Make Me Normal Documentary :)

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Hey all, I just wanted to post a documentary that my girlfriend was in... Her name is Roxanne, she has changed since after the documentary.
This is an old documentary and things have progressed since when the documentary was being filmed in my school and was shown on tv on UK channel 4.
Just to also verify that I actually do know her, ive also posted a picture of the both of us at the bottom of this post.
Enjoy

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJGfQ-0cAh4[/youtube]
Part 1 - Only Human: Make Me Normal

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfVl0uYzVZE&feature=related[/youtube]
Part 2

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGOe2StXpCY&feature=related[/youtube]
Part 3

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVdYDWx5kbs&feature=related[/youtube]
Part 4

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKVBvNVozD4&feature=related[/youtube]
Part 5

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLp8oh6hUTk&feature=related[/youtube]
Part 6

i downloaded this doco few years ago and it was one of the best thing ever
channel 4 is one of the best in the doco trade and u people are great
so real and alive
i didn't like the headmaster altitude so much
what do u think about her now days?
i know she meant well but still...

It's a good documentary, and I like how it shows how marked the "mild" end of ASDs are.

I didn't mind what the headmaster said, really; it's separating personality from disorder, and sometimes it's needed when individuals with an ASD do things due to emotional disturbances, and then feel the guilt, shame and/or embarrassment afterwards.

True... by the way, the headmaster isn't there anymore, she left about months later after that documentary was released and said she regretted having to leave due to personal issues and the comments she read online about her.

However for Moneer now, he's in college doing performing arts to adcheive on being on the next doctor who series.
He was going through quite alot himself with being bullied when he went onto college because people made fun of the way he was which it was really upsetting... But in the end, he turned out to live a happy life with friends around and to support him no matter what he does.

Roxanne is currently still at that school, I still see her once and a while, shes having abit of a hard time at the moment, 3 years ago she also suffered depression to the conflict between 3 people in the school who bullied her.
Shes battled to get back into shape and it has been so hard, having to support her and as i mentioned in my previous post that she went through alot of conselling and none of them however worked for her.
She then got things sorted out and now facing another problem with another boy which taken her away from me... its been a rollercoaster for me and her.

She even worries about her weight and calories and has actually got to a stage when she basically became anorexic.
Thankfully she was saved and put the weight back on but still worries about her weight issues, I know this is a common issue and I wish that issue had never existed, unfortunelately it does

As for Ester (if i spelt the name right?) Well good news
She is now officially married the last time i heard, her wish has came true for her, congrats

For Roy, im not too sure about im afraid but i sorta did heard that he's doing pretty well...

That's all I can cover for in the meantime...

There was going to be another person called George who was going to be in the documentary, but it turns out that he didn't want to be shown on tv. But yet he has aspergers and is at the same college as me doing a media course. It would of been so interesting if they actually showed him the documentary as he as a very interesting life.

Thanks for sharing these links - do you know where I can find more videos of this kind ??

Camendy

Thanks for the info
Most of the time our life seems so impossible,intense and tough
And on top of that we have to endure very unforgiving and unpleasant social environment(to say the least)
The mere fact we survive at all seems like a miracle
Any good news concerning any one of us is very encouraging
Wish u the best

Thanks nara44
In some places in london, it seems to be unpleasant.... I had to hide my autism and that wasn't very easy and getting bullied for whatever reason?
There was another user on youtube who copied a part of the documentary, search "kid with aspergers" it should probbaly be the first one but what I was truely upset about is the fact theres a couple of nasty comments on there.

I loved that documentary since I first saw it =D
Nice to hear that the students from it are doing ok nowadays.

I don't like how they make it seem as if it were the worst thing in the world. Although I don't know how they feel. There's one bit that annoys me where some girl says that the normal world is better than the autistic world because it has everything, but then she fails to say what makes the autistic world so horrible, or what it doesn't have that the normal world does. For me it's just the people in the house I live in and the teachers at my school that annoy me most and seem to be hellbent on making it difficult for me to pursue my interests or making me feel understood.

I've simply have noticed that myself too, Eshter's problem is she prefers to be in the normal world but yet seems to find it difficult to explain the reason for it.

She simply is fed up of the care workers and the people asking why she's on her own like she has no friends.... When I was school with her, she was actually pretty snappy, but after watching it, it made me realise, "no wonder why she was like that?" and plus she couldn't get any boyfriend... until last year, she got engaged and eventually got married happily ever after

I do agree how they make it seem like the worst thing in the world. They seem to focus more on the negativite side of their stories but have you also noticed they seem to live in a pretty rough lifestyle and all of them that was featured in this documentary simply do not enjoy having autism.

Roxanne lives in a very hard lifestyle as in her past, she has been excluded and attacked alot of the staff at the school... But also it was scary for me aswell because i've never seen a girl this angry at the age of 9. I would even have nightmares of it.
She eventually told me why she was and that's when I started supporting her and that was when we both was about 16.
What surprised me is that how me and her somehow i dunno how had got together, im happy being with her as long as she's happy.

As for Moneer after the death of his mother, he was also having a very difficult time that he EVEN considered suicide but i won't go into that much detail...

I noticed that too, and then the things she named were weird, like trees and shops. She couldn't even name relevant things. But that's part of autism right there. You know, the not being able to explain stuff part. Some concepts are just hard to explain though, especially if it's the only thing you ever knew. So maybe she said objects but they represented deeper concepts that could not be explained.



It makes sense that all the people in the school are having a hard time, otherwise they might not be there. But considering this, the documentary wasn't really about autism, it was really more about this school, and only one place in the spectrum where those kids are at. It's like showing somebody yellow and green and calling it rainbow. Did the film makers have some kind of plan with what kind of image they wanted to portray, or do you think they just didn't know any better?

Those kids act like how I feel, I just don't show it mostly.

i'm better then normal, i'm abnormal

Basically, it's also reminds me of a video diary of how this autistic person lives and how they live their life.

However, the title make me normal is from that part in the beginning when roxanne was walking around in circles "I want you to make me normal" about 3 times.

Trees and stuff, I don't quite get what she ment by it...

She said: trees, estate agents, shops, places where you could go out for a meal.

I guess they represent places where one needs social skills to get stuff. I could go deeper into it, but I don't know But trees are a natural thing, so maybe it means autistic people have a different kind of nature. It's not literal, because trees aren't hard to get to, depending on where you live. And she lives near trees.

i really like this documentary, it is actualy represent of most autistic people. I can relate to many of the people in it, and its nice to know that I was not the only one who had such trouble at that age.