 Good day, my lovely listeners! You are listening to the Forty Auty 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. Today's podcast episode is proudly sponsored by Timo, the award-winning app designed to support neurodivergent people just like yourself with routine and scheduling. Head to your app store and type T-W-I-M-O to learn more. Good afternoon, loyal listeners. Welcome back to the Forty Auty podcast. How are you doing today? I'm doing pretty well, you know. Things are starting to look up. I am going to be starting my new job very, very soon. It's working for nonprofits and we're going to be looking at a lot of different areas of advocacy. So things are going well. Today I am joined by a very, very lovely and interesting person. We're going to be talking to an autism researcher, but not just any autism researcher. Dr. Mordechai Benhamu is an autistic scientist and lecturer at the Israeli Center of Autism Research with a PhD from the University of Paris, or Paris, and many, many years of experience in the field. He's written many articles and books, including his most recent publication, Autism, Falafel and Rock and Roll. His creator of the YouTube channel, The Autistic Guitarist, in which he creates tutoring videos on how to play well, the guitar. To top all that off, he's made a lot of guest appearances on Israeli TV to talk about autism from my previous correspondence with Mordy. I can tell you that he's a very interesting, knowledgeable and lovely-hearted guy. With all that massive introduction, how are you doing today, Mordy? I'm fine. Thank you. Thank you very much for coming on at such a short notice. You're very welcome. I've recently had quite a few cancellations, so it's very much appreciated. How are you doing? Like, what have you been up to lately? You know, I'm struggling with many other autistics with up-and-downs, burnout. I recently almost burned out because of my YouTube channel. It's been really successful and a lot of demands from guitar companies asking for me to make some reviews. It's really cool, but I didn't really feel that it would be so overwhelming. But this time, you know, in my development, it's a really huge success. I identified really early the signs of the burnout, so I stopped and I'm resting and thanks God, doing well. That's brilliant. I know you told me recently about that burnout. I definitely struggle myself to understand or to notice when I'm going downhill. I think, as you said, sometimes with social media and sometimes with YouTube, there's a lot of communication that's involved. You've got to talk to people, you've got to send emails, and it really taxes you quite a lot, doesn't it, when you've got to talk to those many different people? The main issue with people is that you have to speak with them or to communicate with them. Well, I'm glad to hear that you are doing well and you managed to catch yourself having a little bit of rest time. The way that we got in contact was, I think you are one of your PR people sent me an email about your new book, Autism Fluffle and Rock and Roll, which very cool title. I absolutely love it. It's brilliant. Would you like to tell us about that? How is it going? First of all, when you asked me for my new book, I thought you were talking about my real new book because I'm right now writing a new one, but it's not related to autism. So I asked myself, why Thomas does want to know about this new book, and so I understand that. Oh, okay. Sorry. A little bit of a miscommunication. Yeah, you wanted to speak about the Autism Fluffle and Rock and Roll. Actually, what I can tell about this book is Best Seller in Israel. So this is the first news. The second thing is that it was published in September in English and is doing well, I think. I promised you to send you one and I totally forgot, so I will do it straight after the interview. That would be brilliant. Now that's my little growing stack of books on my desk. So this book is about autism, not about falafel and not about rock and roll, but if you read it, you will understand why I use those words in the title. The book is mainly about self-acceptance. It's my journey from not wanting to hear about autism to being an autistic activist and a writer about the subject. So what did I did? What happened? It's also an invitation in my inner world. It's more for neurotypicals, but to identify with me, it's how do I, as an autistic, am I functioning? How does my brand work? How do I cope with feelings, with my sensory issues and stuff like that? That sounds amazing because have you received emails and messages from people who have read your book and have learned more about autism? Yeah. It's my daily life. One day, I'm writing back to people that were amazed by the book, surprised, that learned about it. Some are autistic parents, some are researchers and obviously many are autistic from the world. So it's fine. When I wrote the book, I wrote it for myself. I didn't want to publish it and to be famous or stuff like that. So it is written in a really special way, really with no tact, no lack of autistic could do it. And anyway, I did an effort. My effort was to separate science from feelings or from my history. Because to cope with feelings, I used to analyze everything through science. For me, I fell in love with science. Where is the science? Someone is dead. Where is the science? How can I incorporate it in my world without being hurt? And science is my solution. It's not the best, but it is mine. So I understood writing this book that if I do it, you know, a melting pot