The Statue Of Liberty, Autism, Poetry And Scapegoating Children (Solutions For Narcissist Disorder Families) by Rick London

Rick London is the founder of Google & MSN’s #1 Ranked Offbeat Cartoons and Funny Gifts. His Webcomics site has 5000+ cartoons and 250,000+ cartoon gifts & has lured 8.7 million+ visitors.

A few things before I start this blog.  More and more questions are coming at me like an avalanche. I’ll try to answer some.

One is, “Don’t you realize some feelings may be hurt by writing what you are?”

My answer, “Anyone in their right mind, who finds child/and adult abuse repulsive, and/or neglected autistic children as repulsive as I do will not have their feelings hurt.  They would more than likely cheer what I’m writing in hopes just one child, at least, is helped.  Those children do not have voices.  I have the right to be their voice.  Healthy people will be supportive. Sick people will not.  People who are innocent of any wrongdoing should not be upset, but thrilled that I’ve discovered this oddity.  

Since I’ve not mentioned names of the wrong-doers, nor accused them of anything, they will only come forward in anger if they know they were involved in the systematic torture of an autistic child (and later adult). 

And….it is not my style, as most of you know to bring in ancient ancestry into my blog.  Since it appears something similar that happened to me may have happened to one of my ancestors (who happens to have been relatively famous), I had to include her name to make the blog make sense. You will understand as you read it.

The questions that have been rolling in since my discovery of both unchecked, untreated autism to being the IP (Identified Patient) or “scapegoat” in a dysfunctional home have been coming in fast and furious.  Apparently going public was/is the right thing, as I’ve already gotten feedback of those who have been helped or finally “saw the light” as to what was/is happening in their own families.  And if nothing else comes of it, as I said, if one person (or people) are helped, it was worth it a million times over. 

You can be sure the “core original family” is not going to come clean and say “Whew…he finally figured it out.  We can all hold hands now and sing “Kumbaya”.  That’s not going to happen, nor has it ever happened in the history of the world.  They are, most likely, going to “dig in deeper” and stand even more firm on their “stories”.  And that’s fine.  What they do is their business. 

As previously mentioned, they are simply unfortunate people of my past, who taught me some very valuable lessons (not intentionally) and helped (also not intentionally) steer me in adventuresome directions that forced me to learn my own creative capacity that went well beyond my expectations.  So ironically, I have my original sick core family to thank, for most of what I’ve learned.

As a person who was diagnosed with a high IQ but in many areas “low functioning autism” and high functioning in other areas, I shouldn’t even (given the odds) be alive (as if they would care). Flying monkeys and narcissists only care of their own selves (and barely do that either).  

One of the questions I got, it seems most often is, “How could you have saved their lives when they were out to end yours if at all possible, or at least make it as miserable as they could?”

First of all, I was only about 10 or 11 years old when our home at 104 Mandalay Dr. burned down that night.  I’ve mentioned that incident several times (and will again). It is an integral “turning point” in a young autistic/scapegoat child’s life.  

At that age, I thought my family loved me just as every young child thinks their family would love them. Add the “innocence” of autism/and Asperger’s to that, and here is how that kind of child thinks.  Mainly all they want to give is love.  They want to please their family and make them proud.  The very concept of narcissism or scapegoating would not be topics that would cross my mind.  Most autistic children, I am told, and I believe, as it was how I thought (and still think in so many cases) also think that those who supposedly love them also would only do the right thing back, that is, love them back.

So when I called the Hattiesburg Fire Dept. that Thursday night about 7:40 CST, stood in the hallway as it filled with smoke, and pounded on the door so my sister would understand she needed to get out of the burning house fast, and grabbed my 5-year old brother (who sat paralyzed with fear on the couch in the den) by the arm and took him next door (102 Mandalay Dr.) to Richard W. house. (Richard gladly took him in and kept him safe and from wandering back into the burning home until my parents returned home), I thought nothing of it. It was what I would have expected from them.  I would have expected incorrectly however, it appears.

Keep in mind, at that time, my siblings were only being taught that “Rick was the goof-off”, the “blundering idiot who would probably embarrass the family”.  This of course confused me even more, given that I was actually a neglected autistic child doing my best to survive in the world; and my immediate world had parents battling a horrendous emotional illness, Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  Everyone in the ecosystem at 104 Mandalay Dr. (I imagine even the dog) was ill.

Keep in mind that, like me, they were merely playing roles, not unlike puppets, as was I, to “earn the love of our parents”.  The better we played our roles to “fulfill their needs”, the more “love” we received.  Of course, growing up and with years of therapy behind my belt, I can observe that with less emotional attachment, and have sad feelings for my parents, but not really hate.  I hate/and hated their behavior, but they (most likely) did not want to be emotionally ill any more than I would have wanted them to be. 

Everyone was “dancing as fast as they could”, but as we’ve learned from Jung and Satir, the scapegoat child (me) was dancing the fastest, because no matter what, he would never “do it right enough” to receive love; just “short of love” so he/she would try a little harder.  That’s tough on the most healthy of children. It is as if being on an “alien planet” to an untreated autistic child; and that’s just who I was and how it felt.

 At age 60, my treatment is just beginning, and the way I see it, “Better late than never”. I’ve read stories of so many, in fact most, who were in my situation, and history is loaded with them, never find out, and science/medicine does not even expect it until years or centuries past their deaths based on their writings/and/or behaviors.

