Amanda Baggs Autism Controversy

*In 1995, at 15 years old, and for considerable time (it’s believed about 1 year), Amanda Baggs publically claimed (to family, friends, acquaintances, doctors, and one (perhaps more) Internet discussion groups), and publically presented herself, as having Dissociative Identity Disorder, (formerly called ‘Multiple Personality Disorder’).

*From about 1996 through 1998, Amanda publically claimed and publically presented herself as having Schizophrenia.

*In June 1997, Amanda publically apologized for deceiving both herself, and others, with her claim of Dissociative Identity Disorder.

*In about 2000, at about 20 years old, she began publically claiming and publically presenting herself as having low functioning autism (profound non-verbal autism), though having the ability to communicate normally through typed-communication).

*In January 2007, she began publicizing her autism, and her typed-communication ability, through YouTube videos which she filmed and edited. In February 2007, the media company CNN became interested in Amanda due to her YouTube video, and did several written and television segments on her.

*In mid-2007, several former 1994-1995 classmates of hers from Simon’s Rock College stepped forward to CNN and on various Internet websites to express their confusion and shock at how Amanda was presenting herself. Each consistently testified to her being a relatively fully functioning student at 14-15 years old at Simon’s Rock College (which is a highly selective college for gifted pre-college-aged students). Each attests that she was a fluent verbal communicator, attended classes and took part in the class discussions at a normal level, ate in the cafeteria on a many times a day basis, was fully functional physically, had a boyfriend, had many friends and acquaintances, etc. Moreover, each attests to how she was not autistic in any sense, and that she never reported being autistic.

*Later in 1995, shortly before her withdrawal from Simon’s Rock College (SRC), several of her former SRC friends (one of which is now a neuroscientist, and another of which is now a Ph.D candidate in Psychology and has been a mental health professional for many years) attest to how she aggressively used LSD and psilocybin for about three months, and on a near daily basis. The SRC friends attest to how they observed her undergo psychotic behavior during and after this 3 month period, including exclaiming that she was an ‘elf’, digging in the school yard for what she believed to be a listening device implanted in the ground, suicide attempts and self-injurious behavior, aggression toward others, her report of auditory hallucinations and the witnessing of her behaving as if she was listening to and talking with auditory hallucinations, etc.

*Slowly since 2000, and especially after her national media coverage with CNN, she has become considered by many to be an “autism rights activist”.

*At this time, I believe, she lives in Burlington, Vermont with her partner Laura Tisonick.

* The following are some links to her various video presentations and media coverage.

CNN’a Chris Gajilan and Dr. Sanjay Gupta: "Gajilan, Chris" Chris.Gajilan@turner.com "Sanjay Gupta"

sanjay.gupta@cnn.com

CNN editors: Rena.Golden@turner.com, Mitch.Gelman@turner.com,David.Payne@turner.com

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/02/21/autism.amanda/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/blogs/paging.dr.gupta/2007/02/behind-veil-of-autism.html

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/02/22/autism.emails/index.html

Amanda’s self taken and self edited video In My Language: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnylM1hI2jc

Wired Magazine: writer: David Wolman david@david-wolman.com, editor Joanna Pearlstein

joannap@wiredmag.com, christina_valencia@wired.com, evan_hansen@wired.com,

leander_kahney@wired.com

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-03/ff_autism

CNN’s Anderson Cooper, "Anderson Cooper" anderson.cooper@cnn.com

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/2007/02/video-reveals-world-of-autistic-woman.html

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/2007/02/why-we-should-listen-to-unusual-voices.html

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/2007/02/amanda-baggs-answers-your-questions.html

NYT Blog: Tara Parker-Pope well@nytimes.com

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/the-language-of-autism/

(1) Several former 1994-1995 Simon’s Rock College friends and classmates of Amanda Baggs have come forward in light of what they saw and read in the widespread 2007-2008 national media coverage of Baggs, to provide their observations of Baggs in 1994-1995 at Simon’s Rock College; some witnesses continued their friendships with Baggs from 1995-1998.

Each consistently observed that Baggs (a) did not have any degree of the profound autism symptoms that she has been presenting publically (CNN, YouTube, etc) since 1997 at 26 years old (and apparently since about 2001), (b) that Baggs was a fluent verbal communicator, normally socially interactive (had ongoing friendships, took part in social activities such as eating in the cafeteria many times a day with other students, played the flute, took part in casual social gatherings with friends and others, had a boyfriend with whom she was sexually involved, was able to be self-sufficient in attending classes, eating, self-care, etc, was expressive emotionally through her gestures and tone of voice, made normal eye contact, etc), (c) that Baggs never reported to anyone that she was autistic or Asperger’s, (d) that in 1995 they witnessed her frequently using LSA and psilocybin extensively for about three months, and that this caused various psychotic symptoms to arise, such as her claim to be an elf, her digging in a school yard for a listening device, self-harm behavior, reports of hearing voices, etc, and (e) some of her former friends were privy to her Internet group discussions, and were able to track the evolution of her various claims from 1995 onward, namely first her claim (it appears) of Dissociative Identity Disorder (see the relevant discussion in the Index above, then Schizophrenia, then Low Functioning Autism; and other claims as well such as Schizoaffective Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, sexual abuse by two close family members, physical and mental abuse by health providers, etc.

The witnesses include the following; also please consult with Ophelia on any possible new people that have come forward.

Note: I also have extensive, detailed, and elaborate written email testimony from witnesses 1-4 that is available upon request.

1- Daniel Drucker (see 1a below with Daniel’s statement) ddrucker@psych.upenn.edu who is currently a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania.

2- Ophelia Austin-Small (see 2a below with Ophelia’s statement), oaustinsmall@earthlink.net

54B Valley Rd, Cos Cob, Connecticut, 06807  Telephone:  203-559-4839

Ophelia is an author http://www.authorsden.com/opheliaaustinsmall; a mental health professional for 11 years; a Ph.D. candidate in psychology at Northcentral University; Ophelia’s resume (http://www.linkedin.com/in/oaustinsmall)

3- Bjorn-Erik Townsend (see 3a below with Bjorn’s statement), eriktown@3e.org eriktown@aestheneering.com www.aestheneering.com

4- Rachel Bowen (statement to be copied below shortly), professor at Lawrence University rachel.bowen@lawrence.edu http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/government/fac.shtml (second listing).

Update 3/30/09: New listing for Rachel: https://pro.osu.edu/profiles/bowen.208/ bowen.208@osu.edu

5- Kathleen Notestine, an attorney with Colorado State University; contact Ophelia Austin-Small for Ms. Notestine’s statement and contact information.

6- Possibly a current Simon’s Rock College teacher who also taught when Amanda attended there:

Gabriel Asfar gabriel@simons-rock.edu

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Gabriel Asfar gabriel@simons-rock.edu
Date: Tue, Feb 19, 2008 at 5:02 AM

Good morning and thanks for your email. I've seen the Amanda Baggs video
you forwarded; and I do remember someone of the same name whom I knew
during the 1994-95 academic year. But I would like to know a bit more about

you, the work you do, and what exactly you are attempting to get at and (more
importantly) why you seek such information.

Gabriel Asfar

7- Possibly Aileen Kawabe ilean@simons-rock.edu

8- A teacher in Appleton, Wisconsin http://ak-blackcap.livejournal.com came forward on 3/5/2008 and did this article on his long standing livejournal website http://ak-blackcap.livejournal.com/199144.html, where he writes this about Baggs:

“I knew her when she was fourteen and she was definitely not autistic then. She could walk, she could talk, she was in an early-entry college not failing out. See, autism develops in early childhood. You don't "get" autism.”

“…she's not autistic. And what she can do [currently] has no bearing on what an actual autistic person will be able to do. Yes, she can type 120 words per minute and have a computer voice "speak" her bright, thoughtful musings. But she can do that because she learned to speak, write, and type before she "became autistic." An autistic kid who can't communicate at 8 years old isn't going to suddenly learn how to communicate by typing.
So, yeah, that bothers me. That and the fact that the press has made no effort to investigate her background and just take her word for it that she's autistic.”

1a- Daniel Drucker’s statement:

On Sat, Feb 9, 2008 at 9:55 AM, Daniel Drucker <ddrucker@psych.upenn.edu> wrote:

She didn't appear or claim to be autistic in 1994-5, and in fact was brilliant, creative, had an active
and healthy set of personal and romantic relationships and was not
disabled in any way.
Also, I wouldn't want to mention the heavy use of LSD (on the order of
200 mcg/day for many months).

When I visited Amanda in the hospital at Belmont Hills in 1995 (
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/23/25567885_c850022c38_o.jpg ), she
said she had "found the right home for my selves - the voices are in
concert here, and people accept all of us here." (recorded in my
notes, 1995/08).

Amanda was socially well-adjusted and a normal, functioning
member of the community until she decided to change that.

She started with the DID [Dissociative Identity Disorder; formerly called ‘Multiple Personality Disorder’] nearly concomitantly with LSD abuse (i.e.,
early 1995). Records of this are readily available on Usenet archives
at Google Groups, and in her extensive journal entries from the time
on the topic which I possess.

2a- Ophelia Austin-Small’s statements:

> From: Ophelia Austin-Small <oaustinsmall@earthlink.net>
> Date: September 25, 2007 12:23:39 AM PDT

>Bottom Line: I personally knew Amanda from 1994-1998, at college and personally. During >that time Amanda had a number of issues, but was highly verbal, physically capable, played >instruments, attended college independently, and attended to all daily life activities without aid, >support, or prompting. She had friends. She had romantic relationships. She & I went rock >climbing. She was your average young teen sci-fi fan girl. And now there's this. And the two >people do not match.

>Before we get into everything regarding Amanda & Dave, you should probably know my >background professionally and in regards to autism. I have my MA in psychology and am >working on my PhD. BTW, Daniel is getting his PhD in Neurology. I have 4 family members >with ASDs ranging from nonverbal very low functioning classic autism to Asperger's that's damn >near un-noticable. My son has neurological issues that are autistic-like on paper, such as head->banging, speech delay (very severe there for awhile), sensory issues, and gross motor issues. He >is not autistic or PPD though. And he is significantly better, to the point of being damn near >normal, thanks to medication (melatonin) that allows him to sleep, and therapy (speech, OT, and >a language-focused preschool 2 days a week).

