 Okay and I'm a little bit out of shot on YouTube. There we go. Awesome. Welcome back to another haughty time livestream autism Q&A. How are you guys doing? You may have noticed that I have indeed shaved my beard off again after saying to myself that I'm going to actually like try and grow a beard and then getting upset with all the sensory stuff that was happening. How are you guys doing? Hello, how are you doing? So if you haven't been to one of these livestreams before, this is a awesome Q&A. You're very welcome to ask any questions about autism, about mental health, about any of the content that I've put out, about fitness, self-improvement, personal things. Very welcome to do that. Hello Rob Barton. I am not doing too bad actually. This week has been pretty chill. Got all my content scheduled for like the next month or so last week and this week I've been putting together some informational videos for YouTube. So I'm going to be starting that up. The podcast, if you have been waiting for another one to come out, I do apologize about that. I have been absolutely awful with setting things up, getting things recorded. I just really haven't been able to do stuff very well at the moment. I'm not really sure why. So hopefully once I get a bit more stable within my new routine, then we will be at a point where I can actually get podcasts back into my routine. It's just been really difficult at the moment. Abby says, hello, glad you're doing this. Currently stuck in bed of COVID. I'm okay though, considering I'm a type one diabetic. I'm sorry. Yeah, the first time I had COVID, it was awful. Very much like one of those people was just hit hard by it. Like I could hardly breathe for like the entirety of it. So indeedy, if you guys have any questions, please feel free to ask them as you wish. Autism questions would be preferred, but you're very welcome to ask anything you'd like. Just a little update on what I've been doing, other than not doing podcasts at the moment. I have been doing a lot of streams over on YouTube, where I've been looking at commentating and reacting to autism content, which has been pretty cool. It's been pretty fun. Got to watch some interesting videos done by the mainstream. Some really interesting videos recently by this guy called Alexander. He was talking about, I guess, talking about like self diagnosis. And that that was that was a really interesting one. As someone who was kind of outside of the community, thinking that they were autistic, sort of providing some background to why self diagnosis can and can't be valid. Given their opinion on it, it was really, really, really interesting. You look younger without your facial hair. Yeah, I know. I look like a teenager. It's quite dramatic, isn't it? Yeah, it's probably a shock. I think I feel like a lot of people who kind of tuning into the stream who are not really, haven't really been on the stream in a while, might just completely gloss over it and think that I'm a different person because I do look very, very, very different. And I have actually got my hair up today. So that's another thing. That's awesome. Great job recently did a talk at Cardiff City Stadium. Wowee. What did you talk about? It doesn't affect my breathing, thankfully. That's that's that is good. I can imagine that there's a lot of other very fun symptoms that come with it, though. So yeah, I suppose I can expand a little bit more on the stream that I did on on self diagnosis. That was really interesting. It was from a crater called self diagnosis. I find it. It was called TikTok gave me autism, the politics of self diagnosis from Alexander Avila. Yeah, you're very welcome to go search that one up yourself. Or you can watch the live stream replay over on my YouTube channel. Alternative you can wait until I put out like a smaller clip around it. It's a very long kind of an hour and nine minutes kind of video essay on self diagnosis, particularly in the context of autism by this guy called Alexander Avila. And it was actually really, really good. It kind of got a little bit overly philosophical at points. But I'm you know me like, I like very deep philosophical, sociological, psychological stuff. It's all, it's all really fun to kind of think about and consider especially especially in the context of autism. So it's kind of like tying to things that I'm really interested in. So yeah, that was that was really cool. I think that we're talking about this this idea of, you know, how people determine something as a difference or something as like a mental illness or a condition. And sort of going back in in history, how the ideas of what would be considered to be mental illness has changed. And it's very, very dependent on the on the society, the context, the culture that is surrounding that disability or condition or neurodivergency, neurodivergency. You know, so it's kind of challenging that as well. And also, you know, paying a little bit of lip service to just how difficult it can be to find someone who is very competent in, you know, the diagnosis, you know, there's a lot of bias and stereotypes and things that are still floating around there, especially for women and people, people of minorities. It's not always the most easy process, considering a lot of the diagnosis process was, you know, geared towards white middle class men. It's just it's just just the truth looking back in history. But that was one of the