(horse breathing)
All my life,
I just wanted to be treated as an equal.
(brushing teeth)
I had a bit of trouble with reading emotions,
because I have Asperger's
and because I didn't really know anything
about body language.
(soft music)
Pretty much all my schools,
I've had teachers who don't treat me like everyone else,
who treat me like an outcast.
I had a teacher that would just ignore me
and just treat me like I'm not there.
He called my parents and he told me right to my face
that I'm making excuses to why I can't do anything.
So, made me feel like I'm nothing.
I got uncontrollably angry.
It's like another person took over my body.
So, I snapped.
(solid beep)
At the end of year six, I got expelled.
I'd gotten correspondence at home.
Then, no school wants to know me.
I couldn't really cope with it.
Just not having human contact.
It started me wanting to end it at all.
I couldn't go anywhere.
I just thought that this would be the easiest way
to get over it all.
(soft electronic tones)
As a mother,
all you want is the best for your child.
And you ask and scream from the rooftops
and no one's prepared to do anything.
You know, we went to every agency I could find.
I was quite resourceful
and it didn't matter how much I begged, pleaded,
even threw money in it
and we just couldn't find the support.
And that's when I heard about Ros
and it was just a godsend.
(horse breathing)
Alex, when he first came was very withdrawn,
looked very sombre.
So he's a little bit weary.
So just let him sniff your hand.
So with Alex having Asperger's,
we're always very careful to remember
that they might not process things as we process them.
So we give them time to think,
time to reflect.
So we watch our horse a lot to see what the expression is.
You're going to do that by learning to read his expressions,
his body language,
just as he's reading your body language.
So this is what you're going to be doing, Alex,
teaching him to follow you nicely.
So do you want to come and have a look now.
Cracker.
Good boy.
Cracker.
I'll tell you a little secret what I do.
When I touch a horse
or even when I groom a horse with a brush,
I pretend that I'm touching him with my heart
and look at that.
He's a... (horse snorting)
That is releasing some tension.
That was a good release of tension.
(horse snorting)
He says "I think I like this boy".
The good thing about working with horses
is that the horses don't make any judgments
and they don't know what Asperger's is.
And the horses can get to the kid's heart
quicker than we can.
It was like watching a flower un-fill, you know?
Beautiful lily that just opened up its petals
and he was this beautiful child that had been
shut inside himself.
I felt like
he was actually becoming my friend
and because I hadn't had any friends
and I really could use that.
It made me feel that I was born to,
it made me feel that I belonged here.
(soft music)
It was such a big thing for Alex
to be able to come to Leg Up and be part of the family.
He belonged.
He was trusted.
He was, he was an important person here.
He was valued.
He became the real Alex that no one had ever bothered
to get to know before.
Coming out here,
I learned that horses can show you how you're feeling
and really change your perspective on things.
It taught me how to be gentle.
It's also taught me how you can be free.
(soft music)