between my feelings and my experience and science, the reader might go away. So I make for each chapter telling about me in a feeling way and intimate way. So that there is a chapter speaking about the same thing, but from a scientific way. I like that. Yeah. So you can read the whole book, you know, chapter after chapter, or you can, if you love gossip, you can read only the filling and the biographical chapters, or if you are a nerd like me, you can only read the scientific chapters. So there are three ways to read my book. It's really interesting that you mentioned about sort of understanding emotions and the world through that scientific lens, because a lot of the ways that I sort of developed my own social skills and my ability to sort of cope with, I guess, some of the more negative sides of being autistic. It's very certain. It's very faxed based. It's very transferable. It's very easy to understand as a system. And so, yeah, it's really interesting. You're the first person who's had the same sort of experience as I have, in that sense. When I was at the university, I discovered Irving Goffman, American sociologist, who is speaking about researching on the dynamic between people, talking, interacting. And it was for me like discovering, like being Moses, discovering the Bible. I really used it, I used it and still use it to cope, to succeed, to communicate. But the bad thing about it, I was masking through this competence and so I didn't give my autistic personality a place to be in this scientific way of communicating. I think that's sort of a great sort of lead into what the topic of the podcast was, because obviously, if you are going through life and you are viewing things in that very objective scientific lens, a lot of the ways that you apply those things that you've learned is by sort of, as you say, putting on a mask and displaying those characteristics to have a good social interaction. But then again, you are sort of taking apart a bit of who you are, your natural way of being and communicating. Sometimes doing all that work sort of helps you succeed in a certain area of that interaction, but you have to do a bit more work to sort of integrate your autistic self as well. Being autistic, it is not being someone that don't know how to communicate. It's known from a research point of view that autistic are communicating pretty well between them. Yes. So the problem is communicating with autistic when you are not or communicating with neurotypicals when you are an autistic. So to speak, we could compare it to speaking a foreign language. So we have to know how to speak the neurotypical language. We have to teach them how to speak with that. In the autistic language. Yeah, absolutely. OK, so before we get into the main topic of the podcast, we had a chat about sort of how it is like to be openly autistic in Israel. And we're sort of comparing the differences between your experience in Israel and in France. From my own perspective, I would, I guess, assume that autism awareness and acceptance would be worse in Israel than it would be in perhaps the more Western countries. Would you like to talk a little bit about that? Because, you know, what you said before was was quite sort of impactful on me. Yeah, you know, naturally, it's not naturally, it's culturally, Jews are really curious. And always try to make lemonade from lemon. So autism, you know, as a fact, is of interest for Israelis. From a religious point of view, autistic people are perceived to be the closest human beings to God. Wow. Yeah, so religious people don't see us as retarded or, you know, disabled. But as like, you know, a really pure human being can speak with God. Israeli people are really how to say it. They try to be from anything to do something. Consequence, the Israeli army hiring autistic people in a special unit, you know, in intelligence services, you know, autistics are good because of their memory, because of their accuracy to see some small details. They are good observers for the Israeli army. So there is such a unit. We had a lot of TV shows in Israel. I was in most of them speaking about being an autistic and people were so couriers and so tolerant and they were really hungry about each piece of information that could help them to understand us. It's a really interesting fact. I mean, I've never heard of anything along those lines. I mean, I think the thing that astounds me most about the people in Israel wanting to learn about it and sort of use the talents of autistic people sort of in the West. We already have this, I guess, this sort of stereotype around autism and, you know, they're not as forward thinking and they're not as active and I guess productive or making lemonade out of lemons, not as much like that. Very much stuck in the ways about things. So it's really interesting. What about the comparison sort of when you were living in France? So in France, there are two options when you are autistic. You are all thought as a spoiled child. Why? Why don't you speak with me? You just shy or just, you know, a spoiled child. And the second option for you as an autistic in France is to be thought as a retarded. Yeah. Yeah. So they all are thinking that you are charlatan, how to say it in English? Charlatan, I've heard of that word, but I don't actually know what it means. A person falsely claiming to have a special knowledge or skill. Yeah. Yeah. Charlatan, absolutely. It's in French and in English, the same. In some reason, it's quite right about autistic because we are masking, but we are not charlatans because