points. I'm trying to think of one of the other points that Alexander made. I don't know. I am thinking of doing a video. I have put together like a script for a video I'm going to be doing. It's kind of like a new thing. And it's not something that's really been on the channel before. It's actually going to be me delivering a presentation, which is something that I do have a lot of experience with. It's going to be very interesting. Wave doing it. It's kind of inspired by one of the content creators that I've done that I've done before. But I'm going to be talking about the prevalence of our slash fate disorder cringe, and also the YouTube videos that follow from that. So I've got a video coming out on that probably in the next next month or so if you want to go sub to my channel, get updated when when my videos come out. Mr Austin, engagement for the big man. Thank you so much for the super chat, dude. Much appreciated. It's always very much appreciated. It does encourage me to do more of these live streams. So thank you very much, bro. Okay, so I'm very aware that we haven't had any specific questions come through. So if you if you do have something on the tip of your tongue, something that you're looking into at the moment that you want to ask me about, which is autism related, which is mental health related, self improvement fitness, anything like that. Please go ahead and ask away. No wrong questions. If I don't want to answer something, I just won't. So at the moment, outside of work, I have actually just been pretty much a war cost this week. I've had pretty much no time to myself other than the gym if you can classify that as time to myself, maybe hobbies, I suppose it's it's kind of another avenue of productivity for me. But other than that, I've been very I've been playing some RuneScape at the moment, whenever I can. Most of the time it's doing some mindless thing that I don't actually have to pay attention to the screen for in like increments of 20 minutes. So I don't know if you can classify that as having fun and playing a game but it is definitely something Austin says gym is self time. I got a new bike to ride to the gym back and forth. Very good idea. Skip out on that warm up. I say that but you know, my warm just consists of like a pyramid set up to up to my working weight. ADHD, CPK Vin says, what's your experience about proprioception? Very good question. I haven't had that question before. It's actually one of the senses that I'm quite hyposensitive to. So proprioception is basically your awareness of your body in space. So the best way to think about it is if you close your eyes and you kind of wave your hand around, you sort of have some idea, some sense of where your arm is, what your what your hand is doing. That that that is the sense of proprioception. And for me, it's hyposensitive, which means that I knock into stuff quite a bit. I don't always have the best idea of like, how close I am to something can sometimes make driving quite difficult. And it's kind of it's one of the things that I've been thinking about quite a bit. And I was trying to determine, you know, for people who are just trying to get into the autistic community, perhaps doing a bit of unmasking, trying to understand their sensory profile. Like, there are so many things that you can do that are classified as stimming. But how do you actually find the one quite easily that would be best for you? And for me, a lot of my hyposensitive senses, the things that I am hyposensitive to, insensitive, are those that are like, calm me down the most in terms of stimming. So like, that's proprioception, vestibular, those are basically the two and also heavy pressure. So tight hugs, massages, things kind of satisfies the heavy pressure element of it. You have the stimulus so spinning around going on roller coasters, things like that, really, really great for me. And lastly, the proprioception, which is the thing that you asked me about, the gym is actually a really, really good thing for me, particularly to do with sports, sports, gym, thing like that. Very much proprioceptive stim for me. So thank you for that question. Autistic.for asks, do you ever get visually overstimulated or under stimulated? I never get under stimulated visually. It's usually because I'm so hyposensitive to light, I'm pretty much always just my limit in terms of like visual stimulation. I do find particularly disco lights, strobe lights, any kind of multicolored light to be particularly like pleasant for me, like it kind of captivates my eyes a lot more on my focus. But it's definitely not something that I tend to feel under stimulated with. A lot of the time, I'm trying to like reduce the light levels that I have in my, in my bedroom or outside or, you know, stuff like that. Can sometimes make the gym really difficult, especially with the overhead lighting, as you said, Austin. My band of gaming says, Hey, looking great. Thank you so much. I'm at 600 subs now, bro. It's me see monkey lad. How are you doing? How is your? Have you shifted to to doing some gaming content? That's that's really cool. How is that going for you? Abby says I fall over too. I was diagnosed with dyspraxia in March. Sure. I have autism and Adios too. Very interesting. Never, never been diagnosed dyspraxic. I'm kind of it's it's it's a weird one because I've tried to try and find somebody who just has a diagnosis of dyspraxia and