 Good day, my lovely listeners! You are listening to The Forty Autie Podcast. Tune in every week to explore inspiring stories and insightful information that dive headfirst into the world of autism and mental health. With all those tantalising tongue twisters out of the way, let's get into the show. And welcome back to The Forty Autie Podcast with your host, Mr Thomas Henley, of course. Today we've got, I dread to say, a different episode than usual, even. We're going to be talking about something that is perhaps quite, as most people would say, triggering or difficult or emotional. We're going to be talking about autism and suicide and, you know, everything that comes along with it, things to do with depression, things to do with mental health support. We're going to be talking about our particular experiences with it. So if that's something that you are thinking yourself, oh my god, I don't want to spiral myself out and I'm not in a good place to listen to this, then I would encourage you to check out one of your other episodes. But if not, I'm sure this is going to be a really great conversation. And I forgot to introduce my guest. We have Amelia here from Autistic Positivity. How are you doing? Yeah, I'm doing fine. Thank you. How are you doing today? How's your week been so far? I'm a little stressful with stuff at school, but I guess I'm okay. What kind of stuff are you studying at the moment? Is it just like all the bases or is like a few subjects? The base is just, you know, school is quite stressful by itself and I'm failing maths, actually. So I'm trying to work on that. Yeah, yeah. I really struggled with maths. I had this absolutely awful teacher who was very, very authoritarian. Like nobody speaks and if you speak, then you get a strike across your name and if you get three strikes, then you're off to detention. And he didn't like me because I took everything that he said very literally. You can talk when you finished working. So I finished working very quickly and then I talked and then he got annoyed at me and so he moved me down to like a lower set. Which is lovely of him. Would you like to tell everybody a little bit about yourself? Yeah, so I'm Amelia, as you know, I started Autistic Positivity on Instagram and I think November last year, that is 2021. So I am Autistic. I was diagnosed when I was 16. And yeah, my special interests include autism and mental health. So I really love what I do. What are your sort of plans like after you finish school in year? Are you going to go into work or you're going to kind of stick to online stuff or go to university? So when I got my disability papers, there was a note that said I'm not able to work. And yeah, I agree with that. So no plans at the moment, but I'm really hoping to grow my platform and help even more people. I'm sure you will and you've already done some like really great, great work. Thank you. I can't remember what posted. So it might been something related to mental health. Oh, okay. I think it is a really, really important topic, isn't it? Yeah, it is. I think it might be sort of quite good to go through some statistics on mental health because I mean, I know I didn't say that I do this at the start of the podcast, but I have my presentation up for the autism show that I'll be doing this weekend. And I looked at the new research and there's like some real like, it's very depressing when I see it, but I see the potential of sort of showing these stats to people. So at the moment, 22% of autistic people are in either full-time or part-time employment. 40% have lifelong depression. 20% have anxiety disorders. 63% of autistic people in school are bullied significantly, 63%. Autistic people actually have an increased rate of mortality. So dying about 20 years on average earlier. Yeah, that's true. 66% of autistic people think seriously about suicide and 35% of people attempt further to that. 41% of suicides in a recent study be like a big sort of analysis of mental health and suicides and sort of talking to the family and stuff. 41% of those suicides that they surveyed had showed strong autistic traits. You know, starting with these statistics, it kind of gives us a bit of a frame when it because I know some people who kind of may tune into us speaking and think that it's kind of like an isolated case or it's something that's not very common. It actually is, yeah. I guess jumping into our first question after me rambling about stats. I think it's important to talk about those. I think so too, and definitely in the context of this talk. So what are some of the reasons that autistic people are more likely to attempt suicide? I think that's a very punchy question right to the heart of things. Yeah, what do you think about that? So I think that the first factor is where more likely to be socially isolated. There are autistics that struggle with socializing at, yeah. And we may have issues to go out or meet with friends or even make friends. So that when you're isolated for the majority of your life or when you're at school, when we're friends are really important that puts you at risk at either depression or even suicidal thoughts or attempts even because of it, because you feel so alone and you don't have anybody to talk to. I think that's a really important point, because across the board it seems to be a trend that autistic people just receive a lot of trauma from going through the high school secondary school experience. Is that something that you've experienced? So I never was really bullied, but the kids definitely, as I was saying, I was diagnosed at 16. So I didn't know I was out of autistics, but the kids definitely knew that there was something wrong with me or I was different. They were talking behind my back definitely that time, the weird one. So yeah, I can imagine what these people who are bullied must go through. It's definitely something that I've talked about it quite a lot, but I really struggled in secondary school with bullies and stuff. It's actually one of the reasons why I started doing martial arts in Taekwondo, because it was just, it's quite difficult, because it's not like there's a rulebook for bad interactions with people. It's like most people just say walk away or something. Some