what they are thinking about. We are not, we are not faking being autistic. We are masking, faking and being normal. So it's quite paradoxal. It is. And it's it's crazy that people can have those assumptions considering the breadth of research and knowledge into the many skills that autistic people have. French people have this this problem that they don't know English. And as you know, English is a scientific language. So most of the people in France don't have access to all the researches, to all the articles about autism. So France is really, how to say it, a really close country. It's really a paradoxal because, you know, it's a huge country, a really rich country. But, you know, my best friend is a professor in France, in the Sorbonne, you know, where I learned. Yeah, biggest university in France. And his English is really, really poor. And when I am saying that, you know, you are hearing my English is not so. Wow, me telling that the others English is really poor shows you how the English is bad. So they don't have access to anything, articles, research. And I think this is the reason why they are thought about autism are so poor, I would say. But but you forgot one more culture. I am also Algerian, you know, Algeria is a. You are. Yes. Yeah. I am also an I'm both Jewish and Arab. I love challenges. Jewish Arab Autistic. Yeah, yeah. I will try to be gay also. That's the diversity there. Yeah. And my Muslim family in Algeria, when I told them that I'm autistic, told me, no, no, no. Don't be alone. Don't be alone. Communicate the thought that I just didn't want to speak. And I wanted to want it to to be on myself and not to communicate. Is that because of sort of the the meaning of autism, or to sort of being alone? Yeah. And in ancient Greek, it's being alone. And in Arabic, it's also being alone. So when I told it to my uncle, Mohammed, I am autistic. He told me, no, don't be alone. You have us. So there's a little bit of a lack of awareness in Algeria, then. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's that's really interesting. Thank you so much for sharing that. It's always great to hear from personal experience of different levels of acceptance and, I guess, perceptions of autism across different cultures. Today, we're going to be talking about self-acceptance, what that means for an autistic person, why it's important, but also how we can come to accept ourselves in our own lives. Mordi, when did you start your own personal journey of self-discovery and acceptance? Wow. OK. It was in France. And I was absolutely unhappy. But I had an explanation. Everyone is guilty for me being unhappy. It was my explanation. So at some point, I decided to to come back to Israel. And I thought that being in my country would be a better thing for me. But in fact, in Israel, I was also unhappy and went through a really tough crisis. At some point, I had two solutions. Once again, accuse the world for my unhappiness or take responsibilities. And this time, I choose to take responsibilities. So I went to a psychologist and I learned to love and accept myself. It was a really long journey. I thought to myself, OK, you are an autistic, you know. And from that moment to say outside to other people, I am an autistic and I am pretty well with it. It was the right thing to do, you know. First, telling people was just thinking about telling people I was terrified. But that was just a bad guess, you know. When I started sharing, people hugged and respect me. As I told them before, I really regret that I missed so many years of being afraid. After that, explain to people what autism is and why I don't look autistic was my journey. I used to ask people if they know what people with hemorrhoids look like. Obviously, they don't know. Then I tell them that as a neurology, neurological specificity, you can really see what autism is from outside. You can see here or there, shyness, stimming. But you can't really know if it's autism or not. So there is nothing like this look like an autistic. So this is, I must say, a long journey too. But, you know, I do it through my book and through my lectures. What did you use to help yourself along that journey? Were there any specific resources that you drawed upon? Was there any people that you listened to or that were big icons for you? In this journey of self-acceptance to self-acceptance, I had a psychologist named Efrat, her name Efrat. She has a chapter in my book. This relation with a good psychologist just saved my life. You know, she was imperfect and felt absolutely right with it. And for me, it was amazing. How she dared to say me what are her weakness. And still, she felt really confident. It was for me incredible. And she learned me to do it to accept that I am imperfect and that it's OK. But she didn't tell me that being autistic is imperfection. It was not the issue. You as a world have a good thing and bad thing inside of you. And this is good because every one of us, each of us is like that. And we have to control the bad and to to get help with our good sides. And this is being human. You know, I was really tough with myself. And she she taught me to to be more, you know, more sweet with my with myself. More nice, more nice and understanding of yourself. Yeah, I like that. I identify with quite a lot of what you're saying, especially when I was a bit younger. I had this idea of perfection in my head, you know, like the perfect person does not swear. The perfect person does not drink alcohol or go partying or or anything. They they always work and they read and