 as it's got excellent connection okay there we go sorted good stuff hey Ryan, nice to hear from you, how are you doing man? hello mom-sob-child uh... nabil uh... emilou jozef um... that daddy did that digital design bifini-robots alright so today it's it's pretty much like most times that I go live you're very very welcome to ask me any questions related to autism um... if you're looking for it to ask me about specific posts that I've made content all that kind of things please do sort of head over and um... go check out the stuff that I do um... I see questions around that uh... I've got a comment from jay newtz, hey tom, also recovering from burnout after a trip to London yesterday I hope you're feeling more like you again now I am actually, I'm feeling a lot more stable I don't know if that's the best way of saying it um... I'm not feeling too bad I feel like you know this next week I'm gonna be back to full steam ahead which I'm happy about but thank you for asking Phil says great content, thank you um... Ryan, all good mate, what have you been up to nowadays mostly this making stuff content I'm actually trying to settle my business at the moment which has taken off, it's going slowly um... you know so here we go that kind of thing so um... I'm gonna do the same thing as I did last time, I'm gonna pull up some of my Instagram posts because I feel like that's a good area for me to kind of get some some things to chat about while I wait for some questions to come in um... Halbetik says as a newly diagnosed person your posts are very helpful I'm very much glad it fills my heart with joy to hear that so thank you Ebi says hello you're autistic, great, welcome to the stream I'm also autistic haha um... so yeah I mean to be honest I've made a lot of posts recently about like the crossover between autism and neurotypicals like in like relationships and stuff so that's been something that I've been looking into quite a lot like things like double empathy things like uh... Cassandra Syndrome something that I only recently came across it's quite interesting um... I don't know if that's something that anyone wants to ask any questions on because I know that that's that's quite a hot topic at the moment um... Jennings asks how did you become an autism advocate initially I started on YouTube actually I first got a sense for speaking and interviews and advocacy work through uh... being an athlete so when I when I won the Commonwealth uh... gold medal uh... when I sort of won the nationals when I went abroad to compete for England um... I had a few situations where I had like interviews with local radios and new stations and stuff and that's really how I started off I then kind of got into making YouTube videos started at my podcast I made like student documentary called Asperges in Society name hasn't aged well but um... that's basically where I started off at just wondering if my mic is okay on on YouTube I'm just gonna have to I'm having some real issues like finding out how how to do my setup because it's it's like so it's so different um... I look so different like on my YouTube than I do on my Instagram and stuff see like my double chin on YouTube um... from EB do you stim if so what stimmy um... you know that's a good question uh... I do stim tends to be either things that I kind of neurotypical kind of stims like tapping my leg or swaying or pacing those kind of things or rubbing my hands that's something that I do quite a lot or going like that with my wrist so I've got those stims that I kind of do on a regular basis but um... I think not the biggest one for me is the gem it's like that proprioceptive stim it's like I did a post before on um... noticing if you have proprioceptive needs which basically is your awareness of your body in space without looking so like if you close your eyes you know where you put your hand is and for us it can be really hard and it can lead to a lot of like issues with like coordination and things like that um... but the gem is really great for like satisfying that need that you have especially like because it's very movement based it's very much about like your muscles contracting and you know doing the movement properly and I find that to be really relaxing um... I think as well spinning spinning is a big one for me I used to spin a lot and I've got a video from the uh... EDA speech that I did in Birmingham which was really cool where I uh... I was talking about a lexifying me about one of the people that had this like um... this like hanging down hoop that they had and I just sat myself on this hoop and just asked them to spin me around on it, it was grand loved it there's my sense um... Favletica asks uh... I have a question um... opinions on therapists have a very bad experiences yep it's it's it's a tough one um... it's hard to find a good therapist so I don't feel like you're the only one in that situation I've been in and out on therapy for like quite a while um... for a lot of time in my life which you know it's um... it's tough because there's the aspect of money like I'm not a lot of general health care especially like in the UK is sort of focused around autistic people they don't tend to have a lot of like they only tend to have like the research side of things they don't have like the lived experience aspect of of it and that can sometimes make it really difficult to connect with therapists and for them to understand you and then if you do find someone who's quite open quite willing to listen you pretty much spend most of your time just trying to explain to them what being autistic is like and it's um... there's lots of barriers like um... they like to find me being a really big one I do have a presentation I did which I'm thinking about uploading to Instagram or on YouTube or maybe both um... it's a