- Joined
- Aug 15, 2016
He absolutely could have turned out better. I think Barb did more damage to Chris than anyone, and bears the vast majority of the responsibility for how he turned out. If Barb isn't a narcissist, she's certainly a very manipulative person, and that's rubbed off on Chris. He's talked about her making him feel guilty or making threats to get him to do or not do things that she wants. He's done the same thing to other people, and it's pretty clear where he learned that behavior. I'm aware of a situation here, where a lying, manipulative, deceitful mother raised a son who developed the same qualities. In that case, those traits earned him a well deserved, lengthy prison sentence he is currently serving.
For the most part, a newborn baby is a pretty blank slate, and that child is going to learn what it is taught and imitate what it sees. Some may have genetic or other issues like Chris, and that gives them more of an uphill battle. But kids believe what their parents tell them, and Bob and Barb gave him mixed signals from the beginning: on one hand, he's "disabled" or whatever, and not capable of different things, on the other hand, he's "special" and better than everyone else. I think that's why he tries to play his autism on both sides of the fence, he brags about being high functioning and all the ways he's overcome it, but if he's confronted with a shortcoming, he uses the autism as the excuse. Because Bob and Barb taught him that.
The people that generally have the best attitude and are most aware of their mental or physical challenge are those who had parents who got them the assistance they needed and spent the necessary time with them to help them overcome it. I give Bob and Barb a bit of leniency as far as them being older and likely unfamiliar with autism. But for whatever reason, they made a conscious decision not to get him the help he needed, and instead use video games and toys as a babysitter and to keep them out of their hair. If Chris was born into a family that would have learned everything they could about autism at his diagnosis, got treatment for him, and most importantly, spent quality family time with him, interacting with him and trying to teach him how to grow into a good person, the outcome would have been much different.
But like I said on another thread, other factors shaped Chris too, he truly is a perfect storm of dysfunction, I just think Barb owns the biggest share of responsibility.
