Tell Them You Love Me

This documentary really threw me for a loop. I went into it expecting a classic cut-and-dry true crime doc, but it ended up leaving me with an empty feeling in my throat. This, because either way the cookie crumbles, someone is suffering.

It began with a great story of a man and a woman working on the man's ability to communicate, and overturned into something completely different.

I really loved the way this was filmed, and how it really gives you, the viewer, a chance to see where you fall in the (unfortunate) black and white world of disability. I hope it generates more awareness of the polarizing effect so many people with disabilities face.

That movie scream racism and control... but a lot of it from personal experience. Both disability and having some interracial relationships in the past.

From the start you could see the family was going to be the issue. Example, mother seriously needs to cut the apron strings, she's just keeping Derrick tied down and isolated because she doesn't want to be alone. Her husband left her due time him. Like they said and she don't want the child she choose over husband to leave. She acts just like my dude mom has acted and has said the same things. She even guilt trips him whenever he tries to stand up to her. Brings up the time he was in the hospital for 5 months in a coma and having seizures, that she was there everyday and no one else.

The brother is super raciest as well. Saying Derrick doesn't like our gospel music, because of Anna. That he never cried like that in front is a white woman. Why does it matter if she's whites. Why not just say, I never cried like that in front of a woman in a professional setting? Everything was about black and white with him.

As far as, Anna I'm conflicted. It's hard to know exactly Derrick's mindset, but I do believe he's a grown man. Even if they act like his mentality is of that of a 12 month old. I do find it odd she knew so much about him and his life for her manipulating his hand and thoughts. Specially after Anna stopped coming around, he was showing signs of distress and self harm.

However, common sense like never bring up your sex life with anyone outside your lover and friend zone... never parents or in-laws. That's why I feel if she really was raping him she wouldn't bring it up.

I agree and believe people with special needs don't have low intelligence and that we can all learn to communicate. My son whose autistic show's me this everyday. He might not be verbal, but we find ways around to communicate. Be it pictures or sign language, that way he's not getting frustrated as easily and so he knows that he's not being isolated and not heard; and so he knows he has a voice.

I do think that what Ana did with Derek is disgusting, I can't even imagine the scene in her office with him.

However, I am very angry at Derek's family too, including mother and brother.

Derek was masturbating, so what if he was? Doesn't he have the right to do so?

I know that being sexually abused can cause people to masturbate excessively and that's a different thing, but just because he is masturbating when he is 40 in an adult body and you still think he is 2 years old and can't forget going with him to hospitals doesn't mean he is not a human being with instincts and needs.

The brother was also often irrational being on mother's side and focused on defeating Ana at any cost. I felt very angry that they did not talk about how Derek was affected by all of this, the trial, and separation from Ana , because even he didn't love her the way Ana says, there was a bond and attachment created between them that I am sure caused him much distress and pain after separation.

And the fact that the jury or other people can't even imagine a severely disabled person being loved by someone who is not disabled or loving someone himself is very undermining of the worth of people with disability and their capacities.

At the beginning I was like "oh, how amazing! The possibilities are great and his life has changed". But little by little you start to see that things are not okay and that every achievement raises questions.

The way that the woman believes blindly that their relationship was normal and all was fine is just horrendous. She can't think critically and therefore thinks everyone is wrong. The way that the communication works and how his intelligence develops extremally fast is very unlikely. When the assistance starts he barely communicates, but soon he starts to read papers and give political opinions?

The documentary shows how science and study are important to prevent misinformation and charlatans to take advantage on others.

From the beginning, it was made clear that, to tell this story, we had to present all angles and involve all those who were part of it. Newark ethics professor originally convicted in 2015 of sexually assaulting Derrick Johnson, a nonverbal man with cerebral palsy. The two met in 2009 through his brother, John Johnson, a student of Stubblefield's. After John Johnson approached the professor, then 39, about his brother's condition, Stubblefield offered to help Derrick Johnson, then 28, with his communication skills. He soon learned to use a keyboard with an LED screen to type and, with Stubblefield's assistance, began taking a university class. The film explores the unsettling case of Dr. Anna Stubblefield, a white Rutgers University philosophy professor and disability theorist who began working with Derrick Johnson, a non-verbal Black man with cerebral palsy and intellectual disabilities, using a scientifically questionable method to help him communicate. That method, called Facilitated Communication, involves supporting the hand of a person with motor skill issues so they can point to letters on a board or tap letters on a keyboard to express thoughts.