people will say, hit them, hit them back and then first. Yeah, it's not always that easy. Indeed. But I've also seen a lot of isolation, social isolation in older autistic people, who have been really late in the life diagnosis. A lot of people messaging and commenting on my stuff about their circumstances, they masked all their life and had really bad experiences with people. Due to all of that, pretty much just live alone. Some people will say that they don't need social interaction because they're autistics, we don't need social interaction. Well, you might feel like it, but I don't think it's really true. Yeah, it's a big part for everybody, I think. Yes, even if we don't enjoy it that much, I think we need it either way. It's kind of like a bit of therapy, isn't it? Yeah, it can be. Yeah, even in situations where I find it really stressful, I always feel sort of, it's just good to have someone to talk to as a sounding board because most of the time, I'm always in our head thinking about things and interactions and people and concepts. It can get a little bit too much sometimes, it's good to voice them and get them out of your brain. Yeah, definitely. I agree. Well, I think that one of the other sort of factors that's really become more apparent to me as time goes on is misdiagnosis or being undiagnosed or not knowing that you're autistic. Yes. People getting a diagnosis of BPD, specifically women around BPD and psychosis evens, schizophrenia. Yes, yes. And I know there's been a little bit of history with that kind of crossover, but from listening to people, it seems that it's really bad. It's really bad for them because they kind of shuffled through this mental health pathway, which is not sort of specialized or friendly to autistic people. Yes, I can say by looking at my story, I was misdiagnosed with borderline personality disorder. And I didn't really see any of those traits in myself. It's like diagnosing autism would be a bad thing, I felt like. I did show a lot of autistic traits at the time. Yeah, and definitely being undiagnosed for the, well, most of my life is a huge, plays a huge role in my mental health and my struggles. It can be due to services that I received being unaccommodated for autistic people or the specialists who treated me didn't really know how to support me because they didn't know I was autistic and autistic people should be accommodated in receiving those services, whether it's online therapy instead of going to the place or, well, yeah, there's a whole list I could make of accommodations, but you know what I mean. Yeah, definitely. I think it's really important to kind of go back to why people just attempt suicide anyway. I think it's, at least from my experiences, it's either been something that I feel is my only way out of discomfort or pain or emotional difficulties, but it's also been like a little bit of, you know, in sort of a maladaptive way, it's a little bit of a coping mechanism at times. It's like, for me, it's like, oh, okay, you know, I've got to go for this, but you know, it doesn't really matter because, you know, I can end it when I want to and, you know, that kind of mentality around things. It's kind of like a, it's like the person's coping mechanism to deal with an environment or circumstances or a brain that just causes you a lot of distress and pain and difficulty. And I can imagine, like when we're talking about it in the context of autism, it's, you know, you've got things like a lexifamia and things like that that kind of come in and make it harder to receive support or even realize that you need it. Mm, definitely. And also, like factors of quality of life, like unemployment, difficulty finding a relationship, difficulty finding friends, you know, being able to pay your way. That can play a huge role too, just like you shared those statistics with, statistics with unemployment in autistic people. Not having maybe work sometimes can be, can feel like a purpose to live maybe. And you also find a community there, friends, you have a boss, you have a job that you have to attend to, you have to get out of bed every day. So that can be helpful, but also of course exhausting. So when we can't work, we may feel isolated. And yeah, difficulty finding friends or partner is something that we struggle with too. And that can also play a role in, for example, depression or even suicide. Yeah, yeah. It's a really difficult one because there's a lot of sort of avenues for autistic people receiving a lot of bad life experiences, like what we said about anxiety and just rates of depression and rates of bullying, unemployment, isolation, you know, it's the role of like- So trauma, different kinds, I don't know, maybe in family at school, we mentioned that, yeah. I like that. I think you might point it out, but like social isolation, it doesn't necessarily have to be something that occurs when you're just on your own all the time. I think another thing that's really so popular to talk about at the moment is like masking and things like that, like the sort of existential sort of feeling that anyone that you meet or that you talk to who likes you when there's a part of your life, like because you have this mask up all the time, you don't really feel connected to the people around you. Yes, I read somewhere that side effects of long-term masking can be depression, anxiety, loss of identity, and also depression and suicidal thoughts. So it's definitely important to mention that. It's like we interact with somebody and it's like the person who talks to us meets another person, a different person, someone that we just put up an act. We don't feel like ourselves anymore sometimes when we mask. I think it's also as well like we need to put in a little more effort into sort of interacting and maintaining friendships and things of that nature. So if people aren't like, if the only thing that people have experienced is negativity or not connecting with people when they talk to them, then that exact social anxiety and those social difficulties are going to be way out of order with their desire to talk to people. In my life I went through a big phase in my second year of university where I was in a situation where I'd moved away from home and one of the