In My Language
I don't know. As per Wired Magazine, this is real.
I look at this, and ask, would I have thought she was capable of this if I met her in passing? Would I have known it if I performed a psychiatric exam, but without tests?
Would I have misperceived some of the humming as psychosis? Which medications would I have started?
Everything I would have done-- wrong.
March 9, 2008 8:41 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I saw this a long time ago. I didn't doubt it for a second and I thought it was one of the most beautiful examples of self-expression I had ever seen.
I'm so glad you put this out there for more of us to see.
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March 9, 2008 8:52 AM | Posted by : | Reply
That video changed the way I view the world.
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March 9, 2008 10:26 AM | Posted by : | Reply
The woman in this film, Amanda Baggs has a website. The link is below. She explains how she makes the films on her site. She also has her diagnostic papers posted on the site.
http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/
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March 10, 2008 6:56 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Except that Amanda Baggs is almost certainly schizophrenic and not autistic at all. Sometimes you should go with your gut.
http://www.autismspeaks.org/community/forums/showthread.php?t=3526
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March 10, 2008 12:42 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Intelligence (for humans) is to be able to learn another language. Brutality is forcing the other being to learn yours to communicate. I think many psychiatric problems/mental illness's are from a failure to communicate. To communicate what problems and conflict exist, and who (which person) has to adjust.
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March 10, 2008 2:13 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I teach autistic kids and communicating via technology is part of the day. Some never speak, yet as this woman shows, they are not lost in their own world, unable to communicate. My daughter is in the autistic spectrum and was medicated years and years before a doctor brought that into the equation; though my daughter wasn't medicated for behaviors, it started by "accident" with Imipramine and it was psychiatrists that then took the medication road and thought process. I am glad to see you write here, that you would have done all of the things you deem as "wrong". I wish other psychiatrists would pay attention this way to autism. My daughter is now 20 and has stopped talking, except for 1 or 2 words, and an occasional few sentences. We use note pads to talk and the sad twist is that she now is more like my students I taught, where some have learned to speak, she stopped. At age 20, they call her complex and many ppl wonder if it's voices she hears or her autistic mind. I hope one day she can remember how to use a computer, as she did when she was 17. Maybe then she can tell us all what indeed has happened to her all of these months, over the last 3 years.
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March 10, 2008 3:05 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I would like to address the comment left by Common Reader. A message board where people claim to have known Amanada Baggs as a normal functioning teen is nothing more than hearsay. Do you have any hard evidence to back your claim?
Miss Baggs at least placed her diagnosis, which was written on her doctor's stationary, on her website. Her scanned in medical paperwork it is more evidence than some person's claim on a discussion board.
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March 10, 2008 7:30 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I don't know, Last, I think it may come down to a bit of both...
http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/?p=7
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March 11, 2008 1:56 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Yes, people can have mental illness and autism, that is not unheard of; but it doesn't mean it's the woman that was written about here. The word becomes "complex"; as pyschiatrists are limited in their profession by their training. Unless an entire team of neuro docs, etc all come together in observation a person will get a dx from a profession, by that profession's baseline.
It's rare to find a psychiatrist who understands autism and this can end up causing real grief for some people who are medicated when not needed.
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March 11, 2008 2:00 PM | Posted by : | Reply
It is very common to confuse autism with schizophrenia, and it's usually wrong. Unless one is VERY familiar with either of the two, one cannot make a reliable diagnosis.
Amanda B. is a fairly typical autistic.
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March 13, 2008 1:57 PM | Posted by : | Reply
My comment above wasn't clear; I meant to say it doesn't mean Amanda is SZ or both. It's hard to describe my daughter, who appears to be both, but no one really knows. She does hear voices and is autistic in trait, but as we all know it's a spectrum and everyone presents differently. As in the case of my daughter, I wish I had known to take her for autistic eval before she ever ended up in a psychiatrist's office.
