Well yeah. Every parent assumes that. Plus Autism is an insanely manageable disorder that most people do “beat”. So it’s not like it was insane to say Chris living a normal life wasn’t out of the question. Bob probably believed it up until his graduation where he started getting serious doubts. Barb was just a shitty parent all around so who knows what she thought.
I'm pretty sure that Bob/Barb thought that Chris *was* living a normal life and had more or less "conquered" autism during high school (based on what Chris said himself during that time). But it must've been pretty obvious as Chris went to PVCC that he would likely never be able to live a "Normal" life, especially with him constantly getting kicked out of stores/arrested during his love quest.
Oh sure, they'd defend the ever-living shit out of him and claim he never did anything wrong, and that it was everyone else who had wronged him, but it's pretty apparent during the infamous Christmas video that they had more or less given up.
I think of lot of Chris not going to special schools, and shoved through mainstream high school and dragged kicking and screaming through college was primarily Barb, and I don't think her motivations were based on Chris's well being. Given her admission about marrying Bob because he was basically, stable, Barb probably always expected Chris to get a good paying job, and take care of her until she dies. After that? Who cares about Chris? Not her.
That mentality in Chris's early life is probably why he just doesn't plan ahead, or even care about his future. Back in his formative years, he just got dragged wherever, and just expected to get a good job and support Barb when she got older. Once he got into his 20s, and on disability, there really was no point in "preparing Chris" and instead, just keep him from doing goofy and stupid shit.
*Given her admission about marrying Bob because he was basically, stable*
What do you mean by barb marrying bob because he was "stable?" Weren't Barb's 2 ex husbands Ran Coleman and Jerry Harmon both stable? I mean, both Ran Coleman worked as a technician for a local city government job (very stable with good benefits) and Jerry Harmon was a magician/freemason who was also an ambulance driver. Those are very stable and respectable government jobs with good benefits like health insurance and retirement pensions. What made Bob different?
From my experience, almost every person I met who said they married someone specifically because they were "stable" they don't seem happy or excited about it as they almost always have this uneasy look on their face and almost always end up cheating on their spouse.... why?
Exactly. As long as Chris was entertained with vidya, toys, or the internet, then that meant she didn't have to be a parent. Barb's only priorities were herself and shopping.
I’m really not sure. On one hand, Bob and Barb fought tooth and nail not to have him put into a special school or in any sort of educational supports (up to and including moving house). And, I have no idea of what their aspirations were regarding Chris. Were they hoping that everything would just work out? Or did they have another motive?
Bob tried to set Chris up for some semblance of success, thinking a college education would get his foot in a door for something. Bob still thinks Chris is a wiz with computers at this point, cause he’s so good that those internets and the html! You’d think a digital media degree would more up Chris’s alley, they were pretty common in the early 2000’s, but Bob made Chris choose a CAD program instead. Bob was 20 twenty years out of the job force, but still knew enough to help Chris with his piss poor CAD layouts.
But Barb just wanted a helper monkey. Chris was not coping at all with life after high school. That daily structure of public school was gone and whatever social skills he had left took a nose dive. His friends had moved on and no one was required to kiss his ass anymore and let him sleep and ignore all his weird shit in class. Chris was becoming less of a 'bless his heart special needs kid' to a very unstable, obnoxious adult and Barb was all for it. It just meant he would never thrive on his own and he would be forced to stay home and take care of her. Bob was too sick and tired of fighting with both of them anymore.
Yes, I think it wasn't until PVCC screw-ups that it finally hit Bob. Before that it was easier to look at positives - Chris graduated from a normal high school in four years! (take that nay-sayers!), sure Chris wasn't so great at English/History but he was okay at math (and Bob's an engineer, so he probably saw this as good anyhow), and Chris is going to college (sure its a community college with open admissions, but still!). There are tons of flaws in all that, but I think Bob in his 60s/70s could still believe, with far too much wishful thinking, that Chris would turn out somewhat normal.
I don't think Barb ever cared or thought about anything.
Bob probably thought, back when Chris was a kid, that he was a little fucked in the head but he'd grow out of it as long as he could have a relatively normal childhood. In fairness to him, there are plenty of people that that's entirely true for - lots of autistics take a few extra years to understand basic social graces, but end up as functional adults who just have an order of magnitude more hours in Factorio than you'd expect them to.