video of my presentation I delivered at the EDA conference which was like this Commonwealth Games sponsored like event where we got to like deliver to um... policymakers in search there was a lot of talk around a lot of useful discussion um... around like inpatient units like psychiatric hospitals you know a lot of um... you know you I've heard of a lot of bad experiences particularly for autistic women who've gone into those mental health settings um... those inpatient units psychiatric hospitals and they've had just the worst experience and there was this amazing um... advocate um... something bridges Lindsey Bridges um... who has I actually did a post on the story before and it was a really tragic story about her daughter basically being locked up in those psychiatric inpatient settings and it was it was really tough um... to hear about but she's like proposing this like law you know there's been policies and there's like even being some like uh... law disputes like they've they've had these disputes in law and they've told these facilities that they're unsuitable for this person uh... they didn't listen they didn't release them and they got like the parents got like banned from different NHS branches and stuff because they were like this is not right and really trying to fight for it and it ended in a really sort of tragic way which I'm not gonna discuss on here because it's a bit intense for an old tea chat so um I definitely recommend you looking up uh... she's on instagram she's got Lindsey Bridges um... her daughter was um... uh... Lauren Bridges really tragic story but a lot of really useful advocacy work going on there but um... there's beside the point I like I like to find me a you know massive massive influences on how mental health therapy can be done you know it can make it very hard to connect emotions with events can make it very hard to um... I suppose when you're speaking about things you kind of have this air of disconnection between how you feel about something and what you're speaking about so it's like I can talk about some really dark stuff that have happened to me and like really horrible things and just not really connects with it too much it's almost like I can only do that in hindsight so a lot of the work that I did in terms of improving my mental health was personal I didn't really find much use with therapy there are some great therapists out there um... but they do tend to be private there's that money aspect workplace things you know our statistics around getting employment and stuff not too great um so money can be an issue for a lot of us there's a great person who produces resources that you can look up and mention her a lot neurodivergent insights did a podcast with her on CPTSD and PTSD uh... in autistic people which was really really insightful and interesting she does psychotherapy but she also does like workbooks resources things that you can you know use for your own personal use and overcoming mental health it's really tough the systems are not designed for us and the systems are not really designed very well for neurotypicals so it's kinda it's a tough one big tough one I hope that helps to some degree it's a very complex topic um Phil asks any dietary suggestions that help I see a lot of post-undie toxification from heavy metals yeah um don't know about that one mate um that's the whole thing about chelation and like gluten causing autism and stuff not gonna say that there aren't any like things that we struggle with in terms of eating and diet but I definitely don't think that pumping kids and adults full of different supplements to get rid of heavy metals is gonna do anything for anybody um it's not something that I really advise looking into too much um just having to try to aim for a healthy sort of more balanced diet where you got a lot of different nutrients probably the best thing to do you don't need to detox your body your liver does that if you don't have a liver then I can sort of understand dialer says hi I'm from flag um I don't know what that flag is not very good with flags I'm not one of those autistic people who can like list off all of the flags sadly um eb says ice didn't too many stimming objects flicking fingers bouncing balls rocking back and forwards I love rocking, rocking is a good one Alvetsxer says that using the gym was also quite helpful for them really interesting that one I'm a big proponent of going to the gym even though it can be quite a difficult environment um spinning objects this is a good one for J Newts you're really good with asking these questions man like you you're very much like um pulling me for a lot of these live streams sometimes with the questions so I really appreciate it um how do you find travelling to different places i.e. mental energy levels and burnout you know um I think when I'm in the flow of travelling it's not too bad like if I if I do it on a regular basis not too bad the only issues I have with travelling um and change sort of change to my environment tend to come in when I'm when I haven't done it in a long time or if it's something completely new or there's some kind of time constraint to it um I find the time constraints of like you know going getting to places at certain times sort of organising your day to get around this and then once you get to like your hotel you don't really know what to do because you don't know the place so you just kind of stay in and ruminate a little bit that's that was my experience on the weekend um on on the Monday when I was going I was I travelled down on Sunday to Birmingham and I did like a a talk on the Monday um I found it really hard on the night before and that tends to be a trend for me the night before like just settling into a hotel room that tends to be the hardest bit but when I've got like