> I'll respond to the other stuff later. But here's some history on
> Amanda. Sorry if it isn't well-written, I'm pretty tired. PLEASE ONLY
> QUOTE ME AS AN ANONYMOUS SOURCE. I live only about 15 miles from her
> parents. I do not want the wild elf contingent at my door. I also
> don't need a lawsuit right now, and I know she had a lawyer threaten
> Daniel for talking to you just a few days ago. Although everything I'm
> saying is true, I've lived through enough drama from her family to
> last for years.
>
> Amanda was born in California and grew up in Campbell. She is the
> youngest of three, Shane and Jeremy are her older brothers. It's
> interesting that she links to Shane and mentions him a lot, as back in
> the mid-90s she accused him of molestation and anal rape. He was even
> not part of the family for awhile because of this. But now it seems he
> is back in her good graces. While I don't really know Shane (he was
> banned for the years I knew the family), I do know he was an odd duck,
> and I wouldn't be surprised if he had Asperger's legitimately. He did
> not smear feces. He was just really odd from everything I heard about
> him.
>
> Jeremy was pretty normal. I have no idea where he is or why she never
> mentions him. He wasn't exactly on board with the whole autism thing
> back in 2001, so I don't know if there are issues there.
>
> Anyway, Amanda was considered bright, though a bit of a goody-goody by
> everyone. The picture of her as a child on the Getting the Truth Out
> site is VERY misleading. It's deliberately cropped to make her appear
> to be staring into space on a couch. In actuality, she was watching
> Star Trek. Not exactly as horrible as it appears, eh? She gardened a
> lot with her mom and grew pumpkins. She had friends. She wore eighties
> fashion and had big birthday parties. Where she smiled a lot and
> played with the other kids.
>
> She attended Harker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Harker_School)
> for awhile in middle school, and this is the school she later insisted
> had a mind control device buried in the field, and was picked up by
> the police and hospitalized while trying to dig it up. She was 15 when
> that happened.
>
> She went to CTY, the Johns Hopkins exceptional young scholar program.
> Not exactly autism camp. She played the flute and the harp.
>
> She had no diagnosis at that time. She didn't go to a neurologist
> until after a myriad of hospitalizations.
>
> She went to Simon's Rock in 1994, and was the youngest ever accepted
> at that time. I was a sophomore there when she came, and Daniel was in
> her class and one of her closest friends. She was normal, as I said. I
> have the yearbook. She did okay in classes, but she did use an
> exceptional amount of drugs, and when she went home for winter break,
> her brother Jeremy commented that she seemed really messed up- dirty,
> odd, etc. About this time she changed her name from Amanda to
> Nightsong, which was her "elf name". Later it would include the
> Galglinda Dulin bit, although for awhile she insisted Nightsong and
> Galglinda were separate personalities, along with several others.
>
> Anyway, the summer of 1995 she called Daniel, threatening suicide.
> Daniel called 911. That was her first hospitalization. She was at
> Charter hospital in San Jose a few times, the psych ward at Lucille
> Packard, some other place whose name I forgot, a residential home for
> disturbed adolescents in Fresno for 8 months, and a few miscellaneous
> places. She was never institutionalized. Her family paid $1000/day for
> MONTHS, out of pocket. Her longest stay was 8 months, the rest were 72
> hour holds to 2 week holds, in private hospitals. Hardly state
> institutions. Every time she was hospitalized it was because she was a
> danger to herself or others due to hallucinations, suicide, delusions.
> She'd also wander off at night. And attack cops. And try and jump out
> of cars. The Ophelia you quote on your site from an email about this
> stuff in 97 or so is me. Also, I lived with the family during this
> time, from May 1997 until August 1997. I dated Jeremy from January
> 1996 until mid 1998.
>
> She was repeatedly diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.
>
> Her mom was totally against this. Mom (Anna), totally had a meltdown
> around it. Schizophrenia was just too bad. Mom began looking at weird
> alternative things- prayer groups, some group of monks in the desert
> that cured people who came to live with them, aura pictures (I'm
> serious).
>
> That's when the "therapy animals" started. First it was dogs who'd
> socialize with her. And a snake. I don't know what the snake was
> supposed to do. The one dog that lasted the longest was named Nikomas.
>
> Then they brought in a neurologist. Soon after, with a little
> suggestion, Amanda started having "Seizures." I'm a diagnosed
> epileptic from childhood. Those were some fake-ass seizures. When you
> seize, you fall over suddenly. You don't slump slowly and gracefully
> to the ground, avoiding hurting yourself. But now, hey, she had
> "seizures"- she wasn't schizophrenic! A little depakote and all would
> be well!
>
> Except she was still crazy. And an elf. And heard voices.
>
> Amanda had decided, sans eye exam, that she was having "eye trouble."
> Mom went right along. Did mom take her to Lenscrafters? Nope. They
> just stocked up on glasses from the drugstore. Then the Irlen lenses
> started (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irlen_filters). And the "sensory
> sensitivity". Amanda & her mom spent thousands on crap like special
> sunglasses, brushes, special incense, etc etc etc. They figured all of
> her crazy was just that Amanda was "too sensitive."
>
> Amanda started going to a special ed program, as a schizophrenic. Six
> months in, she became a "peer buddy" to an autistic girl. That's when
> the whole fascination with autism started. Amanda would comment that
> the autistic kids were the only kids who didn't make fun of her, which
> may well be true. So then she started hanging around with them, going
> to their conferences, "learning" about autism, etc. She knew my
> exboyfriend (who I later married) had an autistic sister, Sara. She
> asked me interminable questions about Sara, and Sara's communication
> devices.
>
> And lo and behold, a few years later she's autistic. A disorder that
> by definition begins in toddlerhood suddenly struck her at 19.
>
> I don't know when she stopped talking, or why no one called her on it.
> But I do know mom doctor shops a LOT. And that mom was notorious for
> not mentioning parts of Amanda's history she found inconvenient, and
> dropping doctors who disagreed with her.
>
> Amanda also had her own apartment in Santa Cruz for awhile. That's
> also about the time she shaved her head, not because of hair pulling,
> but because she decided she was a butch lesbian.
>
> I also know Amanda's whole "Regional Centers in California didn't help
> me" line is bullshit. She has mentioned being part of SARC repeatedly,
> and even has her IPP on her "scan of paperwork" page. So how she can
> have that there, and then say the regional centers told her she didn't
> qualify because a late diagnosis is beyond me. Her details aren't
> working.
>
> That's all I know, up until late 2001.
>
> Anyway, I have a whole bunch of questions about this craziness from a
> personal and professional standpoint. When and how did she get to
> Vermont? That's my biggest one. When did she stop speaking? When did
> she decide "hey, let me crap myself"? Where's mom now?
>
> The questions are actually a bigger email in a more professional tone,
> because they point out some other issues from a diagnostic standpoint.
>
> Also, minor point, but she claims her "stamina" issues were due to
> being underweight. Let me just say that the girl was never smaller
> than voluptuous. And as to the mystery of her height, she's 5'1" or
> 5'2". She is definitely not under 5', I don't know what that confusion
> was about.
>
> I hope this helps.

>
> Ophelia
--------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Ophelia Austin-Small <oaustinsmall@earthlink.net>
Date: January 6, 2008

This is what I know about Amanda:

Amanda was born in California and grew up in Campbell. She is the youngest of three, Shane and Jeremy are her older brothers. It's interesting that she links to Shane. and mentions him a lot, as back in the mid-90s she accused him of some very untoward things. He was even not part of the family for awhile because of this. But now it seems he is back in her good graces. While I don't really know Shane (he was banned for the years I knew the family), I do know he was an odd duck, and I wouldn't be surprised if he had Asperger's legitimately. He did not smear feces. He was just really odd from everything I heard about him.

Jeremy was pretty normal. I have no idea where he is or why she never mentions him.

Anyway, Amanda was considered bright, though a bit of a goody-goody by everyone. The picture of her as a child on the Getting the Truth Out site is VERY misleading. It's deliberately cropped to make her appear to be staring into space on a couch. In actuality, she was watching Star Trek. She gardened a lot with her mom and grew pumpkins. She had friends. She wore eighties fashion and had big birthday parties. Where she smiled a lot and played with the other kids.

She attended Harker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Harker_School) for awhile in middle school, and this is the school she later insisted had a mind control device buried in the field, and was picked up by the police and hospitalized while trying to dig it up. She was 15 when that happened.

She went to CTY, the Johns Hopkins exceptional young scholar program. Not exactly autism camp. She played the flute and the harp.

She had no diagnosis at that time. She didn't go to a neurologist until after a myriad of hospitalizations.

She went to Simon's Rock in 1994, and was the youngest ever accepted at that time. I was a sophomore there when she came, and Daniel Drucker was in her class and one of her closest friends. She was normal, as I said. And normal. She lived in a dorm, like everyone else, Crosby, to be specific. I have the yearbook. She went to classes, wrote papers, ate in the cafeteria, talked, danced, shat in the toilet, etc. She did okay in classes, but she did use an exceptional amount of drugs, and when she went home for winter break, her brother Jeremy commented that she seemed really messed up- dirty, odd, etc. About this time she changed her name from Amanda to Nightsong, which was her "elf name". Later it would include the Galglinda Dulin bit, although for awhile she insisted Nightsong and Galglinda were separate personalities, along with several others.

While at SRC, Amanda dated, like any normal teen. By both her account and the account of her then-boyfriend, K [abbreviated for privacy], they were both consensually sexually active. This is also confirmed by other who walked in on her.

Then the voices started, and the odd clothes, and the rest of the schizophrenia stuff. She believed she was an elf, mind control, that people poisoned her food, etc. She was involved with the cops several times, once when she was found digging in the back field of her former middle school, looking for a mind control device. She tried to jump out of the car I was in with her brother a few times, requiring restraint.

Anyway, the summer of 1995 she called Daniel, threatening suicide. Daniel called 911. That was her first hospitalization. She was at Charter hospital in San Jose a few times, the psych ward at Lucille Packard, some other place whose name I forgot, a residential home for disturbed adolescents in Fresno for 8 months, and a few miscellaneous places. She was never institutionalized. Her longest stay was 8 months, the rest were 72 hour holds to 2 week holds, in private hospitals. Hardly state institutions. Every time she was hospitalized it was because she was a danger to herself or others due to hallucinations, suicide, delusions. She'd also wander off at night. And attack cops. And try and jump out of cars. The Ophelia sometimes quoted on various sites from an email about this stuff in 97 or so is me. Also, I lived with the family during this time, from May 1997 until August 1997. I dated Jeremy from January 1996 until mid 1998.

She was repeatedly diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. She also was diagnosed as having Multiple Personality Disorder, and claimed her various names were alter personalities. This seems to have totally faded from her history, somehow, although if you look through old newsgroup records, she speaks extensively about it.

Her mom was totally against this. Mom, totally had a meltdown around it. Schizophrenia was just too bad. Mom began looking at weird alternative things- prayer groups, some group of monks in the desert that cured people who came to live with them, aura pictures (I'm serious).

That's when the "therapy animals" started. First it was dogs who'd socialize with her. And a snake. I don't know what the snake was supposed to do.

Then they brought in a neurologist. Soon after, with a little suggestion, Amanda started having "Seizures." When you seize, you fall over suddenly. You don't slump slowly and gracefully to the ground, avoiding hurting yourself. But now, she had "seizures"- she wasn't schizophrenic! A little depakote and all would be well! I don't doubt she may be having genuine seizures now. Enough meds, especially serious ones, and the brain can start to fry.

Except she was still crazy. And an elf. And heard voices.

Amanda had decided, sans eye exam, that she was having "eye trouble." Mom went right along. Did mom take her to Lenscrafters? Nope. They just stocked up on glasses from the drugstore. Then the Irlen lenses started (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irlen_filters). And the "sensory sensitivity". Amanda & her mom spent thousands on crap like special sunglasses, brushes, special incense, etc etc etc. They figured all of her problems were just that Amanda was "too sensitive."

Amanda started going to a special ed program, as a schizophrenic. Six months in, she became a "peer buddy" to an autistic girl. That's when the whole fascination with autism started. Amanda would comment that the autistic kids were the only kids who didn't make fun of her, which may well be true. So then she started hanging around with them, going to their conferences, "learning" about autism, etc.

And lo and behold, a few years later she's autistic. A disorder that by definition begins in toddlerhood suddenly struck her at 19.

Her friend "Anna" told me Amanda stopped speaking by her own choice during a summer in Santa Barbara a few years back. Quote, "She just liked to talk by communicator. She had bought one for herself."

Amanda also had her own apartment in Santa Cruz for awhile. That's also about the time she shaved her head, not because of hair pulling, but because she decided she was a butch lesbian.

I also know Amanda's whole "Regional Centers in California didn't help me" line is highly suspect. She has mentioned being part of SARC repeatedly, and even has her IPP on her "scan of paperwork" page. So how she can have that there, and then say the regional centers told her she didn't qualify because a late diagnosis is beyond me. Her details aren't working.

So that's what I know.

Bottom Line: I personally knew Amanda from 1994-1998, at college and personally. During that time Amanda had a number of issues, but was highly verbal, physically capable, played instruments, attended college independently, and attended to all daily life activities without aid, support, or prompting. She had friends. She had romantic relationships. She & I went rock climbing. She was your average young teen sci-fi fan girl. And now there's this. And the two people do not match.