they they do all of this, all of these things. And I do all of these things, so I must be the the perfect person. It I mean, it was it was sort of a mindset that I had. But I wasn't really accepting of that as sort of a little bit of a delusion. Yeah, it's really it's really funny what you what you're saying, because until now, I don't smoke, I don't drink, I never don't drags. And because because of this thought that that I have to be perfect, that the perfect person don't do such things. And, you know, obviously, it's it's not right. I'm really happy that I don't smoke and don't do drags. But, yeah, in many sides of my life, you know, I avoided to to make something because I thought it will avoid me to be a perfect person. So, you know, you're mistaken, you are unhappy all the time because there is no such thing being perfect. I'm imperfect as and I'm really happy to to be like that. I guess it's I see what you're saying about that is it's like every every decision that you make in life is built upon what this perfect person would do in your head rather than what you want to do and what you think that would be something that you want to explore or something. I mean, I mean, we are we did just give the examples of alcohol and drugs and cigarettes and such. But it's more of more of an extreme example of just how that sort of perfectionist mindset can sort of get in the way of things. I think that the main reason why I tried to get out of that was because as I was getting older, people were becoming more aware, more aware of false perfection, I guess. And so it really hampered my my ability to socialize with people. I would have a very narrow sort of set of requirements for people that I would be friends with. And if they broke any of those, then I would sort of cut myself off from them. But as as you get older and as you enter into adulthood, people have that that that mentality of sort of finding themselves and who they are and anyone who puts those limitations on the people around them, they don't really want to be around those people. They want to be around accepting people who will who will listen and who will appreciate them, despite what they may have done that you don't like. That was sort of a turning point for me in my journey. I was very lonely, very isolated. You know, I had to sort of do something to improve my life in that sense. I really do feel a lot about what you're saying. It resonates quite a bit. You know, it was it's really funny, as you know, I'm also a professional guitar guitar player. And, you know, resting with other musicians, it's not only about music, you know, people are socializing, smoking some weeds and beers. And and for me, it was absolutely I couldn't understand it. So in the time they were, you know, in the in another room, smoking and drinking, I was in the rehearsal room and playing and practicing and not to socializing because in my autistic mind, if there is a rehearsal, we have to play. So there is not such a thing as smoking and drinking. And, you know, looking, looking at this, me getting older and more competent, looking at it in reflection. Yeah, yeah. Being more competent, communicating and understanding neurotypicals. I tried to think out of it, the what the thought about me, you know, I was alone in the rehearsal room and playing while they were doing fun. I weird I am and I were it. I was it's incredible. But, you know, it's who I am. And anyway, they they continue to hire me. So I think it was not too bad to work with me. That's this is really interesting. Again, like I used to sort of do quite a bit of Taekwondo. Don't know if you know Taekwondo. Yeah, absolutely. It's Korean art martial. Martial art. Yeah. We're mostly with with the legs. Lots of flashy kicks, lots of falling over, usually. But yeah, there's a lot of the times where I would go to training camps or a lot of times during classes where we would have some downtime, you know, we'd train and then we'd we'd rest and we'd talk and socialize. When you were saying about sort of being on your own and practicing with your guitar, so boring. It was the same. The same with me. I was just do if we do this thing called leg control, where like we lift our leg up and we try to hold it out at different kicks to try and improve like a hit strength and stuff. And that was like the only thing that I did during the breaks, just waiting for training to happen again, not talking to anybody. People try to talk to me, but I just be like listening, but not really not really contributing in that sense. You know, from an evolutionary point of view, gossip is really interesting because it helps the human to get updated with the the life of the tribe. And autistic are not wired wired to do these things. You know, so gossip for autistics is the most boring thing you can do. I mean, I find gossip very like, you know, the small talk very annoying. Yeah, but I do very much enjoy talking about a certain subject. So like, I think, you know, as I've got older, I've I've found the utility in socialising and and talking about topics in detail. Whereas I used to just see all social interaction as just boring and or needed. As I've got older, I've sort of started to appreciate the fact that, you know, maybe other people can can teach me things that I don't know. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, I really love to learn about my topics, scientific topics, you know, research about the brain in neuroscience music out of those topics, you barely can speak with me. And the other thing I like in socialising, it's during my lectures. And if you are, if you think about it, it's not really socialising because I'm lecturing, speaking, and everyone is everyone shut his mouth and listen. And for me, it's ideal, you know, it's it's a really good monologue for days. