click to expand...

The only precedents for it are other fakers, like the "mediated communication" rapist at Rutgers, Anna Stubblefield who claimed to be able to communicate with a profoundly retarded man with the intelligence of a toddler in order to justify raping him, using long-discredited quackery.
 
Cosmos said:
I knew that people with Cerebral Palsy can be very eloquent with the written word but I hadn't heard of anything like that with other non-verbal disorders.
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There's a lot of people with Cerebral Palsy that are of average intelligence, including ones who are otherwise nonverbal. I know a dude with it who can barely even move but he's actually really accomplished and is able to ride a custom-made bicycle around his neighborhood using what muscles he's able to control. He seems to be a pretty smart guy and likes to keep himself busy.

And I've heard about nonverbal autistics being able to communicate through type for years. I mean, granted, not a lot of them are bad enough off that they're slamming their heads into walls or biting themselves; they're usually higher functioning than they let on, though. They just... don't talk. For reasons. So they're like mid-functioning.

Amanda is presenting herself as much, much lower functioning than that.
 
Cosmos said:
Are there actually any legitimate cases like this? I'm very curious. Because it just seems pretty unlikely, and yet people are buying it hook, line, and sinker. If there was a precedent for something like this it would make more sense that she's gotten so much attention.
Click to expand...

More than you'd think, but still not many, it's mostly younger people who've grown up using typing to communicate, someone that low-functioning who had to learn typing as an adult, I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's incredibly unlikely.
 
Amanda claims that pictures of her childhood are deceptive, because her parents discarded the ones where she was rocking and stimming and flapping with a vacant expression on her face and only saved those in which she appeared to be normal. Yet one notes that Amanda has preferentially shared images she believes to reinforce her preferred account, and captions them in ways that reify her disability narrative.
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"With my dad at Happy Hollow, happily flapping while he feeds the animals."

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"Fishing with my dad. I think this kind of fishing is one of those things autistic people can be really good at: Very repetitive and nothing changes a whole lot."
Without the captions, most people would look at these pictures and just see a cute kid, but it seems very important to Amanda that she is always perceived through the lens of disability.

She indicates that her parents lived like "hermits" in some sort of backwoods property with lots of dogs and guns.
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Moreover, her family seems to have put a lot of stock in New Age faith healing, seeking to treat or cure Amanda through aura manipulation, a system of "expensive filtered lenses [marketed] to people with vague collections of symptoms who tend not to trust eye professionals," and mystic yoga. But we are receiving all this information from Amanda herself, who, judging by this interesting interview, likes to emphasize her parents' New Age beliefs to justify why she, as a "confused" and ostensibly "autistic" teenager, chose to "play crazy."
 
Cosmos said:
Are there actually any legitimate cases like this? I'm very curious. Because it just seems pretty unlikely, and yet people are buying it hook, line, and sinker. If there was a precedent for something like this it would make more sense that she's gotten so much attention.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't powerlevel under any other circumstances but I can confirm this: I worked with patients suffering from cerebral palsy, low-functioning autism, and other severe disorders for about half a decade. The cognitive level of someone who "appears retarded" can range from childlike to genius levels.

For examples, here's a small list of successful comedians with cerebral palsy. I recommend Josh Blue, he's hilarious.
http://www.friendshipcircle.org/blo...alsies-5-comedians-with-cerebral-palsy-video/

Edit: Many of these people are mentally articulate but can struggle with opening a bag of potato chips, so they have state-sponsored caretakers to assist them with their daily lives. I just wanted to add, however, that I don't know of any cases where someone "became low-functioning" after high school that didn't have to do with an injury, a separate severe malady, or drug abuse.
 
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Plague said:
Not only that, a lot of autist don't flap their hands around. Sounds like she looked up "top ten autistic symptoms" & ran with it
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For all the talk I've seen about flapping hands on internet autistic circles, I've not once seen a single autistic person do it. I've seen people use flapping hands as a gesture of almost uncontrollable excitement, but I've never seen anyone just flapping their hands around.

I have, however, seen a ton of goddamned autism fakers talk about how they flap all the time.
 
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