it isn't autistic. And I just can't seem to find ever find anyone like that. And it's kind of thinking thinking to myself is dyspraxia just one of the the differing sensory systems that we can have as autistic people. Maybe. I don't know. It's interesting to think about. Beth Bed Burris says I'm autistic slash ADHD starting university right now. Third time lucky my first time since being diagnosed any advice for accessing support slash asking for accommodations. I would definitely try and find someone within your student support or within your disability service that you can talk to and who seems to care about you. Because if you can have someone who is an advocate, especially during your time at university who really understand your situation, they're going to be it's going to be a lot easier because you you only really have that one person to go to that you can act you can ask for support around try and find that person for you. For me that person was a lovely. I love a lovely lady called Joanne who sadly passed away before I finished my my university but she was the most helpful lovely human being she helped me out with pretty much every issue that I had at university. And yeah, so I would definitely try and find that person for you. And if you can get signed up for the disability, signed up at the disability support office at your university, if you have one, just so that you can get your reasonable adjustments in before it comes to exams and things like that. That's what I would say. Do you feel like a lexifamia is related to this? I don't in terms of proprioception. I don't think so. I think it's more related to interoceptions more related to a lexifamia in some ways. It's kind of like your internal senses. But in terms of proprioception, I don't think I don't think so. Just personally, it might be. I'd be interested to hear if you if you have any other ideas kind of around that. Do you always feel like the black sheep in a friend group? Yes, I do. And I love it. It's grand. It's I love feeling strange and different. I relish in it as a fact. Hello, Angela. How you doing? I just switch over to Twitch for gaming just just 80 followers now. That's pretty good, man. I am thinking of actually moving over to Twitch at some point to do my streams because YouTube seems to be shutting me down on a lot of videos that I'm putting up. So that's very inconvenient. So I might have to think about that if it keeps continuing. And hello, Jackie. How are you doing? Welcome to the stream. Tight hugs are the best I'll have been squeezed to death. Yeah. Totally me too. Good, good, long squeezes release that oxytocin as well. Gotta keep it for like 20 seconds. Get it get all the oxytocin flowing. That's what we like. Hello, Joshua G. It's nice to see you, man. I was just thinking I was thinking about about you earlier when I was doing my my stream on on YouTube on Wednesday. And I was like, you know what, I kind of miss like the hydration reminders and stuff because I think it would be really valuable over my YouTube streams as well. So if you do have YouTube and you do want to join in on one of the streams at some point, it would be really nice to have you as a hydration reminder because I do sometimes forget genuinely. I'm not like one of those people set like timers on my phone and then down like a glass of water. But I could do that. But I won't. Great advice. I do similarly in other situations now. I'm sorry to hear about Joanne. I'm glad she supported you and made a positive impact. Thank you. I have emailed the disability service. Good. I'm glad that that's that's helped Emma Johnson says, Hi, Thomas. I finally received my official diagnosis last week. Congratulations Emma. I'm very, very, very happy to you for you. Was it was it an okay process? Great advice. Thanks so much. Oh, you said that. I'm glad you had during PSM. Oh, you're studying psychology. Wow. Very nice. Sorry. Sorry, I missed the start of the stream. By the way, no worries, Joshua. Have you been staying hydrated today though? I have been pretty good with it, Josh. You know, that's your boy. But yeah, I need you, I need you ever on YouTube. Come to YouTube and join one of the streams at some point. You can be my can be the hydration manager on that. I probably need a lot more than the one hour stream that I do on here. Love cuddles. Yep. You should force. Should you force to get a girlfriend to know about how it works? Because I always say till I'm I don't particularly understand what you were saying. Could you could you rephrase up for me please Matias? What about streaming? No, any good autistic creators who put out lifting content? It's funny that you say that either I do. I know one person off the top of my head. They're not on YouTube though. They are on the Instagram. It's autistic. Autisticly underscore B. If you want to go over to my Instagram page, look at my followers and type autistic, autistic Cali. You might be able to find him. Very very awesome guy did a podcast with them. You got to always check out the podcast video that I put made with him as well. ADHD says Alex fire is not being able to name your feelings or recognize them. And since feelings are felt in the body, I have wondered if it is something to do with finding the feelings inside. Yeah. I mean, it's it's difficult, isn't it? Because I feel like we like to use separate things out when it comes to like feelings and bodily