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, freely. Yeah, yeah, I can imagine. What's just as a sort of side point, what do you usually talk about during your lectures? So I take a daily life topics and explain them through science in a funny and a cool way. So I'm speaking about neuroscience, about hormones in a relationship about communication from an autistic point of view and science scientific point of view, speaking about autism, you know, and why it is so cool to be autistic and why we are the next thing in the evolution decision making. I really like this this topic. So obviously, from a scientific point of view, the human behavior is really interesting me. So I speak about it, you know, about cheating and things like this. That's always from my autistic and scientific point of view. And the people seem to like it because, you know, they continue to invite me. So I think that's that's that's really interesting. I also find the decision making, you know, sort of the emotional and intellectual components and into making decisions. And I'm really, really lucky because two of the greatest researchers in this topic are Dan Ariely and Daniel Kahneman. Daniel Kahneman is a Nobel Prize and they are both both of them are Israelis. And yeah, and Dan Ariely, I don't know if you know him, but you should. Is I can call him a friend is a really, really nice person. And it's a really a privilege to to know him. You should definitely think about recording the lectures. I really putting them up. Yeah, honestly, like, I mean, for example, the thing with Jordan Peterson, he he's a clinical psychologist. He got famous on YouTube for putting out his his lectures. I think people will be really interesting to hear to hear about that. Yeah, but there is one problem with, you know, uploading my lectures, if I upload my lectures, they will get it. They will they will get it on YouTube. Oh, of course. Yeah, you know, yeah. So I don't want to shoot my to shoot myself. So I show yourself in the foot. So I don't do this. But I have some some small lectures or some, you know, part of my lectures here and there, but no more than that. So it's time for a quick mention from our sponsors, Timo. If you love visual support in your scheduling, Timo is for you. The app was designed for people with ADHD and autism and helps empower users to schedule visual routines that work. Users say that Timo can help reduce stress and support executive function, which are both two things that I struggle with myself. Learn more at www.tmoapp.com or just type in T-Dub-L-I-M-O into your search bar. Thank you so much to my Patreon supporters. Your support means the world. Anyway, let's get back into the show. Let's go on to the next question. What challenges have you faced in your path for self-acceptance and how did you overcome them? I know we've talked a little bit about this, but yeah, any sort of big barriers? My main challenge was to convince myself that I am who I am. And I really wanted to be someone else. But you know, you are who you are and you stay true to that. So don't try to be someone else. Just be yourself however imperfect you are. That's enough. I would say during the difference was my main challenge. People are way more intolerant with our explanation than we think. We can't expect from people to know who we are without helping them to figure out with us. So my main challenge was to destroy my own barriers, you know, my own thought about what people think about me or what should a human being be. It was my main challenge and not being me all these years, masking, lying to myself and to the others. And it was so sad, you know, looking at this. It was so sad and from the very moment I thought to myself, you are notistic, it's who you are. And I started to share, you know, my my chance in Hebrew chances, you know, from being a guy who goes from work to work, you know, from job to job, I had 29 jobs in 14 years. Wow. Yeah, my psychologist told me that I'm really stable, being instable. And from the very moment, you know, with my partners, it was the same thing, you know, I didn't have a really good relationship. No friends. And from the very moment I start to know who I am professionally, from a relationship point of view, everything gets really easier. What is good to me? I knew what is bad to me. And it helped me, you know, to to get better decision about my life and about who I should work with or be with. You know, I think that that's a really good thing to highlight. Sort of working from the inside out, you know, you work on sort of mindset of what it means to be autistic and what it means to be yourself. And then the outside, you know, it's it there's no use in displaying that you're happy about autism, just because everybody else is saying that you should be, you've got to really feel that that is something that is good. And I think with that, in order to do that, there comes a large period of time where you really listen to other autistic people. You learn about the science, you learn about the public perceptions, you learn about what it what it means to be autistic from other people and sort of apply that to your own life and your own mindset. I think that's always a really good path to go down. You don't want to be just putting it on the outside because I guess it is if you're