something to focus on like focusing on getting my trains and stuff then it doesn't tend to be too much of a stress unless I'm behind time or in this stuff then it's a big one um but yeah it's usually the night before sort of settling in chilling out a bit more um that's hard that's the hard part for me but once you're in the flow it's not too bad um Lewis Bavilla says this is so amazing as no to your working sensory processing to watch an autistic person as an adult speaking about sensory needs congratulations and thanks Thomas what's an honor do follow thank you very much and I'm very glad that I can give you that autistic lived experience like all the things um that's says yeah about the therapy by nothing nothing they know um about autism challenging yeah it's hard uh blunt force tanya says uh I've had one therapist the one I started with who diagnosed me three years ago I don't know if I have it in me to establish the whole life story again with with a new one when I move I think that's something that generally a lot of people feel I'm actually working um I just had a meeting with someone and we're working on creating some like resources and there's this thing called like a mental health passport that some people have where they can kind of give give it to a doctor or a psychologist and it basically just explains like different aspects of your life and stuff without you having to recount your story especially if there's like some traumatic things and things like that so I'm working on making something like an autism passport where you can like show you different sensory profiles uh your different communication preferences things that you find easy things that you find hard um so that that that could be a really interesting thing to kind of work on um also like um uh what would you say uh meltdown cards that you can give to people if you're having like a meltdown in public that's something else I'm thinking of doing um not too bad I think I've actually made one now it's just about like how would I distribute that so I'll probably have to like link it somewhere on my website or put on my link tree give people like a template to use and print out um I think in the future I'd like to like laminate it and put like a lanyard on it or something but at the moment you know that could be could be something that would be of use um there's someone on youtube who's asked uh about medication uh stranded 360 says how long have you been on medication have you researched the long-term changes that occur when you're on them I would like to do medication but it's kind of something you end up on forever I tried to focus on lifestyle changes as much as I can but they can only go so far um I think I think yeah I mean medication's a tough one I've been on medications since I was probably about 13 14 so it's been a while the the the main issue with the medication I you know I think you can you can make a case for anything having sort of anything like medication finding long-term effects on something um and that's kind of that's you know that's something I thought about I think the thing is you could say the same about physical med like medication for physical elements as well if the thing is is that mental health is something that is important for living and even if there are some some long-term disadvantages to it like for example if I was going to talk about SSRIs like antivitabical antidepressants um you know uh it's it's going to be different for us because we've got different brains um you know we might have to have dual medications to to deal with the negative side effects of the antidepressant um and there's also this this kind of negative side effects of taking antidepressants is that it makes you a bit more like apathetic like um you can like the dips that you have in mental health tend to be a bit less like intense but then like the highs that you get in life and the positives those are kind of flattened a bit more as well so it kind of makes it kind of flattens like a lot of people think it just generally raises your mood it's not like that serotonin is like it kind of flattens you down a little bit um which is which is why why it's used but it can sometimes lead to you're not really enjoying things as much sometimes and not really having those highs that you can sort of have generally in life which can be tough um it's something that i have thought about quite a lot it's you know it's going to be something that i'm probably on for a lot lot of time i've been off and on different meds um you know was often for a significant amount of time mental health deteriorated um couldn't really live properly do things like things enjoy things um so for me it was it's it's the move to to kind of stick with them but i realized that it's very different person to person my my mental health is hey when that happens my mental health is um quite severe without meds very severe actually so it's kind of needed for me but it might not be for for every single person it's definitely not the first line of defense you shouldn't just i think i love doctors they're very quick to put people on them i definitely do think there's some thought to be had around it but i wouldn't avoid them just because of that it's um you know and it is a drug and um if you don't take it for a day you will notice some withdrawal effects you so you've got to have that in mind it's like a real chemically acting drug you know almond capos says hi how are you i'm not too bad actually i'm feeling quite chilled and happy today um almond asks uh please make a video on how to build cognitive empathy i'm i'm actually working on a program at the moment like a course to sell like a video course um i can do a post about cognitive empathy but i'm not really looking to create like youtube videos because it's not