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Good day and welcome back to the 40Aughty podcast with you host Mr Thomas Henley of course and today I've got another very very special episode for you and in fact it is special because it's the first time we're doing an in-person podcast and I'm joined today by my very lovely mother who's going to talk to me about some of the experiences that she had with me growing up as an autistic child through teenagehood, going to university, doing all my sporting events and competitions, and hopefully give you guys a bit of an insight into my life from a different angle. So how are you doing today? I'm good, it's good to be here. Hi everybody. Hello. So do you want to tell us a little bit about your background? Like I know that well obviously you're my mom, but a little bit about what you do. Okay, it's good that you pointed that out. I'm just going to say sorry to everybody for my voice. I've got some voice difficulties so bear with me, I'm going to do my best with this one. So obviously first and foremost I'm Tom's mom, very proud of Tom and everything he's been achieving and working on the podcast and doing all the speeches and just surprising that acceptance of autism in the community, the wider world which is great. It started off in the 90s as a primary school teacher, became a revoltist through my teaching and I've kind of progressed to be, oh I'm so glad, sorry. It's okay. Don't worry about it. Well yeah, many of you will know that I talk about my mom a lot on the podcast because she's been such a big supporter of me and a big inspiration for me growing up. I'm very lucky to have such a strong family support network and my mom's been incredibly key in helping me develop socially, also with following my dreams, things that I want to do. I know that as my mom said it's, you know, she's been struggling with her voice for quite a while. What happened with that? I can't remember what it was called. Yeah, I have vocal dysphonia so the vocal cords are quite not moving as they should be so they're a bit squeaky. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I was a special needs teacher and then I talked to be head of centre for local authorities so I kind of looked at things from the other side. I worked with parents on outreach to support my children in school and I also worked on doing parent training and also training for our staffing schools to back support children and their needs in the mainstream. And you've been doing a lot, haven't you, because I remember, you know, you used to sort of be, you kind of went through a period of time, didn't you, where you were working sort of at one of like the local special needs schools that we had. And then I think you took up like a really sort of out of the box high, you know, very high up job within SEND education. I think you were like the manager of the SEND manager for Red Car and Cleveland. Yeah, it was treated out of SEND. Treated out of SEND. So I think after a while it was quite an intense job, wasn't it? So it was. It was the other side of things in terms of getting provision for children with SEND and making sure schools were trained up in the way that they should be and kind of pulling together the special schools and all the other main strengths to make sure the provision was good. Yeah. I think one of the reasons why you decided to leave that job was because you missed working with the kids and stuff and I agree with you. I mean, when like the first job that I ever had was within special needs. I would work as like a special needs teaching assistant, as you know. And I really missed the kids and it wasn't really a job for me because it was very taxing on me, quite stressful. And the working days are very long, well, not long, but they were very sort of intense and you have to be like as a teacher, you have to be very like switched on and like planning things and sort of I found it really, really hard, but I do miss a lot of the kids that I used to work with. So I understand why you decided to kind of go back and have a bit more of that local. That's what makes me smile walking through the door and seeing the human people. At least our children are so unique and so pure of heart really just absolutely amazing and everything they do. And it just brings you back to ground and what's going on. And I was a bit too far removed in my previous job, I think. Yeah. Yeah. It was you having sort of an impact on like the the frameworks and sort of but it was very detached, wasn't that? It was from the families and the children. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I know today we're here to kind of go a little bit through my life, I guess from a different angle because I get a lot of questions from people, especially during my live streams who ask me like a lot of questions about me as a youngster, but you know, just part and part because I was so young, I don't really remember much about it. I think the earliest memory that I can really think about was when I went when we went to get like an autism diagnosis for me. I remember that quite vividly. Obviously, we'll get into that in a little bit, but I guess starting off, I mean, looking back on my early childhood, what signs of autism did you first sort of see in me and what encouraged you to go and get a diagnosis for me in the first place? Okay. I thought I was absolutely smashing his being a mom because I had this perfect little baby who was slept routinely and woke every four hours and wouldn't sort of make a morphe, wouldn't cry when he wanted feeding, wouldn't cry when he did his, you know, obviously mess his lap, him, whatever. Thanks for that. I didn't realise. Well, you asked him to come on. Okay, go