just displaying that you're happy with it. It's sort of like a mask in itself. Yeah. It doesn't it doesn't strike hard at your core and it doesn't affect your emotions and your relationship with life in any way. I think one of the top things that I found with sort of accepting my autistic self is that for a lot of the time during my life and sometimes nowadays even I'm comparing myself to people who aren't autistic, you know, I have standards in my head that I'm trying to reach, whether it be in the social realm or in work or daily life and an exercise and stuff like that. I'm always comparing myself to this person who may find these areas of life easier. What what do you feel about that? Do you think that you need that holds any truth to you as a guitar player? Most of my life, I try to be my heroes. I wanted to be Van Halen. I wanted to be Steve Luketer. I wanted to be them at a certain point. I thought to myself, even if I succeed to be them, it will be an hero because there is already one Eddie Van Halen and one Steve Luketer and they always will be better than me. Being them themselves. So as I started to search my own voice and to do my stuff, so I adapted my playing to who I am. And so I developed my personality as a guitar player. It's fantastic because I am I am the best in the world being myself as a guitar player. And you know, you can take it. It was the same thing as a researcher. You know, I wanted to be Dan Ariely. I wanted to be my this look, my friend, this professor. And you know, this center in Israel that hired me, hired me because I'm so special as a autistic. You know, I see topics, subjects, researches, questions in so a special way. And science need it. So it's a gift to be an autistic. It's a gift being who you are because no matter if you are autistic or not, who you are, it's you. There is just one like this. So be really busy to be yourself, to improve who you are and your skills. And with it, you will find your place in the world. But if you if you fake it, if you are masking, you will be a pale copy of someone else. And this someone else will be always better than you being himself. Definitely. I think there's a lot of truth in what you're saying. There is this concept called adaptive adaptive construction or something. Yeah. You know, looking at different people and taking on their characteristics or watching films and taking on mannerisms and behaviors and constructive adaptation. That's it. Got it the opposite way around. But I think that that's just another sort of pointer. I think if you are trying to develop yourself, it should be more about watching things and listening to people and seeing which bits feel right to you. Yeah, absolutely. Not what looks good or sounds good. You can imitate, you know, our brain, we know from, you know, the the building of the brain teaches us that we are made aimed to to imitate. So it's natural. You can imitate, but, you know, as a adipose, you have to kill your father, you know. OK, you took you took from him. It's nice. You develop yourself. But from now, be yourself and kill him. Sort of a sort of a I don't think actually mean to kill your father. I mean, like as a what's the word? An analogy that describes how you should sort of view it. It is always good to learn from people and to take on board what fits right into into your life. It's just if you feel like there's any sense of force to that, then it's usually not a good a good path to go down. I definitely did. Like when I was trying to get better at like dating and relationships, I watched people who are really good at it, good at it. And so I tried to imitate the way that they behave around girls, you know, sort of just being a bit more standoffish, not as emotional, not as talkative, you know, all those kind of stuff. But it's just not me. I wrote three chapters about it in my in my book, the autistic point of view about dating, happiness and really relationship. For these two, you have to be yourself because if you are masking while you are dating, so the girl will maybe fall in love for another person than you. And after a while, you and her, you will have to cope with the the gap that will be there between you, between the mask and both of you. And for a job, it's the same thing. You have to be yourself in any situation. So the person that hiring you or dating you knows what you see is what you get. And my wife, you know, I wasn't masking. And she she's eating the shit that she's so in the date. You're full of analogies. I like it. Yeah. Right. So we talked a little about the challenges. Let's get into the juicy bit. What benefits have you you seen in your own life from incorporating that sense of self-acceptance and I guess honesty with the world? First of all, honesty with myself, you know, because I was totally lying or hiding. I didn't want the truth. You know, it was the same thing with me being an Arab. You know, I discovered when I was saying that my grandfather is Arab Muslim. You know, I'm Jewish, Israeli, what the shit, you know? But, you know, I didn't want it in my life. You know, I had a struggle to know who I am. I am an Algerian, a Jewish, a French and an Israeli, a autistic. Who I am also being an Arab. It was too much for me. So I didn't want to speak about it. I never talk about my grandfather. I never never talk about me being an autistic until I understood that I was unhappy. And I was unhappy not because of the people or the situation, but because of me not presenting myself the right way. And honestly, you know, each time I had a successful relation