something that i can really um afford doing in terms of like the time commitments and stuff um but i i hear you um and i am working on something uh eb asks did you have any harmful stems or have yeah uh picking my teeth biting my nails um meltdown stuff hit my head and stuff like that in meltdowns it's so that those are kind of harmful stems um i use obviously it's an excise addiction so that in some ways that's like a stim so you can consider that one to be as well not so much anymore so i do a lot of the get a lot of sensory aids i do a lot of um active stimming trying to do things that that can replace harmful stems that i have so it's not an issue for me at the moment elissa says hi thomas hello thank you for joining um elissa says i had severe mercury and lead poisoning chelation improved my life yeah i mean obviously in those situations important um but just in general give just like same all autistic people need to have like chelation therapy just because they need to get rid of these heavy metals that or detoxify that's like the health buzzword that people chuck around um you know you need to think about that i think thomas thank you so much appreciate it no worries um my friend who was awesome um loves numbers cool i hate numbers uh she asked people at school for their bus number at lunch i i i mean i had a similar thing i had like i had this weird like obsession with like logging who i knew so i would always try and get like people's contact details i'd never talk to them i'd just like to have like a like an idea of who who is in my network and that kind of thing um numbers numbers and that haven't been very important for me um i'm glad i'm gonna move a bit further down the chap because i've seen that i am um a little bit far behind jenny says uh no problem at all mate really enjoyed engaging with you on these sorts of topics recently launched an autism podcast myself so questions are my thing very cool let me know if you need um need a guest i'd be happy to uh happy to come on chat all that really cool um want to see this podcast autism space grow a little bit more should be really cool stranded says um i hear yeah i think this is about the medications everyone has to make their own decision glad you consider the comms many people don't i have gone off and on etc so it's an individual decision i think more more power to you mate like um it's it's a difficult one i mean on the one side you could very much improve your life quality over the long term on the flip on the flip side you are dependent on a medication and it could have some sort of long-term effects i think for most things as long you know if if you're over like the age of 25 when your brain's like fully develops um around that age i think there's less chance that you can have those kind of long-term effects just saying just saying off the cuff don't quote me on that but i think that's you know the important um queen delin says thank you thomas as an autistic person can you request follow me on instagram um sure yeah just to send me a message i'll try and uh find you um jay newt says uh cheers man we'll probably send you a message about possibly collaborating amazing work with the live streams they're fantastic i hope so um i wish i could get a bit more like reach for things because it's like it's really strange because i'll have a probably between like eight and 20 people on live like on instagram at a time but like the actual live stream replays get like 650 or something so it's it's um i don't know whether it's because of my timing maybe i need to change up the timing uh maybe just people are not awake people are not able to to join in the lives i've kind of thought about my own sort of day i shot for about 530 in the uk because that's kind of when people might be coming back from work and stuff so but i'm i'm open like i might do a um might do a poll see see which kind of times are best for everybody i am open to doing it a bit later but i i also because of my like gym commitments and what i'm working on like six days a week so it's yeah exactly thank you for fiki um fiki said um actually asked me if you want to go go follow her she's a great great advocate to um great advocate to follow a lot of interesting posts sort of uh more about sort of her daily life and stuff really cool um yeah uh i think i think fitting it in with the schedule is is tough like because i would usually go after like this usually when i go to them it's like half five so i would kind of get up and get ready and go to the gym come home get back with like half seven eight ideally have a shower eat then it's like what 930 probably so that would be like another time that i could possibly do might be better um and then there's sort of perhaps times during the day but then i know that i'm kind of a uk based advocate and i want to make sure that people can join in um yeah uh bit 011 on youtube says i want to say thank you for the videos you're very welcome uh which videos have been helpful for you being interested in knowing um one from neverland journal hi i'm from south america what part of south america and really i'm always really like it always fills me with joy to like here just just like the range of people from different places it's really really cool um really really cool to hear where where everyone's from um i know that and it's kind of it kind of depends i think the majority of the people who follow me are probably like um i don't know uh probably mostly from america which is weird um because i'm not american but i know that it's america's much bigger place and the the uk and usa audiences tend to be like interconnected quite heavily um soprano deandre says hi from mexico very cool mexico i've really wanted to i really want to go to mexico at some point um i want to go to that that day of