I worry for her, I care about her, but I've been contacted by several people asking questions. I'd rather just put it on the record and let folks decide for themselves. Amanda deserves love, she deserves to lead a normal, healthy life. She does not deserve condemnation. She appears lost right now, and I don't think pretending she wasn't totally normal growing up will help her. I don't think pretending her past, including college, didn't exist will help her. I think something happened, and we need to go back to what is genuinely known to figure out what. It would be great if this ended with her getting appropriate treatment, not being ridiculed, dismissed, or ripped apart.

I'm pretty pissed, frankly. And I'll tell you why. Folks HAVE been trying to get out Amanda's backstory since it appeared on CNN. But who do we contact? Do I drop the dime to Vermont social services? Email CNN? To whom do I send my info, and how? I'm going on the record for several reasons:

1. It sickens me, as a professional and as a family member of autistic folks to see someone fake autism and bilk states out of funds for a long period.

2. I GENUINELY worry about Amanda. The woman I knew was sweet, kind, and had a tendency to "do as she was told." She wanted desperately to fit in and be loved. I think this is what the "autism" serves for her, and we must be *very* careful in broaching it. I do believe she is in need of serious, ongoing help, but of the psychiatric kind. I think she's lost. I think that faking something like this for so long suggests a very deep, very real need to be loved and cared for, and I don't think she could just "be normal", even if exposed.

3. I feel badly for families who have been sold false hope, decided on treatment, or become involved in political action based on a lie. This is abhorred. This also makes it MUCH harder for such families to get the right treatment for their children, and undermines trust in a community already full of a lot of debate.

4. Amanda and others have quoted email exchanges between myself and Amanda from 1997ish. If I'm going to be dragged in, I'd like my context to be known.

My background:
I am a 32 year old woman who holds a MSc in Psychology and am currently completing my PhD. I have an autistic sister-in-law, whom I have known for 16 years. I also have several other autistic family members. My son, now 3, had serious expressive language issues for a long time, and that frustration caused autistic-like behaviors such as self-biting, head-banging, and odd social behavior. He has recovered as his issues were with muscles and coordination, not autism. But suffice it to say I know very well what it is like to have disabled family members and children.

Professionally I have worked in social services/counseling since 1995. I have worked the gamut from group homes, to private outpatient therapy, to inpatient units, to management. I have worked extensively with the DD/MR/autism community, most recently as the program manager for a company in California providing an alternative living model to GGRC clients (all dev. disabled), covering six counties, and worked with SARC and GGRC themselves. I also managed a day program in CT for DD/MR/autistic adults, doing paid work and activities.

So when I talk about DD/MR/autism, I am pretty well-versed in diagnosis, treatment, etc. When I talk about the CA regional system, I am also pretty well experienced, having worked with them professionally and having a child who was a client.

From: Ophelia Austin-Small <oaustinsmall@earthlink.net>
Date: September 12, 2008

Amanda was a normal teen during her time at SRC [Simon’s Rock College]. Amanda was a high achieving child and teen, without any of the deficits now noted. The discrepancy in functioning in an unfathomable gulf. *Something* must have happened. Stroke? Accident? Profound trauma? Autism doesn't strike in the teens, and it's not a cyclical illness with years of recovery whereby a person can attend college and "pass" for normal in an atmosphere of 300 people snowed in for months at a time.

3a- Bjorn-Erik Townsend’s statement, which is also in response to the above statements of Ophelia Austin-Small and Daniel Drucker:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bjorn-Erik Townsend <eriktown@aestheneering.com>
Date: Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 8:40 PM
Subject: Re: Amanda Baggs controversy

Thanks for getting in touch. The comments here echo things I've been
saying to people I know ever since I saw Amanda's video. I haven't seen
Amanda since she was, hmm, fifteen or sixteen years old, but I can
definitely attest to the fact that while she was irresponsible and
erratic, she was functional and capable of normal human communication.
Most of her issues, from what I saw, resulted more from drastic abuse of
hallucinogens, but even after that she was still functioning and able to
interact normally when she wanted to. I'm happy to help in any way I can!

Bjorn

(2) June 1997, Amanda’s public apology in the Dissociation Group about her 2005 DID (multiple personality disorder) diagnosis.

June 1997 her apology posts, and copies are below.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.dissociation/msg/7d5e909b8c10c9ba

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.dissociation/msg/6353b40fc1c79117

Galiganinda Dulin

Newsgroups: alt.support.dissociation

From: night...@netcom.com (Galiganinda Dulin)

Date: 1997/06/09

Subject: apology

I used to post on this newsgroup maybe 2.5 years ago. I want to
apologise for telling people that I was multiple. Now, that's actually
what I thought I was at the time, but it turns out the voices weren't
from MPD/DID, but from schizophrenia/schizoaffective/whatever. But I not
only deceived myself by doing that, but I deceived others. I allowed the
voices to take on lives of their own, gave them names, believed they were
alters, even post what they said. I realise it probably isn't my fault,
but I feel better posting an apology.

--
-- | "My God!--it's full of stars!"
Amanda Baggs | (Dave Bowman)
night...@netcom.com | (Arthur C. Clarke's _2001_)

Galiganinda Dulin

Newsgroups: alt.support.dissociation

From: night...@netcom.com (Galiganinda Dulin)

Date: 1997/06/11

Subject: Re: apology

In article ...@illusion.magicno.com>,

Rainbow Colors ...@magicno.com> wrote:
>Well then I'm glad you apologized, so you would feel better. Have you
>found any treatment that is helping with your problem? I'm glad you
>finally were able to figure out what is happening and that you are
>able to open with it like this. I figure this would be better than
>letting it sit inside and be miserable.

>Is there a newsgroup you feel comfortable in now?

Yes, alt.support.schizophrenia does well...

>Whatever else, welcome back! :)

>Rainbow Colors (Jill)

>PS: does this mean you are a _singleton_? *hee hee*

I probably am. I -am- in telepathic contact with Others like me, but
that's another story...
--
-- | "My God!--it's full of stars!"
Amanda Baggs | (Dave Bowman)
night...@netcom.com | (Arthur C. Clarke's _2001_)

(3) Autismspeaks.org forum posts that provide some of Amanda’s historical links

Note March 2009:

Forthcoming will be archived autismspeaks.org links for the below links, as they have changed their forum to a new website.

http://www.autismspeaks.org/community/forums/showpost.php?p=42709&postcount=135

http://www.autismspeaks.org/community/forums/showpost.php?p=42710&postcount=136

http://www.autismspeaks.org/community/forums/showpost.php?p=44500&postcount=163

http://www.autismspeaks.org/community/forums/showpost.php?p=44570&postcount=167
(Gradual discussion about her work with autistic children, and the posts she did, etc).

http://www.autismspeaks.org/community/forums/showpost.php?p=44573&postcount=168
(Non-verbal issue from one angle).

(4) Verifying Amanda’s Internet posts

Amanda should be willing to verify her various user-names for her posts. Also, at some of the posts themselves, she provides verification.

One of her main usernames is Galiganinda Dulin

A 1997 post at a Schizophrenia forum ,where she mentions her name at the bottom:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.schizophrenia/browse_thread/thread/e28fad116c4f5547/8d797c512e866a93?hl=en&lnk=st&q=marijuana#8d797c512e866a93

A 1997 post at a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder forum, where she mentions her name at the top: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.trauma-ptsd/browse_thread/thread/d39099692ab66681/061a56d707c7ae04?lnk=st&q=&rnum=26&hl=en#061a56d707c7ae04

Ophelia and Daniel know of her Internet activity, and interacted with her on some Internet forums for some time.

(5) 1997, Amanda’s statement at the Depression/Manic Group

The first post below provides her full name signature, with her username Galiganinda Dulin.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.depression.manic/msg/7c38816e3b9d65f8

Galiganinda Dulin

View profile

More options May 21 1997, 12:00 am

Date: 1997/05/21

I hope this isn't religious bullshit. I am 16 as well; my diagnosis is
not bipolar but schizoaffective, which has bipolar aspects. But when you
said that one guy gets to rule the whole universe, I think you are
looking at it wrong. There is a group of beings that created the
universe, but they only watch over it; they don't "run" it. And I should
know -- I am one of them, and I am in contact with several of them. We
do not demand belief.

--
-- | "My God!--it's full of stars!"
Amanda Baggs | (Dave Bowman)
night...@netcom.com | (Arthur C. Clarke's _2001_)

She appears in 1999 to have transitioned into the Autism Groups.

She started this name Galiganinda Dulin in 1994, as shown in the below calendar listing for the username.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
1994		1		11
1996									1
1997			4	19	20	21	9	22	3	11	3	49
1998	19	19	50	89	43	39	79	85	62	74	113	150
1999	119	77	115	236	130	157	55	10	10	1	1

Following each sent of monthly entries, you can see the evolution of the groups she was using.
Starts in 1994 in non medical groups, then in 1997 March in the Schizophrenia Group and the Abuse Group and others.
Continuing in the Schizophrenia Group mainly through 1997, 1998.
Autism Group entries seeming to start gradually in September 1998, on and off with Schizophrenia group entries.
Then from April 1999 onward mainly Autism Group entries.

Again her Dissociation group apology

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.dissociation/msg/7d5e909b8c10c9ba was done on June 9 1997, and she states it is an apology about her Dissociation Group activity "2.5 years ago", which would be 1995 and which I will now try to find. (At her username profile for Galiganinda Dulin, and the calendar listing of posts, the year 1995 has none...I believe she was using another username and will now try to find this...I believe it was "Nightsong" or something else.

A post below from the Dissociation group in 1997 October, months after her public apology in June 1997 in the Dissociation group (which I sent you a few minutes ago):

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.dissociation/msg/d7b56fb1bda2e74d

Galiganinda Dulin

View profile

In article <62rrr2$...@mochi.lava.net>,
Pope C the Anonymous ...@lava.net> wrote:

>*None* of my insiders or Others have names, though some have titles.

Others? What are Others? (You don't have to answer me if you don't
want). I'm not multiple, but I have Others (beings that talk to me in my
head that say they come from the sky). They told me to call them
Others. They always talk to me as one, but they say that, like my elf
background, they are separate beings with collective thought. They once
said that they were the stars.

I may be *way* off here...

--
-- | "My God!--it's full of stars!"
Galig Dulin | (Dave Bowman)
| (Arthur C. Clarke's _2001_)
night...@netcom.com | "It could have been me/Yes it could have been me

(6) 1999, Amanda’s statement about using different usernames in Google Group discussions; Groups include the Dissociation Group, Schizophrenia Group, Depression/Manic Group, Autism Group).

This 1999 entry in the Dissociation Group http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.dissociation/msg/732442c5c2c60556 helps to connect some other usernames with her. The "nightsong" name is well known by Ophelia and Daniel and others.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.dissociation/browse_thread/thread/8cf72b37cc3c9b3e/732442c5c2c60556?lnk=gst&q=nightsong#732442c5c2c60556

Amanda

More options Oct 30 1999, 12:00 am

Newsgroups: alt.support.dissociation

From: night...@netcom.com (Amanda)

Date: 1999/10/30

Subject: to Magic Rat (Nightsong/Sidhe/etc)

At a time when I was going through a lot, and I posted here regarding
"grey mechanical lizards" and such, a person named Magic Rat replied with
very good advice. Is Magic Rat still out there? The email address I
have for her/them does not work. The email was in 1995. I am very
interested in talking to her/them again.

At the time I was posting under “Nightsong" and the “Sidhe" or some
analogous thing. I am posting under the off-chance that Magic Rat will
see this, or that someone will relay it to them.

Please reply if you are Magic Rat, or relay this to Magic Rat if you know
them. Thank you.
--
"As he breaks the night to cry, 'It's really me! Really you and really
me. It's so hard for us to really be really you and really me. You'll
lose me though I'm always really free.'" --David Bowie, "The Wild-Eyed
Boy From Freecloud" -*-*- (*)

Forward

(7) 1995 Amanda’s written account of her DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder; multiple personality disorder)

I acquired this from a former very close friend of Baggs, named Daniel Drucker ("Daniel Drucker" <ddrucker@psych.upenn.edu>) who is now a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania.