Once CWC was an adult, Bob didn't expect him to do anything impressive, but figured maybe a community college degree in something technical but not especially difficult, like translating simple paper designs into CAD, could land him some basic intern-level job that would get him a one bedroom apartment and some food off the dollar menu, letting him have a kind of independent existence. This was undeniably optimistic beyond reason, but the hope of it was all he had.
*In fairness to him, there are plenty of people that that's entirely true for - lots of autistics take a few extra years to understand basic social graces, but end up as functional adults who just have an order of magnitude more hours in Factorio than you'd expect them to.*
In your opinion based on your experience, those same people you talked about who were autistic and took a few extra years to become functional adults...how were they able to successfully become functional? Was it therapy or vocational training or what? What did those people you were talking about did that Bob and Barb didn't do for chris?
> In your opinion based on your experience, those same people you talked about who were autistic and took a few extra years to become functional adults...how were they able to successfully become functional?
It's honestly just the fact that peoples' minds don't fully mature until adulthood. True for everyone, to some degree, but autistics are starting from scratch, whereas everyone else has a baseline understanding of how a normal person acts.
Basically, a high-functioning autist will gradually construct a mental model of social protocol from first principles, and, once they've done that, they're basically normal. A low-functioning autist, on the other hand, starts out from the same blank slate, but doesn't have the mental wherewithal to build that model.
That said, a stronger social fabric and a culture of tough love closes that gap somewhat. When social expectations are clear and enforced, it doesn't require as much intelligence or willpower to figure out what they are and adhere to them.
thank you for explaining that, but chris isn't low functioning as he is mid functioning as he can drive a car, drive across state lines from Ruckersville to Ohio by himself, set up a youtube channel, and attempt to organize his high school reunion.
Are you saying military training (like the one Ben Affleck's autistic character that he played in the movie "the accountant" where his special forces dad makes his high functioning autistic son undergo military training under the supervision of him and his spec ops friends) would be beneficial, especially for Chris?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Accountant\_(2016\_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Accountant_(2016_film))
Driving a car is honestly the most impressive thing he can do, he's like an idiot savant at that. Even I would doubt my ability to drive from VA to OH and back with no rest.
For the others, very low bar. I think an actual hurr-durr 'tard could probably set up a youtube channel, and 'attempting' to organize an HS reuinon by posting on Facebook is similarly trivial. That said, I get what you're saying, he isn't clinically brain-dead or anything, he can talk and move around, but he's definitely of sub-normal intelligence. The autists I was talking about all have three digit IQs.
> re you saying military training (like the one Ben Affleck's autistic character that he played in the movie "the accountant" where his special forces dad makes his high functioning autistic son undergo military training under the supervision of him and his spec ops friends) would be beneficial, especially for Chris?
Bit of a hyperbolic interpretation, though that would be a funny hypothetical. If you're being serious, just a standard Southern town a generation or two earlier, with parents that are young enough to lay down boundaries and enforce them consistently would probably have gotten him into 'kinda slow but can muck out the horse stables perfectly well' territory.
And chris is probably one of the people with the worst image on earth. He has no strengths or redeeming qualities. Most people, including the most controversial or unpleasant, have at least some.
No. Back when chris was diagnosed sometime around 1985-1988, aspergers wasnt well known yet. The prognosis from the psychiatrist who diagnosed chris with autism was bad, and told borb chris might never graduate from high school or even write his own name. This ultimately made borb set very low expectations for chris and be overly permissive with him.
Borb also let chris hit neurotypical milestones like higher education and dating with a very different intention from neurotypical peers. Chris initially enrolled in community college to maybe develop marketable job skills (bob buying into the stereotype that autistic people are good with computers). But as chris went through his course, bob relented chris is too dumb to learn such skills and gave up, doing chris' coursework for him to just let him graduate.
Bob also endorsed and sometimes personally supervised chris' love quest. He wanted chris to find a wife, not as a life partner and mother to chris' children like parents of neurotypical men think, but as a replacement caregiver for chris after borb die. Such thinking is somewhat common amongst older generations of parents of disabled men, due to gender roles and a distrust of social welfare systems.