the dead festival i remember watching um i think it was uh cult cult hill kinton's idiot abroad and he went to do it like the day of the dead dead festival or something and they had this this like person running about with like fireworks shooting from them it was it was so funny so funny um but it looks really cool i know i like the aesthetic and like the sort of the um the way that they frame sort of grief and like um like the culture around it and stuff it's really cool um diana says uh hi thomas recently seen your page seems to be in super super informative where i could understand more about autism since my doctor's not very good explaining it to me yeah that tends to be the case i've got that or you find it helpful i um i mean it tends to be the case like doctors that they tend to be a bit behind on things especially gps specifically and quite often sometimes even orders and specialists they can be they can be even worse sometimes because they have this like idea of that in the head about what autism should be and so they kind of they don't really listen to your own personal experience or like they don't really listen to autistic advocates and writers and like creators and stuff who could really sort of add to that stuff um but it's not it's not everybody of course like um there's some really great ones i think just finding somebody who's like a really sort of open minded willing to be wrong about things those are the kind of cool people to talk to i'm thankful to have a gp like that a couple of gps that i've been to who are quite sort of open uh one of them is a bit infantilizing sometimes you know hand on the shoulder like kind of speaking to me a little bit like an infant but his heart's in the right place so you know good stuff um but to be honest i think a lot of the work that you can do a lot of the people that you can talk to um it's best to kind of do it on your own i think unless you can find an organization the charity who sort of specializes in like advocacy and um sort of helping you with different life things like work and specific things not necessarily the general health care system it's not always the best uh diana six me says i've been diagnosed at 28 congratulations firstly say agoraphobia i was agoraphobic for a while at university um yeah i mean agoraphobia is just yeah it's a fear of um large big large open spaces um so if you're agoraphobic it might be quite hard to get out of the house sometimes we'll go or even leave like if you're in like a shared accommodation going to like the living room and you know things like that um i think yes sometimes it can be related to autism because we do have a high higher incidence of anxiety disorders um you know so things like agoraphobia especially when you have sort of bad experiences outside um in life with people um or you have like that social anxiety element it can kind of heighten those feelings i would say um uh bit 001 says uh it isn't any one video you and several other online personalities help me see what acd looks like i was originally diagnosed dyslexic and add in in the mid 80s oh so you you're quite late diagnosed them i'm um i'm glad that i can be be one of those creators i i said they don't make a lot of videos lately i'm wanting to like i would love to but it's just like the editing commitments and stuff that's really tough um void mayonaise love that name hi happy autism acceptance month happy autism acceptance one you may have realized if you've been following me that i haven't done anything specific around it i've been like one real which is kind of like um one real that i did but i didn't like um i haven't done any like strategy on like producing stuff because i kind of realized this at one point i was like do i really need to like upscale the amount i'm doing i'm already like producing like a post every day and a real and i'm doing live streams and i always talk about autism so is there really really anything else that i that i can be doing i don't know um i think a lot of the other advocates love the people that they're producing things which is great um around that stuff i don't think i need to add to that anymore i think i think a lot of us we can find these these kind of time periods a bit stressful creators people you know autistic people like it can be a bit intense sometimes especially when you're hearing things from organizations seeing things in the media that you're not too happy about so it's not always the best experience um but i think it's it's it's good diane six me says yeah i haven't left my house since 2017 that must be really tough um i know that that's that was a big issue for a lot of people we kind of um i think this is a concept called like nucleation or something like that where like you know in the past our social circles would be like very community-based and stuff but with the advent of like online media you can pretty much hear all your news you can hit you can talk to people you can engage in activities like gaming with people so there's sometimes there's not you can even have work you can work from home so sometimes you just really don't need to go outside and you know it's um being inside especially like during lockdown and stuff your social skills can kind of be lacking an effort i think the intensity of the the outside world needs to be like you need to expose yourself to it slowly it's like when i was going through my stage of of agrophobia the first thing that i did was um just a little things like i would walk walk outside to the end of the road well actually i'd i'd probably i'd start by um i start by going downstairs into the shared living spaces trying to do a bit more in those those spaces talk to people talk to my housemates um and then i started like walking outside to the road and then i'd go and pick something up