issues about it is that you're not exactly surrounded by people all the time in adult life and you have to go and find people which is the difficulty. I was on my own for a month or so and I didn't really go outside and it had some really bad effects on making my anxiety and panic attacks and depression worse because it's like you're just stuck alone with your thoughts sometimes. I guess what I really want to know is one of the reasons why I asked you to come on is because I was interested in hearing what your experiences of mental health were like. Would you be able to sort of give us a little bit of a story time on? Yeah, sure. A lot of hope. There's no pressure on you. I can always add it to it. Okay. So my depression started when I was 12. I also had anxiety. Now the anxiety is very low. I don't feel that much anymore but however the depression is sometimes unbearable. When I was 13, I started self-harming. The self-harm kind of got worse and of course I won't describe the details but it got worse from July, August. Okay, in August I took pills but I didn't really know anything about the dosage so it failed as you see. And about a month from that I got admitted into a psych ward. I was there for a month and a week and yeah, I don't want to scare you. It's important to remember that I am in Poland, the mental health services and especially psych wards and especially child psych wards are extremely underfunded but I talked to a psychologist for maybe 30 minutes, two times during my stay there. So a stay of a month and a month and a half and you talked to a psychologist twice. And my visits with the psychiatrist were really like a physical exam or just talking about I don't know my family or when will I get discharged from there and so the food was also terrible. I as you may know I have arphids, avoidant restrictive food intake disorder. Yes, yes. So and I also didn't know that it existed then. I thought I was just weird and so the food wasn't, I ate only bread there really and maybe pasta without any sauce if I was lucky. And yes, I at the end all the psychologists and psychologists quit their job. So the ward was closed. I'm laughing now but it's of course the ward was closed and that's why you were discharged. There was a doctor when I was near my discharge date from another hospital but it happened when I was there and I avoided the closing but yeah. So I got home. I was seriously controlled by my parents and well it's not really that weird when your child wants to do and their life it's I think it's natural to want to know what they are doing. And I self harmed pretty bad but when I got to the doctor he said that there's an ocean of books that I should read to get better and life is beautiful. He was around 70 and that's how he treated my self harm and wound that required stitching but remember if you're self harming and your wounds don't require stitching it's just as important as those who require it. Yes, it's not a competition and I don't want anybody to I forgot the word compare themselves to me. Yeah and then I like for three days ago from this incident at the doctors I was having a psychosis attack and yeah I think it's for it was from depression that I read somewhere that depression can cause psychotic attacks and I was 13 at the time I didn't know what was happening. Yes, yes it felt like I taken I don't know drugs. I was talking like I was really heavily drunk that the world is in our hands or something I was texting all my friends or the group chats with this bullet. Yeah and my mom called the ambulance and they gave me I don't know if you will know what is called in English if I will tell you hydroxazine. Hydroxazine. Hydroxazine. Yeah they gave me two of those. I hate hydroxazine. It makes my brain so I just can't focus on anything like. Yes I took that for a while for sleeping but it didn't really work and after this incident I was my parents told me that I'm going to a psych ward just for some some tests for a few hours of course I was there for another month and can I just I don't want to sort of interrupt your flower or anything but I I just find it absolutely incompatible about like how healthcare professionals or people think that it's it's a suitable thing to to basically just lock up someone who's who's recently like attempted or someone who's who's self harmed quite badly and yeah and only see them twice once for a physical exam and then expect when they're released for them to be to be okay or into in a better state and not to return there anymore. Well you'd be worse aren't you because it's a horrible experience so you yes it's maybe a little bit traumatized me the patients helped me a lot more than the actual doctors yeah and this psych ward was the doctors and the psychologists were a little bit more well they were talking to us but you had an individual consultation with the psychologist just once a in a week which is also not ideal but still better by individual or individual or group kind of yes there was also something called group sorry therapy but it was just smelling candles and the psychologist reading us children's stories children's books so that was the patients there were like 14 or 15 yeah there's children sorry but what yeah exactly that's yeah and not you I know you're saying about you know this this this situation being in Poland yes but I've heard I've heard a lot of stories from people in the US and the UK who you know going it's it I have to say it's not quite as bad as that as having really bad food and it's so bad I know yeah and like the environments that they put you in from yes from going going to these places are just like the worst like you you're huddled together with other people who are really struggling yes you're you're expected to eat certain things and go to sleep at certain times and wake up at certain times and like yes it's like it's like more of a prison like a short term like we'll put a we'll put like a timeout on them and then they'll be released so they won't kill themselves just not helping them but it's just for them yes yes and I have a question actually you're in the UK yes yeah yes okay but I had a question if psych wards in America are paid as there is only private healthcare yeah and I'm not too sure