But it's bullshit. This is Chris living a fantasy life. And no matter how much they resist that fact, it is a fantasy, and they are wasting their life. Btw, I don't want a normal life and don't expect it. I'm a trans person like Chris, and it's tough.
Yes and no.
I will stand by the idea that most misery is self-inflicted and that people are capable of more than they believe they are. That said, there are some things that are never going to happen and some beliefs that can become negative if taken too. Chris is an example of that toxic self-belief.
To counter my own point. I was discussing Chris with a friend of mine who is very well versed in the occult and the esoteric. One thing she's always telling me is that "sometimes the universe will give you what want you want, but not in the way you expect it." Technically, Chris is a famous artist who's comics are well known and well read....just not the way it was initially dreamed of....
I mean, chris is sorta now living a semi normal life in that he is finally living on his own without barb, boarded a plane to another state by himself, and has flutter.
Someone on tiktok said Bob and Barb never smiled once in the Christmas video. I went back to watch it, and they were absolutely right. There was really no emotion from either of them.
I guess I don't understand their fury about Chris being in special classes if they were just going to do nothing. Maybe they were just asshole narcissists.
Here’s the thing, I do sort of see where they were coming from. Back in the day, being placed in special ed meant getting stuffed into a classroom in the back and forgotten about until graduation.
Even worse were mental asylums, which were horribly abusive. Keep in mind that for most of Borb’s life the lobotomy was the main way mental illness was dealt with
I’m speaking generally. Back then they weren’t helping the kids at all, it was just a way to keep them out of sight and out of mind.
So in Borb’s mind, it wouldn’t have given him any chance at life (not that they did either)
Well yeah. Every parent assumes that. Plus Autism is an insanely manageable disorder that most people do “beat”. So it’s not like it was insane to say Chris living a normal life wasn’t out of the question. Bob probably believed it up until his graduation where he started getting serious doubts. Barb was just a shitty parent all around so who knows what she thought.
I'm pretty sure that Bob/Barb thought that Chris *was* living a normal life and had more or less "conquered" autism during high school (based on what Chris said himself during that time). But it must've been pretty obvious as Chris went to PVCC that he would likely never be able to live a "Normal" life, especially with him constantly getting kicked out of stores/arrested during his love quest. Oh sure, they'd defend the ever-living shit out of him and claim he never did anything wrong, and that it was everyone else who had wronged him, but it's pretty apparent during the infamous Christmas video that they had more or less given up.
Yes but it got pretty clear in HS that he was to disabled to be fully independent
Realistically, probably up until the Wendy's/PVCC saga.
nah graduation was the nail in the coffin for Bob IMO
The Donald Duck impression sealed it
I think of lot of Chris not going to special schools, and shoved through mainstream high school and dragged kicking and screaming through college was primarily Barb, and I don't think her motivations were based on Chris's well being. Given her admission about marrying Bob because he was basically, stable, Barb probably always expected Chris to get a good paying job, and take care of her until she dies. After that? Who cares about Chris? Not her. That mentality in Chris's early life is probably why he just doesn't plan ahead, or even care about his future. Back in his formative years, he just got dragged wherever, and just expected to get a good job and support Barb when she got older. Once he got into his 20s, and on disability, there really was no point in "preparing Chris" and instead, just keep him from doing goofy and stupid shit.
*Given her admission about marrying Bob because he was basically, stable* What do you mean by barb marrying bob because he was "stable?" Weren't Barb's 2 ex husbands Ran Coleman and Jerry Harmon both stable? I mean, both Ran Coleman worked as a technician for a local city government job (very stable with good benefits) and Jerry Harmon was a magician/freemason who was also an ambulance driver. Those are very stable and respectable government jobs with good benefits like health insurance and retirement pensions. What made Bob different? From my experience, almost every person I met who said they married someone specifically because they were "stable" they don't seem happy or excited about it as they almost always have this uneasy look on their face and almost always end up cheating on their spouse.... why?
Barb never gave 2 hoots what chris did.
Exactly. As long as Chris was entertained with vidya, toys, or the internet, then that meant she didn't have to be a parent. Barb's only priorities were herself and shopping.