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March 14, 2008 2:16 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I'm skeptical of this autism spectrum thing. It looks as though all the kids I've met with an "autism spectrum" diagnoses were either poorly adjusted, actually delusional, nerdy, midly retarded, or bought into the idea that they were disabled as sold to them by their neurotic parents and psychiatrists. Only one such person actually had trouble processing facial expression, voice tone, context, etc. The autism spectrum fad just looks like another excuse to prescribe antipsychotics, which seem to have a long history of being used in autistics. Either that or everyone's looking to catch a break by having a documented disability.
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February 1, 2010 8:38 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Acute mania,
Was there a purpose to your post or do you just like the sound of your own voice?
I think the answer to that would be the latter.
First of all, the way you come across tells me that you most certainly don't have a PHD in anything.
I think you will find that the symptoms you describe and appear to think are of great importance to this topic are in fact of little relevance to either the diagnostic process or indeed this threads topic.
The diagnostic criteria is extremely specific and notoriously difficult to confirm
Most children on the spectrum are found to have a normal to above average IQ
Autism was around long before you sunshine and many people such as Einstein were believed to have it
People like him will be remembered long after dimwits like you
I'm not going to waste my breath on someone as moronic as you
Your post is ill educated and cruel
I shouldn't worry your head about topics that are out of your depth,go back toy our day job
More than likely stacking shelves and making mind numbing conversation with people equally as narrow minded as yourself
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February 1, 2010 8:47 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I doubt the a team made up of the best physchaitrists and doctors in the world could diagnose that from watching this video.
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February 1, 2010 9:56 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
"...More than likely stacking shelves and making mind numbing conversation with people equally as narrow minded as yourself"
Sophie, I am employed by a large grocery chain "stacking" shelves on the nightshift. Does that mean I am of low intelligence and a useless human being? Is that how you think of someone like me when you walk down the aisle looking to find your favorite cereal, Kellogg's Frosted Flakes? Well, you are damn lucky I was smart enough to stack that box in the right place, else you'd be out of luck now wouldn't you, missy!? I suggest you rethink your previous post. It wasn't very nice...or accurate. Haven't you ever seen the movie "Good Will Hunting"? The main character was a janitor at Harvard. He then invented the internet and became Vice President. So I suggest you have a little more gratitude when it comes to people who have menial jobs. Thank you, have a nice day.
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April 14, 2011 5:27 PM | Posted by : | Reply
It's a bit slow, but I like her song.
Also, my GF used to hear voices as a child, but it wasn't schizophrenia, it was an auditory processing disorder...
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June 22, 2011 5:50 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Honestly, Last Psychiatrist, you couldn't tell? Wow.
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March 23, 2012 10:02 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
But durrr, it doesn't matter whether she is autistic OR schizophrenic. She seems like a lovely person, which speaks more to the point.
With something important to contribute.
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November 10, 2014 11:13 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Buddhist, me?
No.
I most certainly find value there, utility, truth. It's different than (my perspective of) christianity but among what I would refer to as atheist philosophies, buddhism attracts me. Truth, rationality and knowledge is not dependent on culture.
I'll try stop using this phrase but correct me if I'm wrong: an average buddhist doesn't provide formulated answers, but tend to speak of it in terms of paths. That is, it is futile to simply tell – you need to show it, enable the walk. We all know it, that in the long run, walking is superior to the mentality of teleportation.
Another appealing feature of buddhism, is emphasis on viewing the world as it is, opposed to how it appear to be. It's when you – without being aware – squeeze incoming information through a static, fixed framework of cognition. It's when your glasses become an hindrance. It's when you in terms of functionality is better off without knowledge.
If our world view is a portrait, a picture, buddhism is saying: - “better off with a blank slate than a drawing that doesn't match.” Which in itself is a world view, a perspective, a picture, insight, understanding, knowledge. I suspect Socrates would favor buddhism.
The apostle Paul express similar ideas, for example in his second letter to Timothy: - “led by various desires, always learning and yet never able to come to an accurate knowledge of truth.”
Some never ascend despite of hard work and continuous effort. You could say, habits dictate a cognitive structure to select for the wrong things to learn. The hard work is futile, or worse. Please observe how Paul closely associate desire with learning.
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