about that I um no I kind of I can and voluntary hold maybe the bill isn't really that um high if it's if there is a bill maybe you probably know more about it than I do I just the only thing I know about this situation like the what do you call it psych wards and things like that is that they are not great for autistic people and um and also that uh there's you know even within my my workplace there's there's people within my workplace trying to like pass do like training and pass pass laws to like prevent autistic people going going to psych wards because it's just like it's such a not adapted to us even in the UK yeah not heard some not heard good stories about it but yeah but but yes I can't remember why you were wearing your story before I really interrupted in this weird group therapy thing I yeah yeah so I don't eat for example pasta that's mixed with something else and they just gave it to me and told me that I have to eat it um so definitely not adapted to eating disorders in general I think that a lot of psych wards are um for example for patients with anorexia they just are like you have to eat it and there's not a lot of therapy and maybe talking talking through that issue yeah I suppose even in that situation if you're you know you're still you're still delaying stuff because you're you're putting a a band-aid on them yes not eating and just forcing them to eat and then like when they're released when they when they get out they're like they're gonna have even more negative things attached to eating yes that's true yeah so I got out of the psych ward and I never returned there frankly I started family therapy and we are in still in this therapy and I started my own I think it was psychodynamic therapy with elements of cognitive behavioral sorry therapy CBT yes CBT I was there for a year then my therapist changed I was there for another year and she left work I went to a different therapist in uh oh I forgot the month again it doesn't make the months do you have to worry about the months I'm not gonna fact check you okay I went to another therapist in August of 2021 but we didn't really click it sometimes it's like that and I left I started therapy again actually two weeks ago and she referred me to another therapist and I had different meds and right now I'm on oh I don't know if I would know the you can try I do have some knowledge of medical prescriptions and so it's fennel vaccine I think fennel vaccine fennel vaccine is fax or something um fennel vaccine fennel fennel vaccine fennel um a mono monoamine oxidase inhibitor used to treat atypical depression oh yeah fennel so I'm on that and I'm also on and again not sure of the English version wet up in with a q wet up peanut we're gonna gonna do a bit of a pharmacology class here yeah that it's used to treat is schizophrenia and psychosis I take it for sleep it really helps but it's it's strong when it kicks I just you're out yeah I'm out yeah a lot a lot of the the schizophrenia type medication is it's very very highly sedative isn't that yes and it's actually not meant to treat children I started it when I was like um 15 so it's a bit of a medical experiment and they also gave it gave it to us in the hospital um so we were just um well it's not not really the first choice you would make with anti antipsychotics to treat um insomnia but yeah it works and that's that's important and I find that really really interesting because um I've gone through the the medical circuit as it as it be a few times for changing medications and yes I started for for depression I started with phloxatine which is prozac and sertraline which was awful and I've only heard bad things about sertraline apart from one person but I'm still not sure about that one um and now I'm I'm currently on satala pram which oh okay I think I did that too I'm searching now so I'm a stuprattolem I think it's what it's called it's a similar um substance to an SSRI yeah so um it's uh it's still like one of the sort of the more modern antidepressants yes like I know that the more the more dated the antidepressants get the more likely they are to have side effects and issues and things that you can't do when you're on them and that kind of thing and um I I'm also I'm also on a sedative medication for sleep as well um called metazapine which is um it I mean it's it's it's been good um well one one the thing I wanted to bring up was like I I've heard from quite a few autistic people that you know antidepressants like prozac and things like that are supposed to treat depression and panic disorder and anxiety um things of that nature but I have found particularly in my own life that antidepressants tend to make my anxiety a lot worse so like um any like any of the the ones prozac, citalopram, sertraline um they all hire my anxiety up quite a bit and so I have to pair it with an anti-anxiety medication oh yeah which in this case is metazapine um so I always have to have like equal doses or equal effective doses of each I'm at the same time and um I mean it kind of works to a certain degree it's just like actually like I was thinking about the sedative medication and psychotic sedatives are just absurdly sedative and I I really struggle even even now I've been on it for maybe four four or five years yeah and even now I struggle to wake up in the morning and feel awake and until like 1 p.m. 2 p.m. at the max and um and when I have them it's it's also a really potent um appetite stimulant so I have them and then I had a previous issue with uh bulimia when I was younger um kind of kind of got past it but when I started taking metazapine it the appetite stimulant like restarted the binge purging thing and then you know eventually I sort of managed to get rid of the purging aspect a bit because my teeth are just falling apart um but uh now I'm left with a binging disorder so I'm I'm constantly trying to monitor and like control my weight all the time and it's it's uh it's a really big it's it's become to a point where it's really really sure I think I might be I might go and go to the doctor and see if I can get any treatment for it I realize that you haven't gone through your entire story of that things dear is that is there much much left that you want to to say no um I