sensations. And I'm not I'm not too sure if you can really always always do that to some degree. Like, you know, some some people when they feel hungry, they, they, you know, react emotionally. I don't know if that's that's something that you can really pick apart. I'd say that yeah, maybe proprioception might be a little bit more like that. But then I suppose you could open that up to pretty much all of the senses to some degree. There is a possibility. I think I think as well, the difficulty with the likes find me is that emotions aren't easily, especially the complex emotions, they're not always like the same for each person. And there's no way to say, okay, you can't really measure emotional experiences without some level of subjectivity, someone telling you something, you can only really guess based on your own experiences. So I think it's it's a little bit different in that sense. But it could very well be connected. Totally. What's the start of the YouTube channel, as I'm trying to get it up here now. It is 40 orty. You can find it on my link tree if you want, if you want to check it out, Josh. Should you be looking for a girlfriend to know about how it works? I have a chance to be someone with someone, but I'm not sure if I like her. I always won't try till I'm prepared. And that will be forever, I feel. I would suggest probably probably going for it to some degree, you know, it's it is good to have have that experience. I wouldn't necessarily like you don't I feel I feel you don't necessarily have to say right in your mind, okay, I'm going to go for that girlfriend, you know, you can spend spend some time with them. See if you get on, see if there are commonalities in certain senses, see if there's a romantic spark, spark, you know, other feelings. I know what you mean, though. It can particularly hard, especially if you haven't had experience with that before. And so it's good to get out there, try something new. Yeah, I'd say go for it, you know, good luck and melon says so sorry if I ask dumb questions trying to learn or mentor of respects and also ignorance. Where can I learn more? Don't worry about it. It's not interpreted in that way at all by by by my side. Good luck. I don't worry about it. Abby says for I had you on YouTube, but obviously not I go subscribe after this. No worries, Abby. I much appreciate will much appreciate the subscribe. And if you guys do really enjoy me doing my lives and you want to support me to do more, you can support through Instagram badges. And if you want to support me more on a monthly basis, I do have memberships on my YouTube channel, which are 99p for a month. So it's the lowest that I could put it. You don't get any benefits from it. Just putting out there. But you do get a little badge next to your name on YouTube. And you do support me doing the work that I do. Is this autism? I'm watching two things at once. I think some sometimes when I'm doing work, it's good for me to have something on in the background, even if even if I'm not necessarily listening to it. That's something called body doubling might be worth having a look into. It's something that ADHD has experiences as well. It kind of helps you focus a bit more on stuff. What do you think slash focus on you become stop thinking you're the problem? I don't particularly understand what you're saying, Jackie. Mia says I've always struggled with relationships, though I have much better quality friendships than I used to. But I think a lot of the problem is that a lot of relationship out advice out there is unhelpful. Yeah. And the thing is, with relationship advice is that a lot of people have their own ideas about it. It's it's not always like very clear cut, which which is the best way to view relationships and dating, or actually navigate it in the first place. So it's and especially when you add into the mix, being different. You know, there's a lot more considerations to have a lot more things to be aware of, especially when dating across stereotypes. Abby says there's some time to do three things at once. Yeah. Okay, yeah, I'll batch out that you know, most most of my my day, just a little bit of a window into the life of Thomas is I will be on my computer probably doing some some kind of work. You know, I was right in presentations for my for my videos the other day. I was watching a video and I was like AFKing something on RuneScape at the same time. So he's doing three things at once. It's I don't know it just it's it's kind of Yeah, it's um, it's not necessarily multitasking. It's just I have things on in the background that kind of fight for my attention when I when I get bored of doing the work, I guess. But I still say focused on it obviously, but it's, it just helps sometimes. If you have enjoyed this so far, make sure to like it. People on YouTube, much appreciated. Find out who blocked me says is it wrong that I think it's easier for women with autism to get into relationship than for men with autism is because of how men are always always expected to make the first move and court women being the initiators. I think I think there's there's definitely gonna this is obviously going to be a generalization. There's going to be different difficulties, perhaps, I can imagine that, you know, in the in the kind of traditional idea of, you know, men being the initiators and, you know, like, organizing things and and all that, making a good