or experience, I thought, what would have been this experience if I have told the truth who I am? And I thought that if I would, people or the experience wouldn't have been good to me. So it was, you know, always a bitter, you know, a bittersweet, you know, I couldn't enjoy anything because of this. So I remember once I sat with a friend, my best friend, and I told him, you know, Tomer, my grandfather is an Arab. He just didn't care. And, you know, it was so the difference between what I thought he would think about me and what he really thought was huge so much that I understood that I was I was wrong all my life. So, you know, with me telling him that I am an Arab, I go on, you know, forward with me being an autistic and telling two people and maybe one, two people told me, are you, you have these those opinions because you are an Arab, you know? But yeah, we can't speak with you because you are an autistic or, you know, wise who may be in my life. I have heard a non really cool things. But most of the time people really like me for who I am. They really don't care if I am a Portuguese, British, Arab or autistic or I don't know what, you know, I am Maldi. And this is the real deal. That's what they want or don't want, you know. But if people want me or don't want me, they have to get me or not to get me for the good reasons and I have to be honest. For anybody out there who doesn't sort of accept the autism or doesn't hasn't put the time into to understand what autism means for them. Honestly, there is nothing quite like it. You know, you can see things on on Instagram with people being themselves, being their autistic selves. But it doesn't mean that you have to you have to copy them because that's what autism is. Autism is just it's looking at your life, looking at the things that you struggle with, the things that you're good at, the way that you communicate your demeanor, your behavior. And I guess refining that because, you know, in life, if you sort of after you have to to grow in some way, you have to develop. But there are always ways that you can make that your unique life. It sounds like I'm just talking a bunch of mumbo jumbo. Like I would be nothing if I didn't take on the fact that I am highly empathic. I don't do well at being nasty or confronting people. And I thought that sometimes that's what I had to do. But now that I know who I am, I know my morals, I know my values. You know, if I have a confrontation, you know, my all my first port of call to go to in those situations would be to try and reason to try and develop some form of connection there, you know, tamper down the flames. And that that can be applied to different different scenarios, like just making my room how I would like it with all the toys and with all the colorful lights that I want to have in my room, dressing how I like some people that like how I dress. And but it's something that I like and I like to present myself as there's so many different ways that you can do it. And, you know, there is an intense fulfillment in knowing who you are for anybody. I just think that it's very important for autistic people to have that. I am rambling my head off. Shall we go into the next the next bit of the question? So the last the last bit that I wanted to really talk about was, you know, what advice would you give to someone wanting to start accepting themselves, I guess, steps that they can take to to get to that place? Be honest, be honest with yourself. First of all, things should be easier. If you call yourself the right name, if you know where to to get help and where to search for friends and which kind of job you can get knowing what's convenient to your specificities. And this is this is my tip. I like that. Do you think that there's any sort of things that people should go forward and learn and or look into before they can accept themselves? Because I think for people who aren't in the autistic social media communities and who aren't really up to date with sort of the social progressions. Do you think there's any any sort of resource that they can they can use to to get into that and to learn more about it? You know, I'm talking to you and I figure out that I didn't speak about the the main tip for self acceptance by autism, falafel and rock and roll. I am so bad, I am so bad promoting, promoting. Of course, definitely go and get the book. Very much looking forward to reading it. Yeah, you'll get it soon and get it soon. I think the last thing that I would I would say is there are many courses out on the internet for personal development. And personal growth that aren't just limited to autistic people. You know, it's it's very important, as we said, during this podcast to work from from the inside out, find out what your values are, what you value in in other people, what you value in yourself, what you don't like about yourself and what you don't like about your life and what you like about your life. Having having an idea of where you're coming from, it makes it more likely that you'll get to the place that you're trying to go to. The more information, the better at the start, then you can start to work on yourself and work on changing your life in a way that maybe might not be perceived as better by the rest of society, but maybe more true to yourself and honest with yourself. This is always a very fun part of the podcast. Would you like to give three main things that you want people to take away from the podcast? Yeah. First thing, be honest with yourself. First of all, the second thing, you are not perfect and this