just wanted to say that I am better now still not maybe the best I still get uh episodes of depression quite severe um but I am definitely better after all these these years and what what made what made an impact slight what what changed and so I would say that definitely finding out that I'm autistic made a big difference I was able to understand myself better um also I would say that my advocacy online uh helped me too to just know that I am helping other people uh autistic or autistic to understand uh better autism and mental health um well yeah um I don't have many friends but those who I have are really helping me too um my boyfriend also um uh yeah and um therapy wasn't really um doing that much that I expected it to be kind of um maybe not a fix for all my problems but um it I think it's gonna be like a lot more effective than it is just considering like how readily it's used yeah and um meds also helped me um get out of bed or do chores um yeah that's my story well thank thank you very much for sharing that um I feel a bit no I in an ideal word I'd want to to have a little think about that because that's you know like you've done so well just uh like get get through it all and and come out the other side and I I totally get you like when I was when I was younger I was it was a constant battle to try and keep myself alive all the time and keep myself safe and you know even even though I'm not in that state where I'm where I can't function at all or talk or you know sort of care care for myself um I still get periods of time like maybe one or two months in a year where like depression is like really bad and yes I think that's it's a really good point to highlight because it you know it's it's a very long although it's very depressing to think about yeah it is a very very long process and um but I would like to say that anybody that I have talked to who you know who've come out the other side and done done work on themselves understanding themselves like they always you know say that it was worth it to stick through and to you know try and make something positive of the the negative experience yeah I think it's always worth it despite of how hard it is and I actually didn't mention that when I was taken to the hospital that second time I made my goodbyes and I maybe there's recently a debate online on whether you should say commit suicide or um you know die by suicide but I can't find another word to describe do describe what I wanted to do so I wanted to commit suicide and this time I'm not gonna describe the message but I was sure I'm gonna do it so if I wasn't taken to that hospital for this um how is that called um this treatment uh yeah um I wouldn't be here today that's also important to mention with our topic we're discussing yeah I think that that's that's definitely very important um yes it's something in my mind that's just slipped away you know what I want to ask because we've talked a lot about your your personal story yeah Amelia and you know I think I think it's it's always good to have that that personal aspect but yeah you know in the context of the 40-odd podcast being about autism would you be would you be up for doing a bit of theorizing on what on the ways that mental health may be different for autistic people yeah sure I think I think for me that the the biggest thing that I I'm talking talking about a lot pretty much all the time um is a lexifemia and yes how that can have like a massive massive impact on uh how you manage mental health but also like the development of it for anybody who doesn't know even even though I talk about it all the time a lexifemia is a difficulty noticing and categorizing emotions and I like to visualize it as a fresh hold condition um around 90 90 plus percent of autistic people are a lexifamic most most people can notice like if if we take anxiety as as an example and most people would be able to notice if they're like 20 30 percent anxious and a scale from one one to 100 and um no for for autistic people people who are lexifamic it's almost like like it needs to get higher in order for us to notice it and to know what it is so like maybe 60 70 80 percent um and you know quite quite often at that point once you once your anxiety is that high it's having like real impacts on your your functioning and your your well-being and it's it's very difficult to kind of adjust adjust what you're doing or or try and help yourself on on a um situation by situation basis I think it's it's really important especially with depression because um I find it very I I can sort I can sort of um I've developed ways of of going around my difficulty with a lexifemia like noticing body set bodily sensations behavior changes um you know things like that I can do that quite well with anxiety and I can gauge it a lot better but depression is a different thing because it's it's it's it's a bit sneaky and not not a lot of people even even if they develop depression know that they're depressed or they they're kind of a bit like in denial about being depressed because it's just like such a cognitive um thing you know you only really see the presentation of of depression when it's quite severe you know when people can't move or function or like you know it affects your tone of voice and your your face and you know um and so it's really really hard uh for some people to kind of say look I feel depressed and sort of get early diagnosis and early early treatment and like things of that nature um it also makes sort of living day to day with it quite hard because people will ask you how you are and you know the predominant two emotions that I have is anxiety and depression um most of the time what's my depression like what's my anxiety like so instead of saying I'm all right or you know I'm not doing too good I'll say well my legs feel this way so I must be at least this percentage of anxiety and I have had I have been having some very negative thought loops and some some sneaky sort of depression thoughts sneaking in there so maybe I'm a little bit depressed but I'm not too sure and that's that's kind of how it goes um with people that I'm comfortable around and I know very well I just kind of say you know they asked me what my ratings are and they just give