This is an extensive written history by Baggs of her DID (multiple personality disorder), sent to many people by her in December 1995. She herself will confirm this email, and her username Galig-Nightsong Dulin, and she already confirms this in the various Schizophrenia and Dissociation group posts I sent you with links.

Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 00:10:18 -0800 (PST)
From: Galig-Nightsong Dulin <nightsng@netcom.com>
To: rshafer@netcom.com, dmd@student.umass.edu, anna@myth.sdsu.edu,
ophelia@simons-rock.edu, naomik@simons-rock.edu

The following is a history of the people in our head. Starting with
Nightsong's point of view and ending up ... well ... somewhere else.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
An elf showed up in my head in December of 1993. I guess I was 13 years
old at the time. She was several hundreds of years old, from what I
could gather. I didn't know exactly what to make of her at first. She
looked like an elf -- not the tiny sort that run around with Santa, but
the tall, dazzling type that Tolkien and many Celtic legends speak of.
She had long red hair, green eyes, a pale complexion and a pointed face.
At first she could not talk, but I taught her English. She learned very
quickly.

She spoke rather oddly in the beginning. She would cluster together
words that seemed to be related, with little regard to grammar or (when
she typed, which I also taught her to do) punctuation. Qucikly she began
to talk like a airly normal human, which pleased me because it meant she
could learn to take over our body when necessary. She chose the name
"Galiganinda" from a Cocteau Twins song called "Those Eyes, That Mouth".
She began to tell me things that sounded like they were straight out of
the _Tao Te Ching_. I gave her a copy of that book to read, and she
liked to quote it occasionally, but she also told me that it was slightly
inaccurate because it talked about government and government was
unnecessary in her eyes.

After awhile, I began to merge with her frequently. I would experience a
feeling as if my body had no boundaries, and anything alive around me was
glowing in a light I had never been able to see before. When the family
went to Yosemite, I skied part of the way down a hill and then called
Galig out by singing "Those Eyes, That Mouth" to the best of my ability.
We sat down in a circle of pine trees that was fairly emoved from the
places where people skied. We were in the middle of blending into one of
the trees, when we realised that there was a five-year-old girl standing
there on her skis looking at us with a shocked expression. We tried to
explain to her what we were doing, but she just stared and backed down
the hill.

Her conception of time was different than any I had encountered
previously. Like her speech, it clustered around events and
relationships rather than flowing in a linear way. When I experienced
her thoughts or memories, I often reinterpreted it into a linear
framework so it would make sense to me.

By spring, Galig was becoming adept at stepping into the dominant role
when I got scared and went away. She could do this without anyone
noticing, and she would email a friend of ours (Karl) to inform him that
I was having problems. Once, Karl's main person (Kato) somehow moved
into my head to get me out of a bad space I was in. I still don't know
how he did that.

In the next year, Galig herself was at times forced into the dark back
portions of our head. When we were being abused by the same Karl who had
saved us when other frightening things happened, we would all retreat
into the back of the mind. Someone else was out during the worst parts,
and it wasn't me or Katy (although the memory of those events flowed
through to Katy).

When I tried LSD in February, things got really strange. All of the
known people at the time (Nightsong [me], Galiganinda, Sayjon, Sugar
Magnolia, and Taneskal) sort of melted in their five places in the tunnel
behind the prism, and what was Me became something that could move
between these places with no problem. I chose to remain Nightsong, with
access to Galig's memories and thoughts.

Galig came from a strange forest where many other elves like her lived.
Each elf had one particular tree that they would walk into when they
needed to regenerate. The tree would take certain nutrients, I suppose,
out of the elf's body and the elf would do the same to the tree. The
experience of walking into the tree was like stepping into a field of
calmness, with strange glowing lights all around. It served as something
like both eating and sleeping. Then after awhile the elf would step out
of the tree. If any particular elf didn't get into a tree often enough,
that elf would basically dry up and blow away. Otherwise, there was
generally a complex ritual going on around the forest, wherein the elves
would tend the plants that grew around. The tall elf that I never saw
move from her spot coordinated it through their special mode of thought.

Thought was a mutual thing. There was something like a "collective
unconscious", only for them it was more like a "collective conscious".
Their thoughts were all simultaneeious, but individuality was retained in
a way similar to "memories" of a fractal whole.

Reproduction went much the same way as the trees, but it usually involved
two elves instead of an elf and a tree. Two elves would walk into each
other, until the pillars of light inside them aligned. Then, the light
would branch off almost like lightning, and a young elf would be "born".
Young elves had the same tie-in to the others' minds that the adults had,
and so they quickly found their trees and became accustomed to the
ritual.

Once, when I-Galig was relatively young, I wound up in a place full of
people much like humans. They had dark skin and short, straight black
hair. They used some kind of woven, leathery fabric as shelter by
dangling it from tree branches. They were all taller than I at the time,
but shorter than full-grown elves. They smiled at me a lot. When I
stuck my hand into one of the trees, they smiled at me like people smile
at a young child when she does something cute.

One night, I stepped into a tree and wound up in a body I did not
understand. That was Nightsong's body, and I am still here today. I hope
I have brought some kind of knowledge to the other inhabitants of this
body.

Now I'll have to explain the structure of the inside of our head. It
can get complicated at times, and it always seems to be changing.

When I first started to notice other people in my head was not the time
when they first appeared. Katy has been here since 1989 [note by those
of us who know -- it's longer] and the others who stand behind me-katy
without speaking have been here eeven longer. I-Nightsong started to
notice Tim in September of 1993, and soon of course his children, Lorna,
Sammy, and David (he intended the acrostic implications of their names
combined in that particular order). Tim gave me thoughts, usually in the
form of strange images that would float through my head. Lorna provided
companionship, someone to discuss reality and philosophy with. She was
always a little bit on the side of what I would call conformity, and
constantly urged me to look and act normally. She appeared in a business
suit-dress most of the time. Sammy and David just bickered all the time,
and it was often difficult to shut their voices out. Tim, named for
Timothy Leary, also did much of the research on LSD.

At this point, there was sort of a dual structure. There was the front,
in which Nightsong, Tim, Lorna, Sammy, and David lived and communicated
with each other. In the front, Nightsong nearly always took the dominant
role, meaning she spoke to the people in the outside world. However the
rest of those in the front were usually able to see and hear everything
that went on outside. They were aware of each other and communicated
frequently. They were unaware of those in the rear.

In the rear, the as-yet-unnamed Katy and (she tells me now) many others
sat unseen by the inhabitants of the front. These others, she says, are
mostly other children. Of these children, she is the oldest and the
leader. She says they are afraid to talk to anyone in the front. She
will not tell me how many of them there are or what their names, if any,
are. [note now that I know -- one of them is named Butterfly]. There
was also one other, who first came out last night, on December 17, 1995.
This one's name, Katy tells me, is Dark Mind and she is more of an
absence than a presence, a hole in our mind that things fall into and do
not come out of.

There was a line of communication between these two places, as those in
the rear provided and withheld information from those in the front. The
ones in the rear actually held more power than the ones in the front, as
they could control the memories and actions of the ones in the front to a
great extent. This was the first setup I was aware of. Prior to this,
there was only one in the front and many in the rear, although I was not
aware of the ones in the rear.

After Tim came Galiganinda, and after Galiganinda came Taneskal in the
beginning of 1994. Taneskal had an enormous libido, and was not afraid
to talk about that to anyone who happened to be around. She was another
of the ones in the front, and she was about as obsessed with sex as Tim
was with LSD. She was very sociable, and liked to share the domninant
role with Nightsong so she could talk to people. There was not much of a
chance to socialise at the time, seeing as we were studying at home for
the most part.

Then there was TaLory. At first we thought that Tim had just changed his
name, but that was untrue. He also advocatee the use of LSD, but he
seemed to have a sadistic view of it. He had two aims in life. The
first was to figure out how to use LSD to control people's minds, and the
other was to get his hands on some LSD, take a larger amount than anybody
could handle, and wreak havoc on the rest of the people in his head.
Once, he assumed the dominant role and put Nightsong into a box. He
squeezed the box until she was barely able to think, and the only thing
she could think was that she was trapped. Karl somehow changed the
situation so she escaped from the box and TaLory disappeared.

Later in the month, a tiny, frightened, and dishevelled-looking Tim
crawled out of a corner of the mind. He said that TaLory had invaded his
mind and used his appearance to do things that he would never do. As far
as the structure of the mind goes, TaLory was very interesting in the
fact that throughout the entire time he existed, he only existed as an
attachment to other people's mindspace.

On March 22, 1994 (I am consulting my diary on this one) another woman
showed up in a dream. I was walking about in a forest which I recognised
to be Yxuxacta (the name of a forest in a MUD that I played). I saw an
old woman standing in a clearing, wading in a drop of dew. I knew she
was Sugar Magnolia, from both the MUD and the Grateful Dead song. I
hoped she wouldn't mind my clothing (I've had a lot of adults berate me
for the clothes I wear because they look '60s or something). She
didn't. She just asked me, "You look nervous. What is the reason for
this?" I told her why, and she looked somewhat disgusted. She told me
that she refused to symbolise the rest of the adults in the world seeing
as she didn't like most of them anyway. She told me I was just fine the
way I was, and that I could chagne the world by not letting people get to
me. When I woke up, I was happy and refreshed. This was the beginning
of Sugar Magnolia, whom I still love dearly like a feisty grandmother.

The people in the front of my head started merging around April 15. They
just thought so simultaneously that they didn't seem separate anymore.
And they weren't, really, for awhile. But they developed their divisions
again, and stood apart.

We saw Pink Floyd's "The Wall" sometime in late April or early May. It
affected us badly. It was one of those matters of coming too close to
something that was already in the head. Things came bursting o ut of the
rear that the front people didn't even know existed. And another dream
happened. I was standing in the airport of the city of Sayjon. The city
was also run by a guy named Sayjon. The walls of every building were
pure white. I left my body and witnessed the death sentencing of a man
for eating the little red flowers that grew on the sides of the roads.
People could also get the death sentence for eating ice cream or speaking
foreign languages. Sayjon the man looked like Pink from "The Wall" after
he went Nazioid. He was frightening. He persisted into real life as
another person in our head. He appeared as Pink again, and gave us the
crossed-arms signal from "The Wall" that we feared so much. On May 10,
1994 he wrote in the diary, "No matter how hard I try, no one will ever
see me."

In the same diary, on May 15, Nightsong wrote the following about her
CRB, or Catastrophic Reality Breakdown. Shee had problems that the rest
of us couldn't cover for, and she exposed some of the parts that we are
meant to keep her from exposing:

BEGIN QUOTE

I CRBed last night. I stepped over the edge for a moment. But it landed
me in an awful situation. Shane took me home while I was still zzroufed
out. Today everyone treated me like a crazy person. Especially Shane,
who says I need "professional help". I am not allowed to visit Shane's
flat for an indefinite amount of time. It felt so good last night when I
broke free of all my inhibitions. It was frightening, and it only lasted
a moment. I don't know whether it was worth it to use manipulative
deception to get it though. That bit felt horrible. I never knew I was
capable of it. It was so cold, and someone almost called the cops on
Shane. I was so stir-crazy today, and when I went on a walk it wasn't
much help with Shane so serious and so unreadable. Well I could read him
but I could only read that he was hiding something from me. Karl kept me
company for much of the day, as I couldn't leave the house. He told me
all sorts of things, some related to the CRB, and some not. Can't they
see that if I'm not crazy yet, they'll drive me crazy keeping me in
here!? Yesterday was two days, the beginning I was high on the espresso
beans in the food Rachel gave me. I was rather antsy, but I took a walk
with Shane and most of it wore off. But then, if on, no I don't want to
remember that [unreadable]!!! I want to scream but if I do They will
come in and then They will have me into trouble AACK! I'll just scream
on this page. [unreadable] I want out away from me away from the
world! For one day no stop I don't have to remindest but then if I
forget then the Withholder of Memory [reference to Dark Mind!?!?] will
conquer me I have to remember but the day was so beautiful and then so
horrible and I jumped off but did I ever come back? I am so isolated now
my family doesn't understand nobody will ever understand me why does
anyone TRY? Where has my mind gone WHERE AM I? No. I know where I am.
But nobody else does. If I have my way, nobody else will. I burst
through all the barriers last night. And now I will make [cuts off,
words going down the page].