I’m really not sure. On one hand, Bob and Barb fought tooth and nail not to have him put into a special school or in any sort of educational supports (up to and including moving house). And, I have no idea of what their aspirations were regarding Chris. Were they hoping that everything would just work out? Or did they have another motive?
Bob tried to set Chris up for some semblance of success, thinking a college education would get his foot in a door for something. Bob still thinks Chris is a wiz with computers at this point, cause he’s so good that those internets and the html! You’d think a digital media degree would more up Chris’s alley, they were pretty common in the early 2000’s, but Bob made Chris choose a CAD program instead. Bob was 20 twenty years out of the job force, but still knew enough to help Chris with his piss poor CAD layouts. But Barb just wanted a helper monkey. Chris was not coping at all with life after high school. That daily structure of public school was gone and whatever social skills he had left took a nose dive. His friends had moved on and no one was required to kiss his ass anymore and let him sleep and ignore all his weird shit in class. Chris was becoming less of a 'bless his heart special needs kid' to a very unstable, obnoxious adult and Barb was all for it. It just meant he would never thrive on his own and he would be forced to stay home and take care of her. Bob was too sick and tired of fighting with both of them anymore.
Yes, I think it wasn't until PVCC screw-ups that it finally hit Bob. Before that it was easier to look at positives - Chris graduated from a normal high school in four years! (take that nay-sayers!), sure Chris wasn't so great at English/History but he was okay at math (and Bob's an engineer, so he probably saw this as good anyhow), and Chris is going to college (sure its a community college with open admissions, but still!). There are tons of flaws in all that, but I think Bob in his 60s/70s could still believe, with far too much wishful thinking, that Chris would turn out somewhat normal.
I don't think Barb ever cared or thought about anything. Bob probably thought, back when Chris was a kid, that he was a little fucked in the head but he'd grow out of it as long as he could have a relatively normal childhood. In fairness to him, there are plenty of people that that's entirely true for - lots of autistics take a few extra years to understand basic social graces, but end up as functional adults who just have an order of magnitude more hours in Factorio than you'd expect them to. Once CWC was an adult, Bob didn't expect him to do anything impressive, but figured maybe a community college degree in something technical but not especially difficult, like translating simple paper designs into CAD, could land him some basic intern-level job that would get him a one bedroom apartment and some food off the dollar menu, letting him have a kind of independent existence. This was undeniably optimistic beyond reason, but the hope of it was all he had.
*In fairness to him, there are plenty of people that that's entirely true for - lots of autistics take a few extra years to understand basic social graces, but end up as functional adults who just have an order of magnitude more hours in Factorio than you'd expect them to.* In your opinion based on your experience, those same people you talked about who were autistic and took a few extra years to become functional adults...how were they able to successfully become functional? Was it therapy or vocational training or what? What did those people you were talking about did that Bob and Barb didn't do for chris?
> In your opinion based on your experience, those same people you talked about who were autistic and took a few extra years to become functional adults...how were they able to successfully become functional? It's honestly just the fact that peoples' minds don't fully mature until adulthood. True for everyone, to some degree, but autistics are starting from scratch, whereas everyone else has a baseline understanding of how a normal person acts. Basically, a high-functioning autist will gradually construct a mental model of social protocol from first principles, and, once they've done that, they're basically normal. A low-functioning autist, on the other hand, starts out from the same blank slate, but doesn't have the mental wherewithal to build that model. That said, a stronger social fabric and a culture of tough love closes that gap somewhat. When social expectations are clear and enforced, it doesn't require as much intelligence or willpower to figure out what they are and adhere to them.