for it. So I thought, wow, I must be amazing first time. Well, I'm absolutely smashing this. What I didn't realise was that was very early signs of Thomas not communicating to me his needs right from being tiny, right from being a newborn. However, as he got older, I think started to change a bit. And we saw kind of no motivation to kind of move or kind of press things up. He would become very fixated with lights in particular and that's still the same today, isn't it? Yeah. It's like we have abundance of lights and sensory lights around the house, which is lovely actually. It's really nice and calming, but something that really helps Tom a lot. I'm just going to have a drink guys. Yeah, I think it's so like, because I imagine that with most babies and kids, they would have that sort of ignition to let the parents know that they need something. I think I've spoken to a lot of parents which are with autism and I think until you have your second child, you think it's the norm. Yeah. And you kind of are quite intuitive with your own child. So you just kind of carry on and adapt your life and adapt things around your child. So maybe when you have your second child or somebody actually unpicks it and points out the difference says that you're doing that and maybe a bit unusual like putting your child's hair at nighttime when they're asleep. Yeah. I do remember that part of things. So you ended up with a lovely little bowl cut quite often, which you've improved on the hair styles now. Yeah. I do remember, I think I just, I found like hairdressers and dentists and like hospitals and stuff really hard. I think like, I do actually remember the situation. I went to one, one barbers and there was like loads of lights and loads of people around and there was like, I could hear all the hairdressers and I remember just being in a very sort of like, I remember somewhat aspects to aspects to that experience. I can't remember which, when it was, but You were about four. We were about four. But I found the, that hairdressers and going to it really, really hard, but also like the stuff around like the clipping of scissors around my ears. I felt really, I was nervous about someone accidentally cutting me, but I was also, I just didn't really like the, like the sound of it for some reason. So highly sensory though, isn't it? Yeah. It was a sensory I found in itself. Oh, I think once we kind of gone through finding somebody that were kind of fully you around somebody that was very gentle and understood and they had a low sensory environment were able to get your hair cut. But I was sat outside the barbers the other day looking at Tom because I went to pick him up. I didn't stalk him outside. I sat outside watching him. Oh my goodness. You know, this is actually huge. He kind of saw these years later. He's able to actually enjoy going to have his act. Oh, yeah. I like it. It's like a social, looking in the mirror with everything that used to absolutely just make your life a mystery. I think the biggest reason why there was such a shift in that is because I went to a barber in Manchester and I intentionally, I went there. I wasn't expecting it to be too bad, but it was a bit like the the barbers like a very aggressive of like the tugging and stuff. And I used to like go away with like watery eyes and I even got like my eyebrows threaded and stuff as well because I kind of I used that place as like a way to like desensitize myself to it a little bit. Might not be in the best the best approach to it because it was very, very difficult. But I think now that I've found like a hairdresser's that's quite understanding about like my sensory needs. It's a lot easier for me and it doesn't worry me as much. I think it's just been exposed to it, isn't it? It's just, I think that's really key actually because quite often when I've spoken to it's not a great assistant of any parent but quite often a lot of parents kind of say well they can't do that because they have autism. And I think from your early start I used to sort of say right we're going to give this a go. I think maybe I was a bit kind of blasé about it but said right we're going to give everything a go. Just say you've had experience of it and we'll move away from it if you're not happy. So we just gave everything a go and didn't put a ceiling on your, on the things that you could do so you kind of desensitized over time. But I think the biggest thing for me was there were a few very subtle things. Like you would sit and do repetitive hand movements when you're a little boy. You would sit like this just for hours doing this and you would spin on the floor and you would never get dizzy. But you didn't eat your milestones so just crawling. So some children kind of take their time and build up skills whereas Tom would like not do it and then all of a sudden he would crawl. And then he would walk and then all of a sudden he got up and walk. So then the one thing was he didn't have a speech so he didn't have a speech at all. His speech was really well developed. His cognitive ability, his learning, was really, really good. He used to read a lot. Early early. He would sit and repetitively go sit and he'd grab a dot actually and just go through a pile of books when he was about two or three. three and just go through all the books for hours. It looked good focus, but then when he went to school, because it was a different environment, different expectations and pressures, he actually stopped reading and ended up going in a group to kind of help him to read. So it's a bit of a shock. Yeah, so I kind of had those. I don't understand it now, but I didn't understand it at the time. I've learned a lot more as I've gone along. And that was a big shock