impression, I suppose to some degree. But you do also, I think, especially during in the context of either a relationship or like a a situation ship. Like, there is a lot. There is still like a lot of possibility that autistic women will, you know, struggle with with manipulation from their partners. Sometimes, perhaps getting situations that they weren't expecting. So it's definitely not easy for for either. I think there's just different different kind of struggles that that we may have. But that's the generalization, you know. So it's you can I can only talk in generalities. It's obviously very person to person situation to situation. It's got your channel on my computer. Do do do. Matias says, I'm really lazy. Is it good to think that you are in the deaf zone to get things done? What do you mean? What do you mean? Jimmy Fire Dragon says hi. Hello. How you doing Jimmy? I think this this may be the the elusive person from from my Instagram. Are you are you here to give us some hydration reminders to do more lies taught by Hollywood such as Disney propaganda? Yeah, I suppose so. When I walk down the street, I'm always looking at the floor facing the floor. Yeah, I think that's that is something to do with proprioception. I find and vestibular stuff. I find that if I'm not looking at the floor, when I'm doing exercises at the gym or even like walking about, I tend to be a little bit less easy on my feet. I think it's because you get that visual input that kind of somewhat offsets the difficulties that you might have with proprioception. Very much so like reason why I said that is because I've noticed it's not unheard for men, unheard for lots of men with autism to reach a certain age, never have girlfriends before. However, women with autism not so much. Yeah, I guess so. I think like finding someone to to go out with can be quite hard for guys in comparison. But it's still like finding the right person is just still as as equally like quite difficult. You know, so long long term, perhaps you got you got a little bit, you have to wait a little bit more to find someone who's who's good for you. But yeah, I hope that makes sense. Yes, it's Joshua G. Good stuff. Jimmy fire dragon. Welcome. Welcome to the YouTube side. Life is a classroom. We're here to learn 100%. I hate asking for stuff. Is that a sign? I'm not sure. I wouldn't say that that's necessarily a sign. It depends what in what context you're saying. Victoria says higher. How do you feel when people say you don't look autistic? I do public speaking is my special interest as I can maintain eye contact to train myself. And they say I can't be autistic. Yeah, I get that a lot. Personally, I don't make a lot of eye contact. I can do if I if I want to. It's just it's it's something that I did train myself to do. But over time, I kind of realized that it took a lot more of my energy and it felt a little bit less natural to make as much eye contact, especially with people that I'm knowing in like the long term, perhaps in the instances, if I'm talking to someone who doesn't really understand what awesome is, I might try and make a little bit more eye contact. But yeah, people don't expect autistic people to be good communication or social social things, social communication. Mia says, I think there's also a lot of shaming around people who struggle in relationships. Those who struggle being single are labeled codependent, which doesn't help. Yeah, and it is hard being, you know, being single, you know, when you're in a relationship that that person meets some of your needs, and some some needs you you need from other people to some degree. So it's yeah, I can imagine, you know, thank you, Mr. Joshua G or Jimmy Fire Dragon for purchasing a badge supporting the stream. Much appreciated. Gilakumalan says correct me if I'm wrong, but autistic beauty soul mates are masters of explaining interests through monologues. How do how do I do the same towards her slash her while keeping their attention? I think to be honest, like you've I think you've got to remember that when I do my online stuff, when I do my live streams, I am taught I'm not I am the same person. I think the same things I express the same things, but I am I'm different in a in a way that I am trying to, while I'm taking up almost 100% of the talking to some degree. And it's not always the same in real life. In fact, like a lot of the time, I tend to be more of like the sit back and listen kind of person. It's just something that's more natural and comfortable to me. It's just some something that I do. I don't tend to monologues too many times. I do if I tend to if the other person is autistic. And we're kind of having like one of those you might have had these these similar situations where you're talking to an autistic person, one person speaks for about two, three, four, five minutes, 10 minutes even. And then the other person speaks for two, three, four, five, 10 minutes. And it just kind of goes back and forth like that. So I think it's very context dependent again, like with most social situations, most emotional things. Anytime, Thomas, enjoy. Thank you, Joshua G. Hydration reminder now for YouTube as well. So we have just under where we have about 20 minutes left on the stream. If you've got any questions that you want to ask that are on the tip of your tongue that you just want to get out there in the world, ask away. No wrong answers. I'm not going