them a rating um so in in that way it sometimes feels like the only two emotions that I can feel and can pay attention to um are being depressed and anxious all the time and I can't notice all of those other background emotions like happiness and and love and care and excitement and things like that because they're not they're not strong enough and they're they're always like masked under a blanket of anxiety and depression um and and that makes it that makes me feel worse because I'm like well what what do I have around me that's giving me joy and positivity and yeah possibly there are things that are doing that but I just I can't notice it yeah so that's that's that's that's one thing I think a like spy is a massive massive thing do you have any any particular you know things that you you think may be different um so I think it may be different because our um executive functioning is different um with with neurodiversity not only with autism but in ADHD or in other conditions there's problems with or differences with executive functioning we may put put of tasks or just don't have the energy to do it um and it it's I imagine it is hard to treat with therapy um when you kind of feel unable to do it either way with with the tools that therapy gives you your body just doesn't want to um and so a lot of therapy is it's kind of you have to do things yes so it's like it's adding I'm going for therapy for executive functioning you need to do this this on this on top of what you're already doing that's true and and the other thing I think that we have a tendency to have more repeating thoughts I don't want to compare to OCD but it's like a hyper focus yes and these thoughts just come back and come back no matter what we do how do we treat it um how we treat it um and they just always kind of are there um even when we are actively trying to um deal with them maybe not stop them because that's not always possible but um yeah manage them better they still can find a way to come back to us I think that it impacts how autistic people experience and treat mental health issues oh and the other thing is masking I think that when I didn't know I was autistic yet I think I was masking too um without knowing it and I think I did in therapy and that did happen in fact yeah I think I'm not alone yes masking in therapy like they're they're parapising a mask yes yes it's a really good point I did not think about that I think um you know what you said about executive executive functioning it's you know a really great point because um you know often one of the downstream effects of anxiety and depression is to make functioning a lot harder or more difficult or not as worthwhile um like in your brain due to all the chemical differences and stuff and um you know if if you already have like an existing difficulty with some managing life in yourself it doesn't take a lot of low mental health for it to like start affecting you like yes you know I sometimes notice you know if I'm feeling anxious or depressed or something along those lines I kind of look back in hindsight and I'm like I've I've not started to eat not as much or I've started to forget to brush my teeth or you know so it's like it's almost like my body's craving to be like dissociated yeah from from my body my mind from my body like it's it's trying to sort of escape my my current reality or my current feelings and thoughts um and like things you know things like just scrolling through your phone or watching a video um you know turns from a tool to help me transition to something that I can't stop watching and then suddenly like I'm glued in a single spot for about three or four hours yes it's very very strange in in certain areas you know I can still work I can still like do my online stuff and things but nowadays but it's it's it's almost like the other parts of my life that are to do with executive like cleanliness and hygiene and food and you know things like that just seem to take a backseat a lot more now one thing that I wanted to I mean it's it's kind of related to I was going to talk about emotional regulation but I feel it's kind of very similar to Alexa if I'm hearing that sense like oh yeah we just regulate ourselves differently than holistic people and it definitely has some impact on how we receive the mental health care or services or how we experience mental health yeah because I suppose you know I suppose a lot about sort of learning to manage and live with mental health conditions is regulating yourself due to what I said about Alexa Fimea and you know things like that emotional regulation can be very difficult um it's hard to know that it's there it's hard to to know what will help and what's causing it and it's only in hindsight when you look back you're like oh is that that and that that's probably why um which isn't very helpful especially if it's like an acute sort of depression anxiety panic attack or something like that you know you could deal with the information and the way forward in your brain in that instant it's just very hard to access is there anything else that you wanted to touch on around sort of differences I think that is all I can think of yeah oh there was one last thing that I wanted to talk about which was bad social experiences and trauma oh yeah you know considering that we're so rampantly bullied like um and isolated and we have all these these low quality of life statistics it's easy to see why autistic people are struggling more I did my as part of my biomedical sciences degree I researched into sort of did a literature review so I reviewed different research papers over a hundred or so and um the only real solid piece of information about like any biological links was to do with anxiety and social anxiety which makes sense um but it still didn't explain why why there's just such absurd statistics around suicide and depression and eating disorders and like it just just seems like autistic people are just comorbid with everything like everything that's bad it's it's all that it's like there's a lot of environmental things that are going on that we can't control and they're affecting us quite badly you know um I thought that was just this important to to touch on because you know it's a massive massive