at the shops um then go and travel to somewhere which is a bit quieter like a library do something there so at least i kind of have somewhere to go that's a bit more chilled and i just kind of worked at worked on that over over time um i did have some like medication support like um i was prescribed some like benzos to help with my panic attacks and stuff um but it's it is where i think it's worth working on because you know mobility it's important um and if you can't go outside and you know you're struggling to find a job online um you're perhaps struggling with your mental health you know you're not getting a vitamin d stuff like that um can be useful just to kind of work yourself up to doing getting outside doing that kind of stuff i got someone on youtube um haze tea rex expressions like that oh okay i get it i get your name um tea rex nice like it uh say uh what do you say hey thanks for all your videos they've helped me immensely since diagnosis and finding your channel you're very welcome um is it like the the videos that the youtube videos i did back then or is it like the podcast stuff that i do i'm just interested to hear um dinos are my special interests yeah um i've heard from a lot of people that dinosaurs seem to be like quite uh quite special interest for us it's interesting i used to be really obsessed with this show called dinosaur king and they had this like arcade machine where you had like these cards and i just absolutely loved it because you could like collect these dinosaurs as cards and like swipe them um and just uh like you could you could put like different moves on them and stuff and it's basically like a rock paper scissors game so it's really like not really that interesting but um i loved it as a child i got super obsessed with it um yeah uh the podcast can be handy for exploring more experiences and views besides and live out of your own experiences i'm glad um though that that's kind of where i wanted to do it because i feel like a lot of us we produce content which is kind of in isolation and i like i like to bring people together who have like experts and focuses on like different areas of autism not just like autism in general because there's stuff that i don't know about a lot like i'm not very in on or knowledgeable about um the aspects of like autism adhc and that crossover so it's really good for me to kind of bring people on who you know are adhc and kind of have that experience and also like um autism in in women um and you know by pop groups and um you know different different races sexualities um identities things like that i think it's good to have a variety of different people who have like a different angle on life as an autistic person um indeed it's always great to expand on knowledge via one another yeah it's also for me as well i really enjoy learning from people um it's kind of my way of progressing like my knowledge and stuff austin says uh now i have bpd on top of autism oh my god when did when did you get that um diagnosis was it was it kind of a recent thing um austin austin thank you for for um subbing to the channel by the way i see you or your red narrate diversity symbol thank you very much for that i appreciate it man um let's get some go over to instagram a little bit um diana seeks me says i think i've been like this because um i've discussed by people i've been discussed by people like doctors and they've been so rude very judgmental making me feel bad yeah i'd um i identify with that it's tough like you quite often you you know i mean there are some like autism coaches and people and consultants and people that you can talk to who are like creators i know that mom on the spectrum does it tailor-heaton to do some some like coaching sessions you can just like bug some time with her um and chat things through i i'd probably say that that's by far more useful than going through the general healthcare system as i said don't quote me on that because i think for some specific situations it can be useful to have that general health care support kind of side to things but you know talking to an autistic person is being through the things that you you might be struggling with i think that's really useful um i'm also starting consultancy at some point so uh if you want to send me an email um get in touch through my website from my link trade send me a message i'll add you to me waiting list um void mayonaise still of that coming out of lockdown is a wild way to realize that you've been practicing your social skills your entire life if you don't use them they just won't stick yeah yeah i've lost a lot of that like um lost a lot of that to you due to covid really weird situations coming out of lockdown with my social skills no social awareness at all oh my god uh i came back on it it just you know brings me cringe a little bit but you know um also i'm sure says uh been diagnosed in the past week that explains a lot that's interesting um it's something that i definitely want to look into a bit more because the thing is with bpd is it's very like it's one of the most misdiagnosed conditions with autism like um a lot of autistic women might be diagnosed more with bipolar or bpd schizophrenia rather than autism so it's really interesting that kind of crossover between them um i'd be interested to hear more about that i might have to try and get someone on the podcast to to chat about that um hey hazy t-rex says uh i think lockdown was one of the main reasons i got diagnosed to be honest on the pandemic that's really interesting uh because those massive changes plus a breakup of a four-year relationship while that's intense plus moving houses for the first time all came together which finally had them notice my anxiety of changes yeah well that's the thing isn't it the medical system is there to