to get upset, offended, anything like that. So just fire them off. If I want to if I want to answer it, I will. If I don't, then I won't. So free space, free reign. Matthias says, relationships are important for autistic people. I saw a video about autism on the inside and he says it helps us become better, but it also gets harder with time. Well, again, dependent on the situation. If you're with someone who really has your best interests at heart and they really want to see you grow and develop and you both have that kind of growth mindset, then sure. He's not always like that. It's sometimes one-sided. It's sometimes neither person's really bothered about the other person. It's very dependent on who you're in a relationship with. What is the context of it? It's not always just a net positive. It's not always a net negative. It's variable and it's very, very heavily dependent on communication, cooperation as well. Thank you for teaching me. Don't worry about it. You're like a ask away. Victoria says, I've gotten to know more autistic people and I've realized we like to relay information. We don't do small talk and I'm also happy just sitting next to someone doing my own thing. So that's a parallel play, the last thing that you're saying about, but yeah, I guess it's not necessarily always about information though either. Sometimes it's a different way of expressing emotions as well. So quite often I find that for myself and for other autistic people that I talk to, we very much like to explain how we feel rather than necessarily express it. Some people express it. Some people do both at the same time, but that's just kind of something that I've picked up from experience of talking to autistic and neurotypical individuals. Favorite lift for you? I don't know. I don't know. Okay, my favorite is the overhead press. That is my favorite lift at the gym. I don't do overhead press at the moment because I'm wanting to to get a little bit more engagement of my upper chest. So I'm doing a bit of a kind of like a high incline press at the moment, which is working quite well for me. I hit 60 kilos on that high incline press for nine reps my last session, which I was very happy about. And it's on a cut as well. So I'm like, I don't even know what I've been doing. I don't understand how after two or three years I can still be making progress when I'm on a cut. It's very weird. Do you watch the series Love on the Spectrum? I have watched a little bit actually. I've said this before, but I'm not always like keen to watch stuff about autism, especially in the mainstream media because it sometimes feels a bit intrusive and if it's spreading misinformation then it can make me feel a little bit like... So it's not really something that I'd like to watch when I'm relaxing if that makes sense. But I have seen it and it does, it did seem to be pretty good in some respects. Other respects, not so much, but definitely a little bit more of a step forward, I think, in terms of mainstream autism content. Thank you Jimmy Fire Dragon. Mr. Joshua, thank you for the Super Chat and thank you for Victoria for sending a Super Chat as well, much appreciated. Isabella says, Isabelca says, so many relationship questions today. Tell us what is your experience with relationships as an autistic person? I've had, I've been in long-term relationships since I was about 14, so I do have a lot of experience with it. Again, I would say it really depended on the person that I was with and, you know, perhaps when I was younger it was a little bit more difficult. I was very anxiously attached and not really aware of how relationships worked when I was younger. In adulthood it's a little bit different, like I know what I want, I know what makes me happy, I know what doesn't make me happy, I feel like I can communicate a bit more and know what type of communication would suit me better. So in general it's not too bad, you know, it's just about, it really depends on the person that you with and your attitude, I guess, to that relationship. And as well I get this question a lot and it's kind of like a hot topic from my experience. A lot of people just say just date autistic people, just go and date an autistic person, they will remove all of the problems, you'll just have the wonderful time, there'll be no miscommunication, anything like that, not necessarily from my experience. It's a lot more, it's a lot more to do with the goals of that person, their values, their personality traits. The neuro-type stuff, it can make some of the miscommunication a little bit easier to understand, but it's definitely not like the be all and end all of like a good or bad relationship. You are the truth, the true earth angels. Your highness says, is there a chance that autism slash ADHD can be misdiagnosed to personal anxiety, especially I've heard it's harder for autism to be diagnosed and spotted in women. You are very right and often the odd HD experience can be misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder. If you can imagine the highs and lows of that and also if you're depressed, sometimes I think sometimes particularly like psychologists can have a little bit of bias towards diagnosing women with BPD over autism, because they don't really understand it as and as you said the masking can be a little bit more prevalent totally. Gigi Illustrates says, I feel like I try to make social connections with people