massive source of mental health difficulties that early early life trauma kind of thing yes I think you know sort of rounding up to the end of the podcast but I think it's it would be important to touch on this do you do you think there are any barriers to autistic people managing and seeking support like thinking thinking about your your experiences with mental health what's stopped you from actually um getting better and getting help so I think that being undiagnosed is um is definitely a barrier um missed diagnosis and oh yes yes also um what else difficulty with making friends or romantic partners um um they are important to our mental health but well it's not really with with the mental health services um but maybe the psych wards aren't adapted to us there are bright lights and the food is it's well it does sound pretty good for all USA and in the UK or USA or anywhere else it's probably there aren't many places that will um accommodate you with your food it's also important to find a therapist or a doctor who knows how to work with autistic patients maybe they were on a um course how to do it and I know that there are such courses for professionals um and maybe uh I don't know how to pronounce that alexa simia yeah yeah alexa simia yes it can also be a barrier because you may you may have you may struggle with realizing that something is actually wrong or realize it too too late maybe yeah you say it's a lot it's a lot harder to deal with when you're younger yes find me it's it's you know as you as you grow and your knowledge expands and you know um are you learning about autism and you learn about yourself it becomes a bit more manageable but yeah it does it just I I just think back to my life through my eyes when I was you know like 13 14 15 um it's it's almost like I was just kind of in this this dream like environment and I was so separated from my emotional brain that I I felt like my brain was split into different modes or parts like my thinking and my emotional brain were just so detached from each other um which made it really difficult for therapy because most of the time they engaged with the thinking part of my brain like what I thought about it rather than what I felt about it um I think um you know there's there's one thing that I really wanted to highlight around sort of barriers and the the amount of specialized psychotherapy for autistic people um is very very sparse especially it will for me like my my parents have obviously put in a lot of work to try and you know help me with my conditions when I was younger and they could not find for the life of them a mental health uh practitioner someone who a psychotherapist or anything like that that specialized in autistic people yeah um and the ones that were were very far away requiring lots of executive functioning and travel yeah as well as money yes for my employed unemployed self so I think that's a massive one we need to see more it's all in the in the UK we need to see more um sort of NHS workers and people who um do do do this kind of thing do psychotherapy to actually like specialize in autism because it's really really needed um and everywhere else to be honest I do I just know specifically about about the UK but and also we need we need some more research around autism and co-morbidities um I know it's a bit of like a on the edge as you see kind of research scientists so we don't like those but um they do I mean a lot of the stuff that we know about autism and you know the the things that we've we've built on in life as as autistic people and like our ideas and concepts and stuff yeah they've all come from at some point some level of research or some level of understanding and um what we really don't understand which is very apparent to me is is why we have such poor life life outcomes yes um why we why we die 20 years younger than the average person which is absolutely ridiculous um you know why so many even autistic children um contemplate suicide and um and and die uh you know this understanding those co-morbidities could be absolutely massive because we could actually start making making treatment around co-morbidities rather than you know all of some of the medical community being focused on treating autism like we need to treat the causes of the anxiety and depression and eating disorders and understand them yeah exactly um so those are two things that I feel quite quite strongly about as really big barriers at the moment but um you know obviously the biggest barrier of all is trying to trying to to get these opinions these statistics these stories heard by the rest of the world yes and actually acted upon yeah we are all um not always often dismissed just because we are autistic that yeah our struggles don't matter because it's supposed to be like that or uh exactly yeah yeah autism low life quality most people's minds like well they're obviously like one in the same yeah it's like no no if you have the right adjustments to the right environment and the right people and the right support uh very high life outcomes from a few of my friends that I know um it's just the rest of us yeah um I think we'll end those those questions there I want to sort of give you give you space to kind of you know put out a message a message out there because um you know you've been through these these awful horrific experiences and you've been so open and honest and amazing about talking about them um very brave as well and you know I if in your mind if you're you're thinking of other people sort of listening to us speaking and you know someone who's going through a similar circumstance or you know struggling with their mental health what what would you like to to say to them so I would definitely say that there's always hope no matter how um how bad it seems how you feel that there isn't any other um exit or it things won't get better and maybe they won't get better tomorrow today or even in a month but I promise that it's worth it it's worth it to get treatment to talk about how you're feeling and to yeah take care of yourselves and just just trust the process I guess um but I promise that suicide is not the only option and to people who maybe know someone who is struggling or um maybe don't know but want to help