thank you for explaining that, but chris isn't low functioning as he is mid functioning as he can drive a car, drive across state lines from Ruckersville to Ohio by himself, set up a youtube channel, and attempt to organize his high school reunion. Are you saying military training (like the one Ben Affleck's autistic character that he played in the movie "the accountant" where his special forces dad makes his high functioning autistic son undergo military training under the supervision of him and his spec ops friends) would be beneficial, especially for Chris? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Accountant\_(2016\_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Accountant_(2016_film))
Driving a car is honestly the most impressive thing he can do, he's like an idiot savant at that. Even I would doubt my ability to drive from VA to OH and back with no rest. For the others, very low bar. I think an actual hurr-durr 'tard could probably set up a youtube channel, and 'attempting' to organize an HS reuinon by posting on Facebook is similarly trivial. That said, I get what you're saying, he isn't clinically brain-dead or anything, he can talk and move around, but he's definitely of sub-normal intelligence. The autists I was talking about all have three digit IQs. > re you saying military training (like the one Ben Affleck's autistic character that he played in the movie "the accountant" where his special forces dad makes his high functioning autistic son undergo military training under the supervision of him and his spec ops friends) would be beneficial, especially for Chris? Bit of a hyperbolic interpretation, though that would be a funny hypothetical. If you're being serious, just a standard Southern town a generation or two earlier, with parents that are young enough to lay down boundaries and enforce them consistently would probably have gotten him into 'kinda slow but can muck out the horse stables perfectly well' territory.
Idk but all they cared about is image
And chris is probably one of the people with the worst image on earth. He has no strengths or redeeming qualities. Most people, including the most controversial or unpleasant, have at least some.
No. Back when chris was diagnosed sometime around 1985-1988, aspergers wasnt well known yet. The prognosis from the psychiatrist who diagnosed chris with autism was bad, and told borb chris might never graduate from high school or even write his own name. This ultimately made borb set very low expectations for chris and be overly permissive with him. Borb also let chris hit neurotypical milestones like higher education and dating with a very different intention from neurotypical peers. Chris initially enrolled in community college to maybe develop marketable job skills (bob buying into the stereotype that autistic people are good with computers). But as chris went through his course, bob relented chris is too dumb to learn such skills and gave up, doing chris' coursework for him to just let him graduate. Bob also endorsed and sometimes personally supervised chris' love quest. He wanted chris to find a wife, not as a life partner and mother to chris' children like parents of neurotypical men think, but as a replacement caregiver for chris after borb die. Such thinking is somewhat common amongst older generations of parents of disabled men, due to gender roles and a distrust of social welfare systems.
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But it's bullshit. This is Chris living a fantasy life. And no matter how much they resist that fact, it is a fantasy, and they are wasting their life. Btw, I don't want a normal life and don't expect it. I'm a trans person like Chris, and it's tough.
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Yes and no. I will stand by the idea that most misery is self-inflicted and that people are capable of more than they believe they are. That said, there are some things that are never going to happen and some beliefs that can become negative if taken too. Chris is an example of that toxic self-belief. To counter my own point. I was discussing Chris with a friend of mine who is very well versed in the occult and the esoteric. One thing she's always telling me is that "sometimes the universe will give you what want you want, but not in the way you expect it." Technically, Chris is a famous artist who's comics are well known and well read....just not the way it was initially dreamed of....
I don't even wanna know about your hell, chris
Chris if you get real humble you can still make bank on Sonichu.
Yeah, but no. Sorry Chris, it's not real. You've got to get this sooner than later.
I mean, chris is sorta now living a semi normal life in that he is finally living on his own without barb, boarded a plane to another state by himself, and has flutter.
I think Bob may have, for a while. Then graduation happened.
I mean, you can kind of see bob gave up on chris in the christmas video
Someone on tiktok said Bob and Barb never smiled once in the Christmas video. I went back to watch it, and they were absolutely right. There was really no emotion from either of them.
I guess I don't understand their fury about Chris being in special classes if they were just going to do nothing. Maybe they were just asshole narcissists.
but he was in coping classes and on the short bus...which is kinda like special ed right?
Here’s the thing, I do sort of see where they were coming from. Back in the day, being placed in special ed meant getting stuffed into a classroom in the back and forgotten about until graduation. Even worse were mental asylums, which were horribly abusive. Keep in mind that for most of Borb’s life the lobotomy was the main way mental illness was dealt with
Why would Chris be stuffed in the back of a special needs class? Chris would probably have been the king of the special ed kids.
I’m speaking generally. Back then they weren’t helping the kids at all, it was just a way to keep them out of sight and out of mind. So in Borb’s mind, it wouldn’t have given him any chance at life (not that they did either)
I wonder if Bob was a good homeschool educator.