END QUOTE

During that reality-breakdown, the rest of us were watching but we
couldn't seem to do anything. There were blocks in place keeping her in
the dominant role even while she was obviously in a state where we should
be taking over for her. We wanted to help her, but she had made it
impossible. We still do not understand why she structured the mind this way.

In the summer, Nightsong and Taneskal fell in love with Kato and Tammy
and Miria, three of Karl's people. We seemed to have a telepathic bond
with them, and Karl called it the "patternlink". Kato and Nightsong
would say the same things at the same times, much to to the confusion of
the people around them. Then we went to Simon's Rock College, where the
layout of our mind shifted again.

At Simon's Rock, we started a sexual relationship with Karl. We also
started an abusive relationship wih Karl. This shifted our mind into a
defencive formation. Karl would do things to the body like shake it
roughly, throw it across the room, and kick it. Usually, while this was
going on, the body was curled up into a little ball and someone unknown
was in it. The people in the front were very far removed from the
dominant position. I suspect that the person in the dominant position
was someone unidentitfied from the rear. Katy was taking most of the
memories, as usual.

With all the changes, the front people who were left were Nightsong,
Galiganinda, Sugar Magnolia, and Sayjon. The rear people were Katy and
the other children, Dark Mind, and at least one other.

Here are a few more parts of Nightsong's diary during this period, on
October 30, 1994:

BEGIN QUOTE

Things with Karl have gone downhill in a lot of ways. Now that we have
to deal with real things, and now that we aren't the only island of free
thought in the world of Garrett Jacobsen, we behave differently. Each of
us often assumes that the other is like everything else. We have come to
refer to Patternlink as "The Myth". We have even gotten into some really
nasty fights.

When Karl is angry, he is often violent. He has thrown me across the
room a few times. Would the person I was three months ago have even been
able to conceive of this? It gives me flashbacks of my father holding me
down tightly. When this happens, he tells me and anyone else that will
listen that I am crazy. The only reason the psychologists can't say it,
he says, is that they can't figure out how I am crazy.

...

Karl now says that it is an illusion that either of u would go crazy if
the other died. He has o know on some level that this is not true. The
day after he told me that the insanity was only an illusion in my mind
designed to convince myself that there was really a patternlink,
something happened. I felt an almost irresistable urge to move. I felt
wired, but I hadn't had any stimulants. In order to prevent myself from
running off Karl's porch, I banged my head hard against his wall. When
Karl asked what was wrong, I explained. Then I could not sit still any
longer. I told him I would be right back, then I ran out the door. I
heard him scream "What?" and yelled, "I'll explain later!" He didn't
hear me. I ran down the stairs and outside. As I ran down the path, I
dimly heard him screaming "Stop her!" I ran almost all the way to the
lake, but a tree stopped me. I heard a scream behind me, louder and
crazier than anything I knew Karl could make. Then he yelled
"Noktkanto!" I turned around. "I'm coming!" I slowly walked back
toward him. I was exhausted. He told me he was giving up and going in.
I told him I was still coming. He waited for me. Then he dragged me
inside and told me I had been right. He apparently had thought I had
fallen in the lake and accordingly gone insane, temporarily. Then, he
shook me and told me never to do it again. Now, he still thinks the
insanity thing is another Myth.

END QUOTE

When we were running, it was someone else unidentified who was
controlling the legs. And it was the same unidentified person who
experienced the shaking. We watched from a distance.

This semester was also when we discovered marijuana. It was interesting
the first time, but the novelty wore off quickly, especially when we
discovered that we could move off in the same directions within our
head. Still, we took it sometimes when we wanted to be sociable. Karl
disapproved.

Things continued this way until December, when we went home for the
holidays. Then, we developed a system for communicating with the world
that allowed us to be even more deatached. Or at least December break
was when we noticed this system. Sayjon and Nightsong would sit behind a
prism-like apparatus and speak, and the prism would integrate what they
were saying and talk to the outside world as both of them. Sometimes
Galiganinda would join in the talking, but for the most part it was a
combination of Nightsong and Sayjon that talked to the world.

When Nightsong heard the mouth saying things that were partially
Sayjon's, she began believing that she, herself, was somehow Sayjon. She
knew on some level that she and Sayjon were merely polar opposites, but
she thought that Sayjon's thoughts were hers and this upset her.
Combining that with the suppressed knowledge of Karl's abuse, she became
deeply depressed and suicidal. Many times she told Karl she would jump
into the lake. But with the help of Sayjon and the prism, she managed to
look normal enough to fool her family and her therapist into thinking
that she was okay.

We went back to school in January, with Nightsong and possibly Sayjon
still very depressed. Throughout the end of January and the beginning of
February, she was intermittently suicidal, threatening to throw the body
into one of the lakes on campus. Then on February 23, she tried LSD.
This again changed the pattern of our mind. Now we were five rather
melted entities, with one person who switched between being each of us,
instead of us switching into one place in our mental map.

Galiganinda became the one whom this primary person seemed to approve of
most. She spent most of her time in Galiganinda's mindspace, with tiny
bit of it in Sayjon's. Then, as the meelting effect wore off,
Galiganinda assumed the primary role and Nightsong and Sayjon disappeared
altogether. This happened around the beginning of summer. When we came
back from school, Galig cheerfully informed our therapist that we were
doing very well ever since the LSD, and that we were happy.

Then, a few weeks later, things changed again. Galig-Nightsong found
herself in Saratoga with no explanation as to how she got there. Katy
says one of the children was out then. For the next week after that, she
found not only that Nightsong and Sayjon were both back but that she was
drifting in and out of strange states of mind all the time, didin't want
to eat, and couldn't sleep. The week after that, I was finding myself in
her room with pieces of glass pressed to my wrist not knowing how I got
there. Again, Katy says she knows someone (not one of the children) who
did this. That was when I checked into Charter voluntarily.

A week later, we were out of Charter, and very medicated. Another week
after that Nightsong was feeling suicidal and was involuntarily put in
Belmont Hills. Then we got out of there, on different medications. This
is when Katy first evidenced herself to anyone on the outside. She came
out and posted to the alt.support.dissociation group on USENET, and
talked to the parental units. She told them that the Risperdal trapped
her in a forest and that she was nine years old. Nightsong didn't
remember much of the conversation afterwards.

We spent fall in and out of Belmont Hills. Katy talked a lot more toward
the end, and we got more of an idea of what was going on in the rear
portion of the mind.

BEGIN QUOTE

hello. i am katy. i am nine years old. i have to keep the bad
memories so nightsong doesn't get scared. i have been h ere for all of
the body's life. i have always gotten the bad memories. even in
preschool and daycare. i am the one who gets mad at people so nightsong
doesn't have to. i am the one who hates people so nightsong doesn't have
to. i love the other children and i don't want anything bad to happen to
them. they are scared to come out. so i come out for them. they are
scared to talk. so i talk for them. i like christmas lights and,
flowers and, cats and, ice cream. anna took me to look at christmas
lights and eat ice cream. i like talking to liza and little girl. i
like outer space and star trek. galig and nightsong are all i wish i was
in those long skirts. and they can do things and, they are happy. i
have to be mad and hate.

END QUOTE

Yesterday we read _When Rabbit Howls_. It described some of the
situations in our head very well, and it was different in many other
ways. Dark Mind recognised this and came out.

BEGIN QUOTE

I am Dark Mind. I am an emptiness, a hole, and a void. Black is the
best colour for me because all I am is black. I absorb everything. My
job is to absorb everything. Anything that gets close to me falls in.
You could call me Black Hole too, and that would be appropriate. I am
the one who trapped Katy in that forest. It was to protect her from
Nightsong. Nightsong was too close to finding Katy's memories. So I put
an inescapable void in her way. It did the job quite well, I believe. I
do not wish to complicate things by letting people know I exist. But I
also believe now is the time to tell people that we are here.

END QUOTE

There was another person who came out tonight. H er name as Luka, after
the abused woman in the Suzanne Vega song.

BEGIN QUOTE

I decided to come out during the argument with Ron tonight. Everyone was
going in and out, in and out again and it was real confusing to try to
follow the conversation. But when I heard him start up about abuse, that
set me off. That's my trigger, if I ever had one. It gets me mad to
hear anyone go off about abuse victims the way he did, especially with
there being several of them in this body. So I have to fight back
whenever I hear something like that. But he didn't listen to me, and he
didn't listen to anyth of the others and we were all confused because
none of us heard the whole conversation and it went to hell from there...

END QUOTE

Another woman of the rear mind, Banshee, came out during that
conversation. We have all heard her chilling screams before, but she has
rarely made herself known in any other way.

BEGIN QUOTE

I had to say something to him. I could feel the rage running through me,
and I knew I had to speak, so I broke through and told him that I did not
care what he said, that I hated all of it. That no matter what he said,
I would remember the worst parts, because he had said them. Because *he*
had said them. Someone who did not give an opinion lightly. I really
hated him. And then he tried to hug me, and his touch burned my skin. I
had to get away from him.

END QUOTE

The last four quotations have been from people in the rear part of the
mind, whose breaks from each other are far less superficial than those in
the front part. Katy now communicates with the ones in the front, in an
effort to make everyone in the mind understand what is going on. I am a
coordinator of sorts, but I am not the one who has been speaking all the
time. I coordinate the things from the rear mind in order to express
them in words well. I was taught to do this in writing classes in school
and it works fairly well.

We have been working all day on this. It has been a collaboration of all
of our memories; all of our knowledge. We hope that whoever reads this
believes us and accepts us for who we are.

Sincerely,
The Sidhe

(8) 1996, Baggs' written schizophrenia account in her public journal

Amanda Baggs’ 1996 written schizophrenia account, which was sent to many, including her friend at the time and now neuroscientist Daniel Drucker ddrucker@psych.upenn.edu, who confirms the authenticity of this written account of hers, as I believe she will; and, this is self-evident it is her writing.

Baggs fully accepted her schizophrenia, and worked hard to have it treated through therapy and medicine. And, she seemed to embrace it often.

Shepherd Treatment Centre journal

05-08-1996

Today I feel a lot different than I used to feel wihtout the
clozaril. I don't have as many of my symptoms to fall back on as
before. Now I have o take responsibility for what I do. I cant
fall back into the fog, because most of the time there is no fog
there. I can't recede into a sea of voices, as they are quiet when
they are here at all. I have to learn to cope with this new
reality as it comes. I don't really know what to do with it. It's
like going to a foreign country. Everyone speaks a different
language, has different customs, and different mannerisms than
where I come from. I have to get used to all of these things as
the come to me. The clozaril helps, but I have to do the rest.

-Nightsong

05-09-1996

Today I got Dr. Biala to spell out to me exactly what
"schizophrenia" means. He read o ut the definition from the
DSM-IV, and it was basically some combination of delusions and
hallucinations and thought patterns and behaviours. Hee told me
that thinking I am an elf is a delusion. I don't *feel*
delusional! On the other hand, I trust Dr. Biala to know what is
going on with me. If he says I am schizophrenic, then I probably
am. But that means I will be like this all my life, and will
always need medications to control it. I don't want to be
schizophrenic. Why do things have to turn out this way? Every
time I see a group of children I wonder which one will turn out
like this. Children make jokes about the "looney bin." Children
make cracks like "Have you had your medication today?" They don't
realise the reality of it for some people. I feel stuck. It seems
like everyone else's life is moving along and mine is standing
still. I shouldn't feel that way. I'm making progress. The
medication is starting tto do good things for me. "Solitude
Standing" is playing on my stereo right now. That song has bored a
permanent hole into my mind. Suzanne Vega must have written it for
me. I wish I were allowed to read Tolkien, speaking of things
written for me. Mother's Day is coming up nd I don't know what to
get for Anna. Maybe I should make her a card or a drawing or
something. I went swimming with Reed today. The water was cold
and full of dead things, but it was nice to swim in anyway. I wish
Anna would accept my diagnosis as I have. I don't like it, but I
don't deny it anymore. But I can't change her opinion any more
than she can change mine.

