Dont know how many of you have seen this movie The Horse Boy but I highly recommend it. Initially I didnt think I would like it because I thought it was a "cure" movie but it was noting like that. It was parents going to extreme measures to help their child and learning a lot along the way. It was a celebration of Autism not a negative, sorrowful drama. Even though you may feel sorry for them all at certain points that is not what the documentary is about. They are real people and good parents, the type of parents all children, especially autistic children, need.
I actually found myself crying at the beginning when they showed the little boy, Rowan, having meltdowns. Its not like me to cry even watching a documentary (I certainly cried watching the Cove but that was different) and it wasnt just a loss of a few tears it was chest heaving sobbing. I think it was just so real for me. My daughter when she was younger had these type of seizure like meltdowns where she would arch her back and her eyes would roll back, she would bash her head into the floor and have these uncontrollable ear splitting screams. She now actually asks me for help because she doesnt want it to happen anymore, she will say "make be better!'. Im glad those days of long and unconsolable meltdowns are are over (not that she doesnt have meltdowns anymore but nothing like when she was 3 and 4 years old). So seeing this little boy do the same types of seizure type meltdowns brought back a lot of painful memories and I hurt for him and for his parents. Just like Rowan my daughter made a huge change, we think it was due to the onslaught of aggressive therapy. You can look at the trip these people take to Mongolia as almost the same thing. I tend to side more with the Mothers thinking but, like her, Ive never been a spiritual person.
Regardless of what you believe, in my opinion, this is by far the best documentary I have ever seen on Autism!
26 May 2011, 7:58 am