diagnose based on issues that you're having and if you don't go for life and you don't experience those issues you don't tend to they don't tend to be highlighted um they then looked into my other autistic traits and how it might relate to my super high anxiety then sent me on a referral really interesting uh bit bit zero one one says that i like the videos where you speak about feelings that accompany actions seen on the outside yeah um it's a big interest of mine actually it's uh the emotional aspects because i used to think when i was when i was younger that my emotions were kind of useless i was like really heavily focused on like the logic aspect of life i was like logic is king and i don't have any emotions i don't really like connect with them and i don't see the point in them and people do stuff based on emotions and bad things happen um which they do but obviously emotions are important it's kind of what makes us human we have that higher cognition but we also have the emotions so i don't know exploring that like emotional side of what emotional social side of autism i think is really useful um john john chef he says afternoon man how's it going i'm not too bad how are you my friend um word man says oops i've accidentally unmasked how do i put it back on lol um Austin says um i'd listen i do have the emotional instability part of bpd which leads to sh what's sh and fear of abandonment which is i think is more bpd but autism lightly exacerbates it i think the issue with that because like the thing is with autistic people is what we experience like really high rates of most negative things in life which is really tough um so it's it's kind of hard sometimes because the cross servers between diagnosises can be really like subjective to the person who's diagnosing you and the lens that they have and like what they think initially kind of dictates where you go which is which can be tough it's really hard to find someplace to give you like a holistic like assessment that's like you if you if you know that something's different about you and you like you go to them and that they would help you sort of explore different possible things but it turns not to be like that it tends to be you notice something you see something written down some information and you're like hey i kind of empathize with that you research in it more and then you go and you proposition the doctor about getting a diagnosis of it so it's it's kind of it's tough isn't it because it's it's kind of like a roundabout way of uh sh you yeah okay i understood um uh my autism got misdiagnosed as ocd yeah that's another aspect definitely and shush shush it's meg says uh yep sh thank you for that i understand why it's a bit abbreviated now um that's something that i've had quite a bit of experience with in my teenagehood um yeah we've probably got about um 10 minutes left so if you've got any questions on the tip of your tongue that you want to ask um please go ahead uh shush it's meg says uh can't you have ocd and autism that's the case for me anyways yeah i think so um i really need to learn to connect my charging cable um yes yeah um i think there's the there's aspects of like obsessive obsessive behaviors with autism um it kind of crossed into ocd but i think it's i think there is a crossover definitely like in terms of like the rates of diagnosis and stuff when compared to like the general population um it's that's that's an over aspect i did a um podcast with um nick ransom who works for like the bbc i think he was working with chris pakham on his autism documentary uh which is really cool um but we did a podcast around ocd specifically around uh relationship ocd which is something that he struggled with at that time so being obsessive about relationships and i mean i could i could definitely go into like what ocd looks like but i know that we we don't have much much time left today so maybe maybe in a in a different life in the future um i feel like it might be on a spectrum even though i only been diagnosed with bpd i can relate to what you said before yeah um the fifth thing is there is a lot of crossover it's like i was talking about alexa feimier and at that event that i did the edo then and alexa feimer is something that people experience with like traumatic experiences like PTSD and stuff so there is like crossover between a lot of things and it's so difficult sometimes to tease things apart um hazy says yeah we do just our emotions display on the outside differently to an entity it doesn't mean we don't experience them totally um what frustrates me is how even if even if they have been rights had all had had all the right infer to diagnose autism they'll consider anything and everything before considering that yeah and i think there's a lot to do with the stigma behind it it's um if they don't have personal experience talking to autistic people having that lived experience element of it um it gives me hard for some of them to really relate um relate to that and see it as a possibility especially in women because the diagnosis um outlines and the the information and the stigma and the um stereotypes that kind of focus towards like white men um i think that can be a really big issue um it's got a cool cool interesting topic um considering any more tattoos thanks for that austin um i am actually i've only got one tattoo but um i'm going to i feel i'm wanting to get like a really big like back piece i want to get some wings you know i want to get some like black demon wings that go like my shoulder and stuff um mostly because i've i've got really bad acne acne scars on one side of my shoulder and i'm wanting to cover that up but also i really like the kind of gothic-y kind of alternative vibe so that might be something that i want to go for in the future um the whole thing