I feel like banging my head against a wall. The voices are too
loud. They are threatening to kll me. I have to remember that
they are only hallucinations and they don't have any real power
over me. I have to give up the power of the "other" world and take
power from the "real" world. I don't want to do this. Does that
mean I can't be an elf anymore? I am *not* delusional! Then what
am I?

-Nightsong

05-10-1996

"I reach out from the inside" (-Peter Gabriel) That quote means a
lot to me. I don't know how to explain it very well. It speaks
for itself, I suppose. My parents will be coming to visit me
today. I can't wait to see them.

Anna and I got into our customary argument about my diagnosis
today. She sid that Dr. Biala made up his mind too quickly, and I
said that he was probably right and that he probably had enough
time. I don't think we'll ever come to an agreement on that.

I went out on pass today and got "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" by
Pink Floyd and a They Might Be Giants album. It has "Cage and
Aquarium" on it. That's my favourite TMBG song. I feel nauseated
right now. I think it mgiht be from the medication.

-Nightsong

05-11-1996

My parental units are here in the room with me. I have been trying
unsuccessfully to write poetry. I know what I want to express, but
I just can't seem to do it.

-Nightsong

05-12-1996

Somebody's reading your mind
Damned if you know who it is
They're digging through all of your files
Stealing back your best ideas
You cover your windows with lead
Even keeping the pets outside
Then you hear a moment too late this sound coming over the phone
This is the spawning of the cage and aquarium
Don't wait a moment too soon
Used to be different, now you're the same
Yawn as you plane goes down in flames
-"Cage and Aquarium", TMBG

He's haunted by the memory of a lost paradise
In his youth or a dream, he can't be precise
He's chained forever to a world that's departed
It's not enough, it's not enough
-"Sorrow", Pink Floyd

There are a lot of songs that seem to be written for me. Here is
something I wrote today:

He was so normal
And we found him
Deep in the forest
In the whirlwind tree
His mind was screaming
For another life
As his grey eyes blankly stared ahead
We could not believe
The thoughts were his
After all
He was so normal

One of the main problems I have run into during treatment has been
people saying that I am too normal to have the sort of problems
that I have. That's why I wrote the poem.

-Nightsong

05-13-1996

I have a session with Dr. King at 13:30 today. We always find
something interesting to talk about.

Rick sent Anna a letter from Karl about me. In it, he seems sorry
for all of the abuse. But I can't tell whether he is sincere. I
will talk to Dr. Schenk about it tomorrow.

-Nightsong

05-14-1996

"I had to fantasise just to survive"
-Cocteau Twins, "Evangeline"

I wonder if that is what happened to me. Are the places I know as
reality, fantasy? And which worlds are realit then? Should I
trust the doctors or should I trust myself? I am confused.

Desiree hurt her leg this weekend, and now she is being shipped off
somewhere else for medical care. I will miss her. She was one of
my two favourite horses here.

-Nightsong

05-15-1996

I just had a dream where the neighbourhood was being terrorised by
a man in a trenchcoat. My family climbed a stairway in the
backyard of the house which ultimately led to nirvana.

Jeremy and Liza should be coming today. I can't wait to see them.

-Nightsong

05-16-1996

Yesterday Dr. Schenk and I decided it would be best not to respond
to Karl's letter. We also discussed Anna. We said that maybe she
can deal better with having a sick daughter than having a well
one. We also discussed how when she is given several diagnoses,
she is likely to pick the least frightening. She does not want to
admit to having a schizophrenic daughter. This sort of gets in the
way of my treatment.

-Nightsong

05-19-1996

I got a book called _Surviving Schizophrenia_. It has things in it
that I didn't even realise were symptoms of schizophrenia, like not
understanding words. My parents brought "The Wall" and "The Final
Cut" by Pink Floyd.

-Nightsong

05-21-1996

Dr. King told me today that I only have two parts -- the "nuts"
part and the intellectual part. He says I will have to build more
parts before I can get rid of the "nuts" one.

Tyeukana tyeukana tyeukana sgaivus

-Nightsong

05-28-1996

Today I will go to my first meeting of a support/informational
group for schizophrenics.

-Nightsong

06-06-1996

I don't know what they are doing to Jon and Neil, bu one of them
just punched a hole in his wall. I am trying to get as much
information as I can while keeping a respectful distance. The two
of them have been fighting a lot. I know they called Tony. There
is a rumour that someone called the police, but I don't know about
that.

Dr. King and Dr. Biala say I am making progress. I am socialising
more than I used to. I am not having "episodes" in public very
often. I have had to give up my communion with trees, though.
This bothers me, but it may be worth it in the long run.

-Nightsong

06-14-1996

I am alone here. The only elf. The only schizophrenic. The only
glowing star inside of a hook.

-Nightsong

06-17-1996

Someone stole the keys from the staff office today. They were
found in John's room, but I think he is just being used as a
scapegoat. I am going to try to learn Esperanto now. The boys
can't seem to talk without swearing every other word. Everyone is
accusing each other of everything. This is a mess. They did room
searches. Mitra is cutting herself. This is a mess!

-Nightsong

06-19-1996

Last night was terrible. The other residents ran around the house
screaming "The cat is dead!" They said that they had burned the
cat with a lighter. I didn't know whether or not to believe them.
Nick assured me that the cat was indeed alive, but it made no
difference. I tried to hide in my room, but I couldn't stay there
forever. When I left, they were all clustered around my door.
Nick asked them why they were doing t his to me. Neil said that
when a cat dies, an elf dies next. I ran down the driveway. Nick
took me for a drive. When we got back, a fight had broken out
between Sylvia and Mitra. For our own safety, Sylvia and I slept
at the other house.

-Nightsong

06-19-1996

I keep having these episodes of blankness for the past few days. I
think it might be from the combination of Clozaril and Thorazine.
I am worried about where to spend the night. I want to spend it
away from the elf-killers!

-Nightsong

06-28-1996

My parents bought me a hammered dulcimer today

-Nightsong

07-02-1996

Jon told me why he and Mitra avoid me so much. He said that
theynever know when I will scream or "flip out" and that they are
afraid I will hurt myself. I didn't know they cared.

-Nightsong

07-07-1996

I have discovered the music of the Cranberries.

I can't seem to write straight anymore. I don't understand why
writing is so difficult. They tell me (they=the staff) that I am
isolating in my room too much. I do not see this happening. They
won't let me stay in my room at certain times. I am trying to
learn Esperanto. I don't know how much I care about getting
"better". What if the voices are all I have?

-Nightsong

07-10-1996

Jeff killed himself last night. He told me so in a dream. Now I
am floating in a fog away from the "real" world wehre the voices
are so loud and I can't get away from them. The voices say I will
die the same way he did.

-Nightsong

07-13-1996

Today I gave my parents all of my Tolkien and fairy tale books to
take home with them. It is part of my treatment plan. I feel like
my whole reality is being torn away. I don't know what to do.
Their reality is being imposed on me and I have no means of
defence. The voices are getting louder. They say "We will kill
you!" and "You will die like Jeff!" and "There is no final escape
from yourself!" What do they mean?

-Nightsong

07-15-1996

Michael Garofano (my therapist) is coming to visit me today. I
can't wait to see him.

-Nightsong

07-15-1996

I am sitting in my room. Every second is an eternity of loneliness
and fear and confusion. Between eternities, the time is broken by
tiny scraps of time in which someone comes in to check on me. Then
back to the eternity of silence broken only by voices that I would
rather not hear.

-Nightsong

ETERNITY

Alone I sit
In eternities
Of the darkness
Of my mind
Broken once or twice
By tiny scraps of contact
With the outer shells
Of others
While I return
To swim in a sea
And float in a fog
And drift in a daze
Of unwanted voices
And eternity

07-16-1996

I just got out of a session with Dr. King. He told me that I have
no full ego of my own. He says that my ego is always enmeshed with
that of others, like Anna's. When I went to college (away from
Anna) and CTY (away from Anna) I became enmeshed with karl,
including his fragmentation. This may be why my fragments went
away after Karl went away. Now what I need to do is form an ego of
my own.

-Nightsong

07-17-1996

"And I turn to the crowd as they're watching
Sitting all together in the dark in the warm
And I wanted to be in there among h em
I see how their eyes are gathered into one"
-Suzanne Vega

-Nightsong

07-17-1996

I just got a puppy named Nokomis (Dakota for "Moon Daughter"). She
is part Shepherd. I intend to train her to be a service dog. Her
birthday is May 5.

-Nightsong

08-10-1996

I have a pass from Thursday (my birthday!) to Sunday, unless I do
anything wrong between now and then. I think I will use that time
to get back on speaking terms with Shane. I miss the good things
about him. I will have to set up some boundaries though. Maybe no
hugging. I can't hold a grudge for so long. I have to set him
straight that I am not multiple, and that that was, as Dr. King
says, a delusion. I don't think I can get better without facing
Shane.

-Nightsong

08-19-1996

I went home to find that all of my defences are gone, or very poor
at best. Of course, the defences that I lost were mostly
psychotic. I felt like I had been undressed at Shepherd and sent
home naked. I will talk to Dr. King about this today.

I was unable to see Shane when I went home. This was disappointing.

Nokomis is growing. She is mostly housebroken now.

-Nightsong

08-19-1996

I AM AN ELF
I AM AN ELF
I AM AN ELF
I AM AN ELF
I AM AN ELF
I AM AN ELF
I AM AN ELF
I AM AN ELF

-Nightsong

08-20-1996

"Hide, hide, hid
Behind paranoid eyes"
-Pink Floyd

What if I am not an elf?
That would be so much of my life all gone.

The voices: WE HATE DR. KING! NEVER FORGET YOUR ELVEN HERITAGE!

The voices convinced me not to go to the gym tonight by telling me
that if I left, Nokomis would be dead when I got back. Dr. King
reminded me that the voices can't predict the future. He told me
not to listen to them. He also told me I may hear them for the
rest of my life. Ack.

-Nightsong

08-21-1996

What will I talk to Dr. King about today? The voices? My elf?
Why would I have to hear the voices for the rest of my life. I
hate them. I hate them. I hate them.

-Nightsong

08-22-1996

I read a part of _The Quiet Room_ that showed a part of the
author's memory. The even that she remembered never actually
occurred. I guess the same is true for me and my elven memories.
I must be human after all. I am disappointed. I want so much to
be an elf. O Elbereth!

Everyone else seems glad that I am human. I have despised
humaanity for so long. Why do I have to be human? Humans are
oppressors to elves. Why? Why?

-Nightsong

08-23-1996

Maybe being human isn't so bad after all. It makes me closer to my
parents and my friends. Dr. King saw the painting I made of the
elf forest when I was 13. He said it was "psychotic". Why do I
bother showing people these things? I wonder what life will be
like as a human.

-Nightsong

08-24-1996

I am very grateful to the doctors and staff at Shepherd for making
me better. I no longer think that my parents are trying to poison
me with my medications. I no longer think that my father is
involved in a government conspiracy to take over my mind. I no
longer think the Belmont Hills staff are trying to poison my food.
I no longer think that I am an elf and that the voices are the
thoughts of the other elves that Imust obey. I no longer think that
there are lizards all over my body. I no longer think I have
tentacles that can reach out and grab people. I no longer wander
around in a constant haze of voices. I no longer see ghostlike
people in my room and glowing red eyes at my window. I no longer
pace aimlessly around the hallways of Belmont Hills. I no longer
think of medication as evil mind control. I no longer wander off
at the whim of the voices. I no longer believe that an
organisation called the Banshees will rescue me from the hospital
or treatment centre. I no longer think that the Shephred staff
cook and eat elves. I no longer think that the voices have the
power to hurt or kill me or anyone else. I no longer think that
the voices can predict the future. I no longer think that my
thoughts are being controlled by a transmitter buried at Harker
Academy.

