From as early as he can remember, Sean had lived with extreme anxiety. As the years went by, he couldn’t connect with other students. He was bullied and could never understand why. A darkness of alienation grew within him and his parents sought help. After years of searching, finally, a doctor pinpointed Sean’s mental health issues. He had Asperger’s. Armed with this knowledge and treatment, Sean found his way back in the world and learned how to control his disorder. He now helps younger kids who struggle with this mental health disorder.
Subjects: Relationships / Family / Parenting
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LGBTQ Acceptance: Joey’s Story
When reaching puberty at the age of 12, Joey was coming to the realization that that he was gay. Within his school and community, Joey felt that he was the one gay teenager. This terrified him. He confided in a “friend” who soon spread the word around school. Joey became the target of bullying and ridicule. Then it happened at home. His father could not accept that his son was gay and abandoned the family. Soon after, his mother abandoned him as well, leaving him to live with his “unaccepting” grandparents. He was alone in the world. The only way out, so he thought, was to take his own life. This is Joey’s heartbreaking story.
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Stress & Cultural Expectations: Eileen’s Story
Eileen’s family emigrated from China to North America to create a new life for the children. The Chinese family culture and dynamics were important in the household. Eileen found it difficult to fit in with her peers and she was heavily relied upon at home for chores. She was also pushed hard to excel at school and placed in a school for advanced education. Unfortunately, at a young age, she was sexually molested and kept it a deep dark secret. Her self-identity would develop into a critical low level of self-esteem and alienation from any social life. High school was a nightmare. She found a message of hope from an unusual source and decided that, prior to entering university, she would transform her life with an ultimate spiritual and physical makeover.
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Depression and Anxiety: Eleanor’s Story
Eleanor had a hard time fitting in. She was severely bullied through elementary school. High school wasn’t any different but this time it got a lot worse as she became very depressed and developed paralyzing anxiety to the point where she couldn’t breathe. It was physical pain for her. She wouldn’t be able to enter a room full of people nor could she be touched. Life was unbearable. It took time, support and focus but with therapy and medication, Eleanor blossomed into a happy young woman that now study’s psychology in University and works in an institution assisting troubled youth.
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Addiction in First Nations: Lindsay’s Story
Lindsay (Eekwol) grew up in the First Nations community. She experienced an unforgiving world of drugs, alcohol, and violence within her family. As a child, she lived in fear while her parents and their friends had endless parties that often broke out in fights. As she grew up in this environment, she soon developed into an abuser of drugs and alcohol herself. She fell victim to blackouts and, on one occasion, almost died lying unconscious on the highway. This seminal moment caused her devoted sister to give up on her – unless she changed her ways. For the first time in her life, she listened, and the path of being clean and sober led to becoming a successful solo female aboriginal hip hop artist.
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Don’t Diss My Abilities: Michelle’s Story
As a child and teenager, Michelle endured a series of events that was nothing short of soul crushing. She faced sexual abuse as a child and kept it a secret for years. At the age of sixteen she acquired a brain disease that rendered her blind. Her so-called friends bullied her at school. She fell into a deep depression and turned to drugs, alcohol, and self-harm to numb her pain, but nothing seemed to help. She felt her only option was suicide. Thankfully, a miraculous turn of events saved her life and now this remarkable young woman faces all her adversity with such positive energy that it has become infectious and humbling to all that know and love her.
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Broken Families: Lydia’s Story
Lydia’s life as a child was filled with family dysfunction, drugs, abuse, and the death of her mother. She ended up in the foster care system before the age of 10 and would endure moving between 36 different foster homes. Lydia was left with a lack of identity, belonging, and self-worth. The longing for her family and her loneliness created a cycle of destruction or “acting out.” Nothing or no one could fill the void she felt. Somehow, she found an incredible strength to turn her life around. Living out of a car, she put herself through school and became determined to have her own family, providing a loving home for her two children; something she never had.
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Transgender Parents
TRANSGENDER PARENTS is about love, life and kids after a gender transition. It shares the struggles and strengths of several trans women and trans men navigating different stages of parenting: from pregnancy, through raising infants, toddlers and teenagers. Some, who transitioned prior to founding their families, experience fertility clinics and hospital births; others, who transitioned in the presence of their kids work to renegotiate their identity and relationships within their families. All are openly out in the world as trans and as parents in ways that weren’t possible 20 years ago.
Syrus and Nik, both in their 30s, live in downtown Toronto. We follow their story from Syrus’s pregnancy to the 2nd birthday of young Amélie as they make their way in the world as black gay trans men with a blond blue-eyed daughter.
Aiyyana is a Haudenosaunee grandmother who was born male and has journeyed through genders and considers herself a transformed woman. An accomplished writer and award-winning theatre artist, Aiyyana is building a home on her childhood reserve along with one of her adult children.
Originally, from Alberta, Jenna is a 30-year-old trans-mother-to-be who runs an organic farm with her partner near Montreal. We earn about her path to motherhood, and witness the hours following the arrival of her baby.
Stefonknee is a trans woman of 45 who came out when her 7 children were almost all teenagers. The process of finding herself and going public has been too much for most of her family to bear. She has moved to Toronto from rural Ontario where she is a speaker and activist. We follow her on a visit to her hometown as she tries to heal broken connections.
Hershel, a Jewish trans man in his late 60s, is a psychotherapist whose son was 19 years old when he transitioned. We witness their loving and at times difficult relationship as both speak candidly about their experiences as parent and child over the last fifteen years.
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Pregnancy and Childbirth: The Real Story
The wonder of pregnancy and childbirth is an exciting and stressful time for mothers as well as fathers. This engaging, interview led program transitions from conception to birth as it covers the key developmental stages in each trimester. Experts interviewed include midwives Kelly Langford and Jan Ireland, and obstetrician Dr Lionel Steinberg. In parallel, we follow a mother’s journey across the nine months. The program documents foetal development, outlines key medical tests, the emotional and physical aspects of pregnancy, birthing options and the birthing process. An invaluable resource for those entering the fields of health care, midwifery, psychology and medicine, it combines medical information with the human experience.
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Unplanned Pregnancy
An unplanned pregnancy can be a major crisis for a woman of any age. For a young person it is an especially confronting event. Even though many pregnancies are planned, in other cases the pregnancy is unplanned. If the proper support and knowledge is not available, the choices can seem entirely overwhelming. This practical and informative program takes rational approach to this very sensitive topic and discusses the implications of an unplanned pregnancy. Viewers will come to understand the options for both the mother and father, and also receive suggestions on where to get further help and advice.