Just because I was/am the scapegoat doesn’t/didn’t make me “a healthy person”.  It made me healthier than anyone else, as I was forced to grow up the fastest to “absorb and take responsibility for all the family’s dysfunction”.

This type family is sad on many levels.  One level is that it continues, generation after generation, until someone stops it.

There is a direct maternal ancestor of mine who was a very famous poetess in the 1800s.  She and Ralph Waldo Emerson were very close and she was celebrated and talked about often yesterday as one of her most famous poems, “The Great Colossus” appears above the door at the base of the Statue Of Liberty…”Give Us Your Tired, your poor” etc.  Emma Lazarus was quite the muse-maker and Emerson seemed to agree.  They spent much time together. 

Much is written on Emma’s life and of her historical importance in the literary world.  She is on the family tree at our maternal family museum in New York State. 

One thing that is not mentioned is that she didn’t necessarily have close relationships with the rest of her living family except for her father, Nathan Lazarus, who not only had her privately tutored, but also her two sisters.

 She was a bit ahead of her time, and this may have shamed or embarrassed her two siblings.  Many felt she might be a lesbian or bisexual (lifestyles, as controversial as they may be to many today,  were “invisible” in the mid 1800s), as she spent most of her time with her best friend Rose Hawthorne Lathrop) (daughter of Dr. Nathaniel Hawthorne) who cared for Emma up to her final years.  Emma never got married.  That was a “red flag” in those days.  She was also a champion of women’s rights (one of the first) and social injustice;  and though the other family members were not against social injustice, Emma did much more than pay lip service.  She was an action person.  She spoke for those who had no voice.  

 When Rose opened the first hospice in the U.S. it was in honor of her best friend Emma who died at about age 38. 

Emma never got to see her poem “The Great Colossus” on Lady Liberty but Rose (Hawthorne) entered it into a contest and it won.  Rose made certain her poem was engraved above the top and that she (Emma) was given full credit.  Rose also cared for her best friend Emma until her death in 1884 of Hodgkin’s lymphoma.  That is a true friend. 

Emma, like so many creative types who grow up in a family of “more traditional types” led a tumultuous stressful life.  Though I cannot find mention of scapegoating or NPD, one can only surmise that since both are genetic, there is a strong possibility both existed during that period in the family.  Again, no proof of that. This is only a theory.

And though I may have my own share of grandiosity, I am not grandiose enough to even imagine myself in Emma’s literary league (or even close).  However, I am keenly aware that I probably inherited some of her writing abilities. I only took about three classes in writing or creative writing in my life.  The rest I “learned along the way”, or now I’ve come to believe was always in me, and I had to have enough faith to “find it”.  Upon reading many of Emma’s writings, I cannot help but wonder if there was some Asperger’s involved.  Though it is less common in females, it certainly exists, and there was no testing for it during her lifetime.  Again, only a theory. 

Almost everything I do “has fingerprints of autism or Asperger’s” from scraping paint chips off the wall in a circular motion to “hand flapping” to having created my own language with other (most likely) autistic children which I still remember.  In fact it is so funny, I’ve shared it with Lee and she’s learned to speak it.  I kind of like it and probably would speak it at least once a day, even if I didn’t have autism.

That said, given what I know now, and had none of my past happened, and still living in the same home with my siblings (now all in our 50s and 60s), I would still do what I did at age 10. I would call the fire department and make certain they were safe and out of the house, even knowing the disdain they have for me.

I believe that is normal human behavior and not particularly “heroic” though I was, as I mentioned in past writings, told otherwise at the time, that indeed it was in fact, “heroic”.

 
One person who read that blog asked me, “Do you believe either of your siblings would do the same for you?

I really didn’t know the answer to that question, so responded honestly, “Perhaps that is something you should ask them.”

I’ve been asked, “What if they insist none of that ever happened?”

My response, “What if I insisted on a lie detector test?  I would be more than glad to take one.  Wonder if any of them would?  Plus Richard W. is online often.  We all loved him and he took care of us as kids, not just helping save my sibling’s lives during our fire, but made sure we got the “best burgers in town” in “a safe place” back when I was a carnivore.

I see him online. He still has his senses.  There is no way in a million years, he could ever forget that horrible dramatic night of our home burning down, our parents being out, and the fear of us (the children) and how he calmed us down.  

Finally those type records remain in the police and fire archives.  It is not even open for debate. It really happened.  Since it seemed to “disappear” from my family history, in my autistic naivety, I figured that was just courteous protocol.  I hadn’t a clue at the time that strange family dynamic was all part of keeping me in the “scapegoat” and out of the “hero” role, and I simply knew how to “play my role” to survive in a very sick family who were not equipped in the least to care for, or love, an autistic child; hence isolated and scapegoated it. 

To the culprits who did the dirty work I say, “You made a choice, and I feel a bad one. Abusing disabled children is not acceptable even in the most base/cruel cultures. In fact did you ever pick the wrong autistic child/ later adult to abuse. Can’t tell that fact yet? Give it time.

To those who were not involved in the abuse and tried to talk those who were out of it, I salute you for your bravery and honesty and I sincerely thank you.  For those who were aware and did nothing, you are every bit as complicit as those who did…but you know that and are now living with that. 

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Rick London is an author, songwriter, cartoonist and gift designer. He is best known for launching Londons Times Offbeat Cartoons and Funny Gifts which he launched in an abandoned rural Mississippi tin shed.  He is active in autism/Asperger’s, animal, environmental, Naitonal Park and children’s causes. 

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