is perfect. The third thing, life is absolutely beautiful. And it's a really cool thing that we are part of it. So let's take our part of the cake and let's enjoy it till the end. Thank you very much for those very good ones, very short and concise. It happens. It happens. We usually get get quite a large answers to these. And we have the very last question. What does autism mean to you, Mordi? You know, there are fat people, skinny people, tall people, small people. And we are fine with it most of the time. As our body is diverse, is different from one to one. Our brain is also different. And we have to embrace this neurodiversity. And being autistic is being different. But, you know, we are not the only one to be different. There are different ways to be to be different. So being autistic is feeling, perancing the world in a different way. But, you know, it's a chance. It's a chance for the humanity to have people that can see things that others can't. So if you can't get it from them, you will make the humanity way richer than it is right now. You know, it's fantastic. It reminds me of this movie, The Sixth Sense, with Bruce Willis. I see things that people don't see. Thank you very much for that, by the way. Very, very insightful. Like I can sort of see the roots of autism's meaning to you from your experiences and through your science work and stuff. It's really interesting to sort of hear people's answers to that open question. Because, you know, maybe if I was to compile everybody's answers to it and sort of listed off personality traits and, you know, like trait openness and like industriousness and stuff, maybe there would be like a correlation. You know, that could be a new study. OK, so thank you, everybody, for listening to this. It's a subject that I've been wanting to cover for a while. I have perhaps noticed in reflection that I should have possibly been a bit more broader with the questions. I have to do a bit of editing to chop down what I'm saying quite a bit. But thank you so much, Marty, for coming on and sharing your knowledge and experience. Would you like to give out any links? Yeah, I will send you the link to my to my book and to my YouTube channel for the musician among us. Yes, so it would be Autism, Flaffle and Rock and Roll. And of course, I will put the link down in the description to both your book and your YouTube channel, The Autistic Guitarist, for anybody who is a budding musician and wants to to learn from another autistic musician. And my next video is a cover from More Than Words, the extreme song with a beautiful female singer. And that is Autistic, too. Yeah, yeah, I will send it to you. Brilliant. So if you want to catch the 4 to 30 podcast anywhere else, it's always available on Apple and Google Podcasts, as well as Spotify and YouTube. I am currently putting in a little bit more work into my YouTube channel, Asper Disgrowth. So if you want to check out some of my newest videos, one particular video that may be of interest is Should You Be Stimming in Public? Where I dissect and analyze some of the social implications of stimming and some of the benefits of it. Of course, if you want to stay up to date with things, social medias are always the place to go. At Asper Disgrowth, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I do have a new website that has recently been created. It's called ThomasHenley.co.uk. It's a very nice short tagline. So if you if you go over to there, let me know how it is. You may have also noticed that I am using my new microphone and you would be right because I was recently supposed to be putting out a podcast with Professor Baron Cohen, but it's been pushed back to about mid-April now. So I'm having to do some episodes to fill in the gaps until the end of season one. I'm currently looking for ways that I can improve the podcast for the next season. I'm thinking of hiring an animator to make the YouTube videos more engaging. And I'm also going to be doing a bit of workarounds with the intro. So there's a lot of good things that are coming in the future. And I just want to say thank you, everybody, for supporting me all this time. Your support really does mean the world. OK, Morty, after I have been trying to piece my words together for about five minutes. How did you find the podcast? Did you enjoy it? Yeah, yeah, really, you know, I'm quite used to to it, you know, interviews and stuff like this. But it was more like a conversation with a guy who was on the same wave as I am. So it was really pretty, pretty cool. I enjoyed it. Thank you. I very much enjoyed talking to you as well. I really do hope that we we keep in contact over the years and such. It's it's been a pleasure to speak to you to everyone out there who is currently in the midst of this whole covid isolation situation. My heart goes out to you, but do not worry. Do not fret. The finish line is in sight. And we're going to get through this as a family, as a unit, as a community, as a country and to anybody else who is out of lockdown. Good for you. I envy you. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the episodes and I'll see you in a couple of weeks time for another. See you later, folks. I think my radiator came on midway between this because my face is getting so red. Like it was cold before, but now it's absolutely boiling. You should be here. You will you will know what boiling is. Yeah, I can imagine it's quite significantly warm. I'm living in the middle of the GDN desert. So, you know, we know what warm is. Course you do. Right. Oh, I've got to stop.