Loved this film!

Thank you jneedleman! I wish there were more documentaries like this for abstract and personal reasons. I've always had strong interests in psychology and what makes people the way we are. I've also developed combat related PTSD which causes depression and anxiety, so I am always trying to understand the common bonds that we all share, regardless of our "disorders".

I have two autistic people in my life who are very close to my heart, and they're both on opposite ends of the spectrum. My cousin is highly functioning: he has a job at a grocery store that he excels at, he's always been quite good at expressing and understanding feelings, to the point where he even participates in all the little manipulations that families sometimes enact on each other, and he also has a girlfriend. The other person is my best friend's daughter, who is now seven years old and has extremely limited communication skills. She attends a school for children with various developmental disorders and has to be on a rigid routine or she becomes hysterical. Thankfully, my friend has an awesome support system because her daughter will always need lots of care and she will always need lots of help.

I have seen people respond to both of them in different ways and the most common response has to be ignorance. My family has always treated my cousin like an invalid when he's actually more capable than some of my "normal" family members. They've recently given him more freedom and I notice the more they let go and allow him to work and have outside relationships, the more he blossoms into an independent and caring young man that I'm very proud of. My friend hates taking her daughter out in public because she usually causes a disturbance, which she doesn't mind, she's used to the behavior by now and we've found ways to distract her and even make light of it. It's the way people react to her daughter's behavior that makes her ashamed and hesitant to go places. All of the gawking, pointing and whispering: people have even made hurtful comments directly to her such as "If you can't control your child, you shouldn't take her out in public." I'd like to think that if more people educated themselves and tried to understand how autism works and affects the person who has it, they may be more accepting and not attach such a stigma to it.