on this app, but people want nothing to do with me because I have no real pictures of myself on here or because I don't have a big following. What does that mean? I'm not too sure, like I need to know a little bit more about your particular situation. Like I think my view of Instagram, the autistic community, it's less about, it's more about a sense of community for me, like yeah, sure, I've met some friends online and I'd say that it's really not dependent on how many followers they have, it depends on like what they're like as a person, the personality, you know, so I'm not too sure about that, Gigi. Gula says, not a question, but I'm thankful for the streams it's teaching me how to better understand my flatmate better. Is there some way to make communication better, since I tend to be unclear at times? Coming from a non-autistic perspective, I would definitely say things rather than express things. A lot of autistic people can, well we tend to prefer more direct methods of communication, so instead of, you know, so for example, for me verbal validation, direct compliments, something that someone says to me, means a lot because I don't necessarily always assume things unless people tell me. There's also, in terms of communication, I think just generally that indirect to direct dynamic is quite important. I'd also try and be aware that they're not always, their emotions and on their face, the way that they express themselves, is not always going to line up exactly with what they say to you. So like, if I went up someone I was really struggling and tends to be when I'm really struggling in terms of overload, that my face is very blank, that my voice doesn't really change, even though I will go up, someone say, okay I'm about to have a meltdown, I'm not feeling good saying it just like that. Some people are like, oh okay, well what were you going to do about that and like, no, so there's really taking on board what they say to you and even if sometimes it doesn't feel like it's as intense as what, it's how they're expressing it, I guess. That would be another one. Do you dare to mix of neurotypical and neurodiverse people? I don't factor in neurodiversity into people I date, it's not a factor. Paul says, hello T, all the way from PA, where is PA? Raining outside, happy to give to all, love the show. Well thank you very much Paul. Mia says, as someone unfamiliar with the gym, when you said your favorite lift I thought you meant your favorite elevator. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could understand that. Focus on love, not hate, good words there Jackie. We have the hydration reminder from Mr Joshu G, make sure to have some water, something that I often forget when I'm in the midst of monologuing. So thank you very much. Abby says, have you ever broken any bones during a autistic meltdown? I kicked a wardrobe months ago, my toe is swollen, nail is black, it was disgusting. No I haven't. I think it's a lot to do that, I've always done a lot of strength training since I was young and a lot of sports so my bones are quite durable. I have had an accident before but that was my ligament that was injured but not during the meltdown. My meltdowns tend to be, perhaps I won't go into that at the moment, not on this stream but it is something that I've talked about before. Joshua asks, how would you stop over apologizing Thomas with ADHD and autism? That's a difficult one because it's something that I feel I do a lot more than most people like just apologizing in general. It really depends on what your description of over apologizing is, it's a very subjective based thing I suppose. But apologizing for being autistic, I don't think that that's something that should be done. There's the difference between making excuses and explaining and not apologizing for the way that your brain works as well. So it's again very dependent on the situation. Not everything can be easily like, okay in this situation, this, this situation, this. Which doesn't make it very helpful, I understand but every situation is different. Joshua asks, what is your sexuality Thomas? I was glad to see your RSD post earlier this week. Very, very good mix of questions and comments. I'm straight. Mia says, I think a lot of us are made to feel like our goals, what we want of life is wrong so a lot of that energy can go justifying it's which we shouldn't have to do 100%. People don't understand our needs necessarily and what would be good for us I guess. How can you tell if it's emotional dysregulation or depression? That's the whole thing about burnout and burnout versus depression. It's not totally clear what the difference between burnout and a depression period is. It's probably due to the reasons for it. Quite a lot of the time burnout is a combination of lots of different factors which lead into kind of a depression like period. It's very, very difficult to say because burnout isn't recognised as a mental health condition if that makes sense. It's usually used to try and understand people's situations and how to cope with it and how to get out of it. Sometimes for example with depression there is nothing really you can do. Sometimes it is situational, other times it's not. Burnout is that kind of more lasered in like okay this happened so this is why I'm not feeling good this period of time and I can't do as much. It's obviously going to be different for autistic people as well. A