um then I would say always believe an autistic person when they say that they are feeling suicidal depressed anxious it's very important to believe them and take take action um offer them help offer them a hug maybe if they feel comfortable doing so offer them their sorry your time um and if they are in immediate danger then of course call um 9-1-1 or yeah so the police or an ambulance just just be there for them yeah thank you Emilia that was brilliant I I remember do you know earlier when I said that I forgot something I've I remembered what I was going to what I was going to say um just just from from hearing you speak um around sort of attempted suicides and stuff um I feel people have a predilection to sort of label people as attention seekers when something like this happens but you know in both of our circumstances we had attempted and then later on learned more about it and actually you know made it made a proper a proper attempt on my life and yes you know so it's it's important to take people seriously even if it's even if it's just the attempt even though you have some met some voice in the back of your head telling you that there's trying to seek attention it's but it's it's it's in all circumstances you should you should take it as as what it is and yes it's a very serious thing yes you never know if the person will actually try it if they tell you that they will you believe them just even just like you said if and if you think to yourself that they are seeking attention well humans are humans are naturally seeking attention but um seeking attention for a reason yes yes and well yeah I just think it's really important to always believe the person when they tell you about how they are feeling recently I felt I feel like we've really we've really gone over a lot um and I guess you know what what I'm really interested to to know is um what is your song of the day what is what is the the song that um that really sort of that that moves you and that you know sort of represents you know your your difficulties in the past and yeah um well it's not really a song that represents maybe my difficulties but I chose golden years but by David Bowie because it is a song that gives me hope it's really um happy and it reminds me of my boyfriend who played a huge role in getting me out of the darkest place I ever been in yeah that's brilliant thank you Emilia thank you well this comes to the end of the podcast I I hope that you've all got something from this and you know if you if you do feel at all like this has made you feel worse please please contact one of your your local mental health people um or or ring somebody or or give someone a text message um one of the the crisis numbers that you have I I won't go for every single crisis number for every country but um you know don't just sit with it if it's if it's um something that's that's affected you um and uh yeah I I hope that when we finish this this podcast that you'll have a you know you have a good thing about it and that it's it will make some some positive improvements on on your life or the way that you you view mental health and suicide um you know Emilia you've been absolutely amazing talking about this like it's it's it's pretty much the one of the most emotive difficult topics that one can seek to talk about and yes um you just you've been absolutely amazing so thank you thank you so much thank you it's been a pleasure to be here follow autistic positivity follow uh as per this growth instagram thank you very much um so yes uh if you do want to to follow my work you can head over to my instagram facebook on youtube we have some videos around dating we have sort of bi-weekly q and a's around around dating we have some topic topic sessions we've got some a running series called dating an autistic which um if you are uh dating an autistic person it may be good to to look into you can also find the podcast of course on on youtube um as well as on spotify apple podcast google podcast pretty much all of them and if you want to get in contact with me for anything to do with speaking or training or modeling or anything of of that nature um you can head over to my website thomasanley.co.uk and um there is a contact page there for you to to get in touch thank you of course to all of my youtube um subscribers or join us i don't know what the gang part of my gang on youtube can be a small amount of monetary support per month thank you i appreciate that a lot and of course a massive thank you as always to mr patrick beddy for always being behind me and always supporting me on the sidelines and sort of helping me push myself in my dark moments and um yeah um massive thank you to all of you like massively appreciated yeah i we come to the most difficult part of the podcast for me which is transitioning from uh talking to talking to another person for an hour and a half or something so um i guess have you have you got any any um plans for the rest of the day um i think i'm going to play on my nintendo 2ds yeah i don't have the switch yeah it's the two the 2ds i i i have i got the the 3ds a while back oh i had that too the screen is just like like it's cool but it's so i had that too and it was too tiny i don't know if you have the camera open but this is a lot bigger than this is the xl one and this is a lot better i was playing animal crossing on the oh i love animal crossing and the screen was just so tiny and yeah do you know if animal crossing does uh like cross platform is it new horizons that you've got or is it the original i had the new leaf one new leaf yeah yeah i also played wild world so that was uh not the first but i also played the first on the the game cube oh i remember that uh you'll have to you have to send me some pictures of your your town oh okay i'd like to i'd like to see your town okay i was really interested i wish that i could play more but i i just yeah you're busy this man yeah yeah unfortunate with us rambling i think it's probably a good time to say goodbye and um again emilia thank you so much and thank you all of you for tuning in and listening to us i hope that you got something for it and i hope that you have a lovely day as always thank you for having me goodbye of course of course see you later bye