The Netflix documentary Tell Them You Love Me is a truly bizarre trip to WTFsville

(Spoiler alert: This article comprises ALL spoilers.)

I had no intention of watching “Tell Them You Love Me” a documentary that appeared on Netflix and recently gained attention from my social media community. But I kept seeing people I do know talking about someone named “DMan” and the way annoyed they were that somebody mispronounced it, which must have been virtually unattainable, so I Googled it and, well, here we’re. I watched Tell Them You Love Me and I’m so indignant about so many things on this documentary that when it ended I wanted to fight the air. One of the primary characters within the documentary, Dr. Anna Stubblefield, relates this story to Alice in Wonderland and he or she couldn’t be more right because many of the story is WTF, very similar to Lewis Carroll’s classic.

“Tell Them You Love Me” is about many things without delay: caregiving for the mentally challenged, cerebral palsy, sex, neglect, literature, white people, facilitated communication (and whether or not it’s real), Jesus, consent, deception, white savior, not listening to black women, and the list goes on. At its core, it asks the viewer to grapple with one query: Do you suspect that this white woman, academic, and practitioner (Anna) truly believed that she helped Derrick Johnson (aka DMan)—a mentally challenged, nonverbal black man with cerebral palsy—unblock his communication, intelligence, emotional, and physical desires? Is she a sexual predator because DMan was unable to consent to the sexual relationship she believed he was having, thus making her a liar and rapist who exploited DMan for his own twisted pleasures? He’s actually someone who recurrently breaks the road, but is he a criminal?

Spoiler alert: the court found the latter and sentenced her to 12 years in prison. She was released after two years of appeals, and it doesn’t appear that New Jersey will retry the case.

But let’s leave the ballistics alone. DMan (this nickname means a lot to anyone watching) was born with cerebral palsy, is non-verbal, and was diagnosed with severe mental retardation early in life. His mother and brother Jan maintain him. While John was pursuing his Ph.D. at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, he met Anna, who was doing work that John thought would help his brother. Then there was the element of facilitated communication. Communication made easy is a approach to helping non-verbal people communicate by supporting their hands while writing words on a keyboard or letter board.

Anna met DMan, helped him communicate, helped him express very deep, compelling thoughts and feelings, fell in love with him, risked every part for him (she got married, also to a black man) and went to prison. When DMan’s family had enough (we’re getting to that), they examined him and experts determined that it was all a lie and that Anna was an imposter who was communicating with one another and using DMan for her sexual pleasures.

I got bored watching the documentary at the start. Derrick (via keyboard) told Anna that he wanted to be called DMan, like DEE-man (allegedly confirmed by DMan’s mother, Daisy; the documentary doesn’t show her confirming this), but Anna couldn’t stop calling him Deman ( like Duh-MAN) and it really annoyed me. Every time Deman spoke, I got nervous; CALL THIS MAN BY HIS NAME. DMan was what one other teacher called him when he was younger.

This is one in all the primary the reason why I believe something is fallacious. Apparently one time at school (Anna told DMan to take an African-American studies class at Rutgers) he told her to stop speaking on his behalf. I’m supposed to consider he had the means to correct her for speaking poorly on his behalf on political issues, but let her mispronounce his name perpetually? But at the identical time, if he cannot clearly share his thoughts, how did he even tell her to call him DMan? You will see? This is very confusing.

Anna and DMan supposedly began a romantic relationship because Anna fell in love together with his mind, but I’m confused because… they should have spent an excessive amount of time together. At one point, DMan informed his family (via Anna via keyboard) that he drank red wine (though previously he only liked beer) and was vegan, which might have set off any alarm in my soul. The moment that upset his mother, and the moment where I consider the family was negligent, was when Anna stopped DMan’s mother from playing gospel music within the automotive due to DMan’s classics. This was a bridge too far for his mother, they usually probably became suspicious at this point.

Except they allowed DMan TO CONTINUE working with Anna. Things allegedly turned romantic and sexual. And then the family stepped in, pressed charges, and Anna ended up in prison.

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Look, this documentary is crazy. Or each thing shared within the document from Anna’s perspective is a complete and utter fabricated lie – every part ever typed on the keyboard utilized by DMan was written down; within the document they used “his” typography and e-mails sent between Anna and other people involved in his care – and he or she really is a threat to society (as her ex-husband assures) and a sociopath who took advantage of a disabled man OR DMan’s family didn’t want to accept the proven fact that he was able to every part he supposedly achieved: love, intelligence, expression… humanity.

Ultimately, the family separated Anna from DMan and had him evaluated by experts who determined he was completely incapacitated for nearly EVERYTHING she said happened and every part he wrote. It seemed that Anna was the sociopath they believed her to be, a perpetrator of sexual violence who unlocked his sexual desires, which then became a problem for his mother, who continued to be his guardian through all of it. His mother’s frustration with this seems to me to be the actual explanation for what ultimately led DMan’s mother to file criminal charges. For Daisy, Anna raped a mentally disabled man. The courts agreed.

It’s really sad. It seems very likely that Anna used DMan and manipulated him for years to create a strange version of a success story and went too far. She spent YEARS working with him; patience and the long game really prove the sociopathic approach. What I mean is that Anna and DMan had clear disagreements based on DMan’s archived comments on his keyboard; Was she arguing with herself and never realizing it? Anna also tried to get DMan away from his mother and into her own living space; for 30 years of his life, his mother took care of him across the clock. Somehow he was able to move out on his own? Anna might have real help, and DMan is not what everyone hoped he can be, despite his disability – this should be hard on his family.

The documentary is wild. How you are feeling depends largely on whether you suspect in the thought of ​​facilitated communication, which many leading scientific communities have rejected. And even when that happens on this case, with experts saying DMan is incapable of what Anna claimed, much of this story is bullshit. The family let him stick with Anna for much longer than they need to have, but Anna is truly dangerous.

There is so way more to this document that needs unpacking; even the legal proceedings are disturbing. It’s unattainable to watch this without concern and ultimately feeling sad for everybody involved, including the community of people that consider in and depend on facilitated communication to help their families. It’s just bad throughout.

Ultimately, I hope DMan is okay.