lot of changes in levels of functioning in certain areas etc. Well I think I had more communication with autistics and holistics but it's definitely not set in stone. Yeah I suppose so. I think again I think it really depends on the person. It's incredible how much preparation overthinking is needed just to go on a date it feels like a survival game. I just try and take it easy as much as you can. Just to see if you guys get on. Be yourself you know. If it doesn't work out you don't like them then that's cool. If they don't like you then also cool just you know take it as it comes you know. It's been 28 years for me and my partner came along. I wow congratulations that is awesome. I had a lot of ups and downs but still together and love it. Really glad to hear that. Daniel says before my diagnosis I went out with girls girls boys older younger people trying to understand maybe this is where I belong. My relationship used to last 2.5 years max. At the end I was more lost. Well thank you for sharing that. Yeah clarifying questions definitely help with misunderstandings and communication 100%. PA is Philadelphia. Oh okay okay. Matthias says I see everything in causes and consequences. Even people my brain is so logical. Is it normal? Um okay it depends what your idea of normal is but I wouldn't say that's necessarily bad you know. Gene Milne says hello Thomas and everyone I hope you're well. Welcome well it's nice to see you Gene. If you can everybody on YouTube please make sure to like the stream because it does help with the whole algorithm YouTube stuff and if you want to support me my memberships are only 99p they give you a little badge and you support me doing these streams more often etc so um if you can that would be much appreciated. I'm spinning a fidget feeding my autistic soul yeah. Joshua G says as I apologized for something earlier today even though I shouldn't have the person at the till in my college had said to me that I shouldn't be apologizing. Yeah I suppose so and again like there is no right or wrong situation to well yeah there is situations to apologize um it's a very subjective thing I would say. So we have about just over a couple of minutes before um we finish up so if you've got any burning questions that you want to ask before we round up for this week um indeed like uh throw them at me. Galakas says when in a meltdown generally what can I as a neurotypical do to make things easier are there any like do's or don'ts? Um I'd say that there are some do's or don'ts but most of the things that I would suggest uh are in the context of YouTube being strangers mostly because some people find physical touch um quite calming um during the meltdown so like if I was like with with a partner or if I was you know one of my friends or like my parents trying to comfort me then touch would be fine if it was a stranger it wouldn't be um there's also um Samuel it's my brother saying that he's gone to the house interesting creature right um what was I saying you do derail me uh what can what can you do in the meltdown uh try and guide them to a place that is less sensory provoking some some place that's a little bit calmer uh you can offer them some sensory supports um I wouldn't try to restrict their stimming allow them to stim um as much as they can unless they are hurting themselves um then I would try and contact one of their family members to ask them what to do um I would hesitate on saying to restrict them even even if they are hurting themselves but perhaps offer them another alternative to do like hit a pillow or you know something like that um I'd say as well talk slowly if they're not communicating give them alternative options to communicate like nodding their head or squeezing your leg or your hand or you know something like that um I do have a very very um comprehensive sort of guide to to that actually for um neurotypicals who are wanting to support autistic people during meltdowns and shutdowns um you can see it on like if you go into my profile there's like this newspaper icon that you can scroll on to there should be like an autism meltdowns and stuff like that uh shutdown um aspect that you can click on and you'll be able to find all the posts that are referred to that um indeed projection is not a reflection of your value there are so many variables at their game yep 100 percent uh what what's one of your special interests the gym is a big one or any kind of exercise or sport I tend to have something game related that I enjoy something work related and something fitness related 100 percent my current love interest wants only see him yet I do have male friends is that healthy um I wouldn't be able to tell you that tell you that Jackie preferences you know there's no no right or wrong so um very very happy to have you all it's been an absolutely awesome stream um thank you to everyone on youtube for tuning in you haven't already liked it and if you want to support um my work if even if you're on instagram or youtube uh you can become a member on youtube for like 90 down p a month which um does help support me um being a self-employed person trying to start their business up uh encouraging me to do more live streams more content uh much appreciated to everyone who's asked questions bought badges uh super chats members stuff like that much appreciated and um yeah I hope you guys have a lovely lovely rest of your friday see you later