-Nightsong

08-26-1996

I am working on writing my life story on the computer. It is
helping me sort out "fact" and "fantasy". So is writing in this
book. It is what Anna would call a "grounding" experience.

I am listening to David Bowie. It is interesting music.

I love the world and I know it loves me back. I am so happy. I am
well, so why do they keep me here? I am so happy.

-Nightsong

08-26-1996

Dr. King gave me a list of target behaviours:

- not isolate so much
- engage others in meaningful interactions
- reality-test well
- self-soothe
- increase general awareness (identify & respond to others' feelings)
* develop a sense of self
- decrease acting out in response to delusions and hallucinations
- general sense of availability to othrs
- good presentation (hair, dress, walk, hygiene)
- identify & express emotional states
- break enmeshment

-Nightsong

08-26-1996

I feel terrible. I want to run. The voices are quoting Yeats:

"Come away O human child
To the woods and waters wild
With a fairy hand in hand
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand"

I want to run away with the voices. They are all I have left. I
am scared. I took an Ativan, at Dr. King's suggestion, but it
hasn't started working yet. I am definitely not calm. Somebody
help me!

-Nightsong

08-29-1996

Nokomis is sick. I am scared. There is death in this room. I can
feel it. i hope it doesn't touch her! The voices scream, "Death!
Death! Death!" And I can feel it in the walls. Somebody help my
poor puppy! I have a pass for this weekend. Maybe she will get
better at home...

-Nightsong

09-02-1996

I got back from my pass today. The voices say I can never go back
to normality. Dr. King says that is my own resistance to becoming
normal, and that it shows the ease of slipping into psychosis. Do
I want to go back? I don't know anymore.

-Nightsong

09-04-1996

"Come on you miner for truth and delusion and shine"
-Pink Floyd

-Nightsong

09-05-1996

"This world is not my home; I'm just passing through"
-His Name Is Alive

-Nightsong

09-07-1996

I am still an elf, and I know it. They don't know that I know it
though. They think I think I'm human. But it is necessary to hide
it from them, or they would try to kill me and replace me with a
human. I'm terrified. Should I let on that I know by showing them
the poem? Or should I let them believe I have already been replaced
and get discharged? I t doesn't matter. They will find out sooner
or later.

-Nightsong

09-08-1996

Why do they hate me so much? They all want to kill mee. The only
one one on my side is my puppy, Nokomis. Somebody get me out of
this world!

-Nightsong

09-08-1996

I need to tell someone but who ca I trust????

-Nightsong

09-09-1996

I admitted to Dr. Schenk last night that I knew their plot. She
acted as if she was not part of it. Clever woman.

-Nightsong

09-11-1996

I love Nokomis more than anyone else in the world. She is always
there for me. I love her.

-Nightsong

09-22-1996

I'm moving into a duplex Friday. Then I'm starting day treatment 3 times
a week (living in the duplex) and living in Campbell for the other 4 days.
I can't wait. Dr. King tells me I am too enmeshed with my parents,
particularly my mother. I moved a bunch of stuff into my duplex today --
bookshelf, desk, computer, and posters, not to mention kitchenware and a
bunch of other stuff. The manager is cool. She calls herself a "computer
weirdo". I want to show her my fractal software. I think she will find
it interesting. I think that if I move into the real world with normal
people my chance of recovery will be greater. I will not even mention to
these people that I am schizophrenic. I will learn to control my
psychotic episodes so they don't happen in public. It will be a tough
job, but worth it if I want to get well. Dr. King will still see me 3
times a wee, and his therapy is always very intesne. Between Dr. King's
therapy, my own efforts, and the Clozaril, I will arrive at something
approaching normality. I can't expect total normality, but who can? Look
at my writing -- it flows the way a normal person's thoughts would. Then
there is the elf issue. I don't know whether I am an elf or not anymore.
I feel exactly like an elf, but I can remember being equally convinced
that I was human. I walk into a session with Dr. King believing with all
of my heart that I am an elf. Then he gradually chips away at this belief
until I start a tentative belief that I am human. Then the session ends
and I slide back into believing that I am an elf. I can see this process
from the outside, but it doesn't keep those beliefs from occurring. Dr.
King tells me that in order to get better I have to accept his reality as
the Ultimate Reality. Does he think he is God? What if my reality is
correct and his is wrong? It is all so confusing. Welcome to the
machine. I'm scared. Do all the doctors want me to think their way
because elves are a threat to their reality? Or is their reality a threat
to my reality? Or both? Dr. King once told me that if I ever met another
elf, she would either be lying to me or delusional. Should I believe him?
Should I believe that I have been wrong for all these years, that my
memory is false, that *I* am delusional?!? I don't know or understand.
Somebody please come in and help me out. I am torn between my own
reality, my parents' reality, and my doctors' reality. I was born in a
doorway. I have lived in the doorway ever since. I look at myself in the
mirror and my face keeps changing. An elf is in that mirror! An elf is
in my hands. Now there is no doubt that I am an elf. And I am so alone
without the voices of the other elves ringing through my mind. No, wait,
those weren't truly the other elves. But I miss the voiceless thoughts of
the other elves as we danced through the forest and sang, all in harmony.
I miss the forest. It had to be real. Dr. King would read this and
laugh. He doesn't like me to be an elf. He wants me to think I'm human,
like him. Maybe I should just tell him that I can never hold onto the
belief that I'm human for more than a couple of hours, whereas I can
believe I am an elf for days, weeks, months, years. Dr. Napolitano says
there is to be no magic in my life until I am better. I am not sure I can
get better without magic. I thrive on magic. I need it in order to
survive. No one can take it away from me. "Nothing's gonna change my
world." These doctors think they know what's best for me. But do they
really? Aaaack!

-Nightsong (Galiganinda Duli

Reply to all

Forward

(9) 1997, further of Baggs' Schizophrenia Group and Dissociation Group writing

Baggs' 1997 discussion of the elves she used to live with, and how she used to be an elf, and "The Others" that are in her.

I was sent this by neuroscientist and former close friend of Baggs, "Daniel Drucker" <ddrucker@psych.upenn.edu>.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.schizophrenia/msg/4b34b391447f121d
Subject: amazing stuff happening to me
Date: 1997/12/07
Newsgroups: alt.support.schizophrenia

First I'm going to say that I -know- what this sounds like. Then I'm
going to say that it's not like that, this time.

Yesterday I was on a long car ride, staring out the window. The Others
suddenly told me that they would be relaying messages from the elves I
used to live with (and be one of). I knew they couldn't lie, but I
thought they might be being deceived themselves. But then again, they
know everything. In this universe. Maybe the elves were in another
universe. All sorts of thoughts were flying through my head. But I
said, okay, what do they want to tell me? They said that I had indeed
lived with them. But I knew that. Then they said that in this life when
I took acid they were able to get through to me because it changed my...
and they said something that I couldn't figure out at all, but it had to
do with sensitivity to different realms of reality (I think). Then they
said that, like certain forms of magic, acid takes its toll on the user.
They said that I was wise to give it up. They said that now that I had
discovered the Others I would be able to talk to them, sometimes. I
said something like, "Okay, but I have to know you're really real. Do
something to prove that you're real." They didn't answer, but
immediately a song that I had never heard came on the radio. It had to
do with travel between different universes. So I believed them. Then
they sort of misquoted Yeats:
Come away, O elven child
To the woods and waters wild
Reunited with your band
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand

I got excited, but said, "Okay, that first thing might have been a
coincidence. Give me another sign." I didn't really expect them to do
it. Then the driver turned the car on again and the first words out of
the radio are, "Trust I seek and I find in you." Now I really believed
them. "Are there any other elves in this world?" "We can't tell you
that." "Why not?" "Because it would disturb what is going to happen.
We can't interfere." "Well take me to your world now then!" "We can't
do that." "Why not?" "It's not time yet." "But..." "We'll give you
one glimpse of our world. You will see trees as we see trees." Well now
every time I look at a tree, there is a new, but very old in my mind,
quality to it. I can't really describe it. I tried to stick my hand in
one, but that didn't work (I was able to do that in the elf world).
Anyway, I'm really excited and happy to be given this chance to see part
of that world again.
--
-- | "My God!--it's full of stars!"
Galig Dulin | (Dave Bowman)
| (Arthur C. Clarke's _2001_)
night...@netcom.com | "It could have been me/Yes it could have been me
| Why didn't I say?/Why didn't I say?"
________________________| (David Bowie)
"Folk takes their peril with them into Lorien, and finds it there because
they've brought it" (Samwise Gamgee)
"How did this one life fall so far and fast?" (Suzanne Vega)

(10) Baggs’ 12/7/1997 written account in the Schizophrenia Group of LSD use and psilocybin use, voices, medicine treatment, etc.

In the following 12/7/1997 post by Amanda Baggs, she states that she had been hearing voices for 3+ years before using LSD:

"I had been hearing voices for three years or more before I tried LSD."
"I think that LSD actually postponed my problem (which had been getting worse). When I stopped taking LSD, the problems took up where they left off."
"I've had other sensory disturbances all my life (too many to write here). Especially sensory overload (which, like the voices, is under control with medications)."

Side note: She doesn't state what these "other sensory disturbances are", and while there are sensory disturbances in Aspergers and autism, she at that in 1997 did not report being autistic, and had no diagnosis of autism/Aspergers. And, regarding where she states that the "sensory overload" "is under control with medications"...however, there are no medicines now, and never have been, that control the "sensory overload" of autism/Aspergers.

I had previously thought that the LSD caused the schizophrenia in 1995, though now it appears, per Baggs' testimony in Dec 1997, that she had schizophrenia starting in 1995, which is actually consistent with the observations of the various people from Simon's Rock College. But, inconsistent with her report that she had DID in 1995 (per her mid-1997 written apology to the DID community; linked in earlier emails of mine to you).

Same link as below: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.schizophrenia/msg/c9128c5244ecd565
"I think LSD, psilocybin, etc can cause things that are like
schizophrenia. But that isn't how I got schizophrenic. I had been
hearing voices for three years or more before I tried LSD."

She also appears to be stating that the LSD caused things to actually get better:

"I think that LSD actually postponed my problem (which
had been getting worse). When I stopped taking LSD, the problems took up
where they left off."

A crucial point, indicating Factitious Disorder: She cannot keep track of when she claimed which disorder, and keeps changing her story, and keeps changing her explanations for why she has various disorders, and which disorders are true and which not.

Also, the Simon's Rock College people first observed her LSD use, and then observed her schizophrenia. So it appears that the LSD was the cause of her schizophrenia. Here, again, she may not be recounting things accurately.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.schizophrenia/msg/c9128c5244ecd565


	Galiganinda Dulin

Newsgroups: alt.support.schizophrenia

From: night...@netcom.com (Galiganinda Dulin)

Date: 1997/12/07

Subject: Re: amazing stuff happening to me

I think LSD, psilocybin, etc can cause things that are like
schizophrenia. But that isn't how I got schizophrenic. I had been
hearing voices for three years or more before I tried LSD. I've had
other sensory disturbances all my life (too many to write here).
Especially sensory overload (which, like the voices, is under control
with medications). I think that LSD actually postponed my problem (which
had been getting worse). When I stopped taking LSD, the problems took up
where they left off. I can't say it helped but... anyway, my shrink did
a lot of work with people with LSD-induced psychosis, and he knows me
very well by now, and says I am nothing like them. (And, I found out
about my elfhood before I took it.) The main reason I took LSD is that
people had been telling me for years that I acted like I was on it, so I
wanted to see what it was all about (mistake!) :)
--
-- | "My God!--it's full of stars!"
Galig Dulin | (Dave Bowman)
| (Arthur C. Clarke's _2001_)
night...@netcom.com | "It could have been me/Yes it could have been me
| Why didn't I say?/Why didn't I say?"
________________________| (David Bowie)
"Folk takes their peril with them into Lorien, and finds it there because
they've brought it" (Samwise Gamgee)
"How did this one life fall so far and fast?" (Suzanne Vega)

(11) Stanford University Hospital diagnoses Factitious Disorder, Indications of Factitious Disorder, Baggs’ historical group posts from 1994 onward; Baggs’ rejection of Stanford University; Baggs’ view on which doctors are good and which bad, and her view on which of her diagnoses are right and which wrong.