around needles not sure how i'll cope i did have a my first tattoo my only tattoo is like a is like a steel needle tattoo that i had in thailand um which i've heard is more painful it's a bit different though so i guess we'll see um i'm not really interested in getting like loads of different small tattoos i'm more interested in having like a really big kind of cool one you've got sex getting a seventh in in a few weeks that's cool man really interesting um hazy says that that would be so cool too um florido pentano dibras kubas said uh i feel like it might be on the spectrum oh you said i've said that already great brilliant tom uh void mayonnaise says god yes i was thinking earlier about what you're saying earlier about logic sometimes in order to identify what our emotions are we have to use logic yeah it's it's weird it's like it's really hard to describe because it's such a subjective thing to a lot of people of course we can find definitions and signs behind it but in practical use in like social situations or or highly emotional situations is very dependent on the person which is like a really big gray area um i find i find yeah exactly the feelings like physiological things that they're a bit more easy to to pick up like those that anxiety and excitement and you know things that are really kind of intense um that kind of scale up to a point like uh anger and stuff but like really nuanced emotions like love and grief and you know things like that i think that that's just it's you know i i i i dipped into a lot of like the medical scientific kind of research in terms of like what emotions are but um not not not too much in terms of like love and grief i had to do a lot of like philosophical um thinking and notes and you know emotions are complex very very much so um yeah some more people on youtube talking about tassis yeah i'm excited to get it i think it's just the organization aspect of going to get a tattoo you know it's gonna be tough um you've had 16 tattoos damn that's mad yeah it's it's definitely gonna be a new experience i have my first tattoo in the center of my back on my spine and i've heard that that's a really bad place in terms of pain i know that the worst i think one of the worst things is like your ribs any any place it's like close to your bones um you've got your shoulder blade done want to get some on your legs cool very cool um i know a few people are like they're artistic and they're like the tattoos and stuff it surprises me like the piercings and tats and you know you'd think for some for people who have like high touch sensitivity and stuff that would be a bit more adverse to that kind of thing but doesn't seem to stop a lot of people i mean i got my my a loud pest probably never gonna get another piercing again so i'm just hoping that this never closes up um because it was just the absolute worst pain ever um for me i just couldn't tolerate it at all i mean it was like a second but then there was like a a minute or two after where it was just oh Jesus like crazy um like mayonnaise only has four it's still more than me i've only got one um my name is lala well it's nice to meet you lala um i don't know i was thinking of getting like an industrial piercing like but i've heard that those are supposed to be really painful so i don't know i'm more i'm more airing on the side of getting tattoos rather than piercings um just because just because of i don't know if people can go in and get tattoos for like hours i feel like i can handle that kind of background pain a lot more than that really sharp pain that just kind of hits you when the adrenaline goes and stuff um yeah yeah you have like some kind of control over needles but i don't know it's kind of different with a tattoo gunner's next you have like it's not really as it's not like someone's just got like a big needle and they're gonna stick it into your arm and inject you with stuff i hate needles blood blood tests are the worst but when i'm gonna talk about that i can take that i can't take the pain anymore i got those when i was in my worst time during bpd the tattoos pain cannot understood yeah everything i think it's gonna be something uh yeah you also get an endorphin rush from the pain that's actually when it'd be like your natural body defense mechanisms to like reduce how intense pain is it's the same thing with exercise you know whenever you do something that hurts your body reduces like releases like endorphins to help you with the pain um i think it's gonna feel quite good and that's why some people can get some kind of weird euphoria from like having like getting tattoos like some people enjoy them crazy people anyway it's uh it's been really nice chatting to you all um thank you again for coming to join join the stream it will be happening next week again i might do a poll at some point um asking kind of what time or what days would be best for the lives because i would really like um more people to have the opportunity to kind of come in and ask questions and stuff um i realized that i kind of just guessed when would be a good place so it might be worth like getting your input on it um tattoo artists and piercers would benefit so much from making their spaces endy friendly definitely great contribution void um there is someone i think called charl tattoo charl tattoos i mean they're an autistic tattooist um i think you could say the same for any place like hairdressers and medical settings and stuff like that you know be really cool um thank thank you for thank you for joining and uh i'm gonna end the youtube stream now but thanks for joining i hope see you next week and you know as always try and like and subscribe and share and stuff does help me out a lot still trying to grow that youtube channel so like you guys see you later okay that is um