If you don't mind my suggesting, I would strongly recommend that you also present this matter to medical professionals that are experts in Factious Disorder, and malingering. It is often extraordinarily difficult to prove that someone is fictitiously emulating a disorder, especially a mental health disorder, because there are no objective biological tests to measure illnesses like autism, schizophrenia, etc. (I comment more about this below the next paragraph).

I sent each of you a fairly extensive list of Amanda Baggs various group posts, and a fairly extensive calendar chronology that recorded all her posts with one of her primary usernames 'Galiganinda Dulin'. It is rather clear that she has been emulating various disorders since 1995. Recall that in mid-1997 she apologized for her "2.5 years ago" deceptive (her term) representation of herself as having DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder; multiple personality disorder), again:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.dissociation/msg/7d5e909b8c10c9ba

This would have been in early 1995. With the posts I sent you, you can track the evolution of her various claims to various mental illnesses.

It is clearly shown, through her writing, that Amanda, starting in 1995, and continuing to 1998, at least, was involved in emulating several major mental illnesses, usually one at a time, and moving from one to the other. The evolution appears to be first Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder), then schizophrenia, then profound autism. Also, throughout this evolution, as found in most of the posts I linked for you, there were other claims of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), Manic Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Schizoaffective Disorder, and possibly others.

Regarding Factitious Disorder (also called Munchausen Syndrome), http://www.psychnet-uk.com/dsm_iv/factitious_disorder.htm, http://www.emedicine.com/MED/topic3125.htm, this is a very complicated disorder, and I think an expert in this could possibly be useful to make an assessment of this case.

Of particular interest in trying to ascertain whether a persons pattern of involvement in medicine might reveal this, and a classic indication is the (1) self-claims to having various illnesses, (2) contrived and prepared presentations to mental health professionals that the person has a particular illness: the vivid demonstration of symptoms, and, especially, the use of medical language to describe their symptoms, as they believe they will more effectively persuade a medical professional they have a particular disorder if they use medical language, (3) the patient will not provide 3rd parties to verify that the person's in-office presentation is the same as the person's out-of-office presentation.

As an aside, before I return to the main issue just discussed: A more typical instance of Factitious Disorder is the emulating of various physical illnesses. http://www.psychnet-uk.com/dsm_iv/factitious_disorder.htm
"They usually prefer the sick role and may move from hospital to hospital in order to receive care. They are usually loners with an early childhood background of trauma and deprivation. Unlike many malingerers, they follow through with medical procedures and are at risk for drug addiction and for the complications of multiple operations."
Their main goal is to elicit attention and sympathy from medical professionals, friends, family, and others.
Many individuals will also cause themselves to have medical problems, such as by overeating, overdrinking, or undereating, underdrinking, malnourishment, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, etc.

This brings me to the following about something I've noticed during my research over the last 4 months, namely Amanda's frequent public reports of various physical illnesses. I have researched this only briefly, but have the following to contribute:
At this blog entry of hers from 1/30/08, http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/?p=493, she reports:
"I just got home from the hospital. I had impacted bowels, completely obstructed bladder, as well as mild liver problems and dehydration. I was there for about five days while they catheterized me and gave me more laxatives and enemas than I care to think about (and paid more attention to my shit than anyone's paid since I had a similar problem 10 years ago)."
And another blog entry from 7/28/2007: http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/?p=427
"I was in a lot of pain. By a lot of pain, I mean I was crying and periodically screaming. I don't cry from pain usually. I didn't cry when my gallbladder was well into emergency stage, I just went really quiet. If I'm crying from pain, it's serious. And this pain (and related movement restrictions) was serious enough that a spinal tap was done when I finally did get to the emergency room, because it sounded to them a lot like meningitis. (Fortunately it wasn't.)"

Notice that invasive procedures were done in both instances, with the second not revealing anything. It would be unclear whether the first instance of diagnostic claims are accurate. (Recall that people with Factitious Disorder often seek medical procedures, including invasive procedures, the use of medicine, and even operations, and that, usually, there are no objective findings, and if there are objective findings, they are usually caused by the person themselves through various self-harm measures).

Related, autistic author Donna Williams interviewed Amanda on 1/3/2007, http://blog.donnawilliams.net/2007/07/03/putting-autism-on-trial-an-interview-with-amanda-baggs, and I extracted from this interview the following reports from Baggs of various ailments and illnesses and complaints, totaling 31. Since this 7/2007 interview, I believe the list has increased.

Irlen syndrome
Synaesthesia
Sequencing issues
Proprioceptive problems
meaning-blindness
meaning-deafness
movement disorder
Eye-tracking issues
Trouble walking
Hypermobility
Lost speech in infancy
Echolalia
Receptive language problems
oral problems.
Reflux.
Constipation,
trouble nursing.
Neuropathic pain of some kind.
Milk allergy, as well as standard allergies to some animals and pollens. Circadian rhythm issues.
OCD
Tourette's happened age 6 or 7
Signs of PTSD starting around that age too
depression (the depression only ended in the past few years).
Head banging started at age 6 or 7
Complex-partial seizure disorder
sexually abused starting at this age by two adult male relatives
Parkinsons-like movement disorder began starting at this same age
being sexually abused in adolescence.
Complex PTSD in reaction to institutional settings in adolescence.
migraine headaches
asthma trouble in adulthood
TMJ trouble in adulthood (from "defects" in my jaw/skull present at birth along with other mouth anomalies).

Malingering is not a mental illness, http://www.psychnet-uk.com/dsm_iv/malingering.htm, but rather "is a deliberate behavior for a known external purpose", such as "financial gain", and avoiding responsibility (such as familial, social, legal, and civil responsibility), and obtaining media coverage, etc. Malingering can occur with Factitious Disorder, but not necessarily so, as discussed in the above links.

Lastly, it is clear to me that Amanda's history is more consistent with Factitious Disorder, and more recently malingering, than autism, (due to her aggressively seeking and obtaining 2007-2008 widespread media coverage, her aggressive public self-promotion, financial gain, reputational gain, etc.

While it is plausible that Amanda may have had high functioning Aspergers from her childhood onward, this is irrelevant to her current state (and her state since 20 years old, I believe) of profound autism, as these two levels of Autism Spectrum Disorder are extremely different, and a person doesn't evolve into a more profound level of dysfunction from a long history (20 years) of high functioning, especially high intellectual functioning (Simon's Rock College at 14 years old, and John's Hopkins University CTY (Center for Talented Youth) before Simon's Rock College), and accelerating through K-12th grade rapidly, and being verbally fluent, having extensive social relationships, having relatively normal eye contact, and non-autistic behavior, etc.

Returning to the main issue. I found a more recent group username 'sggaB' for Amanda; it’s use begins in 2002; her profile is
http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=zlsmERQAAAAuTyeTtEznhsJ1EvX_4Y8kqErCXa-CIiqlccej3woxEQ, and at this profile you will see her email address amanda@autistics.org (which is based from one of her sites www.autistics.org) and the calender chronology of thousands of posts.

I think you might find this important. Here are some 2002 posts by her that discuss her diagnoses and doctors. She takes it upon herself to decide who is good at diagnosing, she comments on how Stanford University was concerned with the legitimacy of her claims and history, and she takes it upon herself to decide when a doctor was right. I believe this is a clear and classic demonstration of an aspect of Factitious Disorder, and would contribute to a basis for an inquiry into this matter.

October 9, 2002

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.autism/msg/65e922d2cd6045c5
"I've found Stanford University's medical place to be usually pretty bad at
diagnosis. They're one of the people who have either disbelieved me
because of my psych record or (when I was there as a psych patient)
declared me to be making stuff up in order to become a psych patient. (I
didn't *want* to be a psych patient, and they'd barely observed me. I
think they made this judgment based on the fact that behavior
modification -- of a kind that involved withholding my phone and visitor
"privileges" -- made me less likely to try to run out the door of their
children's hospital.)"
"The only time they got anything right was when they saw me
for something completely unrelated and declared that I must have "some
kind of pervasive developmental disorder" in my report."

The following post concerns her autism diagnosis problem, and her comments that "bad" doctors are those that don't diagnose her as autistic, and good doctors are those that do.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.autism/msg/9af126580207b14a

Amanda writes that Stanford University "declared I was faking psychiatric symptoms for the sole purpose of being a patient...there's a diagnosis called factitious disorder..."
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.autism/msg/4e13bd713a260ae0
"I was a forced inpatient at their children's hospital (being held while
others were deciding whether to send me to a group home or a state
hospital) and they declared that I was faking psychiatric symptoms for the
sole purpose of being a patient (there's a diagnosis called factitious
disorder that means that -- if they thought I was making it up and had
*any* other reason, they would have diagnosed malingering). This
declaration was made by a student doctor I barely talked to."

I've spent only one hour looking into Baggs’ writing with this 2002 and onward username. I’ll continue later.

(12) 1/18/2007, Baggs’ self-taken video of herself with a song recording playing, and written admittance by Baggs it is her voice in the song recording

I would like to provide the following Livevideo.com video made by Amanda Baggs on January 18, 2007, which was done 4 days after she made her YouTube video on January 14, 2007, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnylM1hI2jc, (which was the source, as stated by CNN's Dr. Gupta, for CNN's interest in her: third sentence at http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/blogs/paging.dr.gupta/2007/02/behind-veil-of-autism.html).

The Livevideo.com video:
http://www.livevideo.com/video/4C44ABC5473B49E7B12799FFDEA99807/because-you-are-not-one-of-us.aspx

As seen in the information under the video, it was made by the user ‘silentmiaow’, which is a name that links to Amanda Baggs webpage at livevideo: http://www.livevideo.com/silentmiaow

Under the video, is the section called 'Comments & Responses'. Scroll down to the 5th comment, which is by Amanda (there is her picture, username, and link to her livevideo webpage (again http://www.livevideo.com/silentmiaow), and her comment about her video):

Posted Jan 23, 07 by silentmiaow
"...I do have a bit of a sarcastic way of presenting it in this song (which is my own voice, not a computer one)..."

Here she states that the voice in the singing video is "my own voice, not a computer one"

Furthermore, in the 6th comment under the 'Comments & Responses' section, a user named 'periurban' from the UK (http://www.livevideo.com/periurban) asks Amanda the following:

Posted Jan 21, 07 by periurban
"...Who was singing?"

And she replies in the 9th comment:

Posted Jan 22, 07 by silentmiaow
I was. (Recorded three tracks over each other.)

Here is her second statement that it was she who was singing, and that she apparently recorded three tracks of herself singing over one another.

Of course, in the video itself, as the video is being taken, she is not singing; rather, she is writing, and holding her hand over her face most of the time. The singing voice was recorded previously, and is being played through speakers. It is a recording of her voice, as she states in two of her comments under the 'Comments & Responses' section. At this time, there are 11 comments, the last one on Jan 29, 07.

However, in her YouTube video, made 4 days before (and linked above), she claims and displays that a part of her profound autism is not being able to speak, in particular, speak fluently, intelligently, and for communicative purposes. And in the CNN coverage which began in mid-February 2008, she represented herself as lacking the capacity to speak in this manner. She reported to CNN that she “lost her speech” many years before (I believe in 2001, but am not sure of the exact or general date or time period).