to me because you were doing so well and enjoyed it, and you just... You're supposed to go to school to develop those skills, aren't you? You are, but because everything else was so overwhelming, that kind of stripped back and a lot of parents talk about children losing skills, and they do. Those are the things, can I say? Presidents, they do lose the skills, but then they make the skills up again. That's the skills do come back quite often in most cases. Yeah. You can all hear me, okay? I sure would be okay. Now, there's something that you said about... So the speech delay, because the speech delay is something that I get asked about a lot by, as I said, people either in comments or sending me messages or asking me on lives. When did I start speaking? When's like the milestone that most people... It was really early. So you started sort of six, seven months. And you didn't say mama or dad, and he said mama, which was the dog's name, which was really disappointing for me, but you did lots of bubbling. And that's kind of the difference between kind of a typical autism, I suppose, and the asperger's diagnosis as it was. Actually, there was no speech delay. So that was kind of all of the differences that I first picked up on with them, because I thought, we can't be autistic because they also can't speak to delay. But it's the different variants within autism. And as we know, everybody is quite different in their presentation as we all are. Yeah, yeah. What about, like, the social elements? Because that's something that I think we haven't touched on. Like, how did I get on with other kids around that kind of early, early age? Okay, so one of the things you did, you were always a bit of a watcher. You would kind of... A preschooler, I remember Mary St. to me, always stands back and he watches and then he kind of copies and takes part. But you were always very wary. But what you did do, you were very gentle and lovely with other children when you went to play group. But it was always learned responses so you would watch me with your brother and I was, if it was crying, I'd always go, oh, poor baby, poor baby. So whenever someone cried or anything else, in settings, sort of outside the home, I would just go, oh, baby. I would kind of tap them in kind of a really... It was a really learned response, but he dealt with it that way, so. Yeah. So early on, kind of four to five, he was really not sociable, but you would have friends, you would go to parties and... To be more of kind of the sidelines, kind of just observing and... On the sidelines, observing, but also just... If somebody came to the house from a very early age, we had to say to Thomas, Thomas, stop. Say hi to Grandad, or can you look? Say hi to whoever, because he would just look at the objects in the room and knock the people. So we had to kind of do a lot of work on awareness, telling people to really... A kind of real attachment with being with me and would really struggle if I would laugh at the house. And I think that was just kind of... Because it was unpredictable, because it was changed. So I remember you saying about, like, Nana, like, when my grandma used to come round, I'd like shut the door on her and tell her to go back to her house. Well, you did, because I was going to work, so it meant change, or somebody else was going to be mad. But you'd say, you go to your house like a mime. But Ronald Nana got the door closed on her, but she came out with a mime. Did she know much? Was she very, like, aware of that stuff, or was she just kind of... I think she struggled to understand it, because she would come in and say, I've got a surprise for you. And you would go, oh, and you'd have a meltdown, because you didn't like surprises. You liked predictability. You liked to know exactly what you were doing, where you were going. But of course, people typically think you couldn't love surprises. And you didn't. So that was a big difficulty, really. But she got the kind of... She loved you. So she got to know what you could come with and what you could learn. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. So, yeah. What about the... So we talked a bit about the signs of autism when I was younger. I mean, I'd just be really interested in... What was the tipping point? Because I know that I was diagnosed when I was about 10. What was the ignition to going and getting the diagnosis? Because, as you said, you... I imagine you kind of look back from when I was that age and look back on signs of seeing it in myself when I was little. But what was the point where you were like, oh, hey, actually, we might actually have to go and get in a diagnosis. And what held you back from doing it before? Okay, so I think... Maybe I was kind of naive in my thinking originally because I thought that because we were able to modify and kind of support... Make adjustments. You make adjustments and make sure that everything... Your world was okay, that everybody would. Yeah. And to some extent, primary school did. But maintaining friendship was really hard for you. So we would have to do a lot of kind of supporting when friends came around with structured activities and things like that. You struggled to just free play because you were quite possessive over your toys as well. Yeah, I remember that, especially with my brother. Really hard to share because, of course, it's a social skill and we had to do quite a lot of work on that. So I think the key thing for me was when you went up to... 5, 6 years in junior school and you had a teacher who was quite sarcastic and a lot of teachers, you know, do use sarcasm. We all use sarcasm through you. It's a good thing to learn, but actually, because you were quite literal in your thinking and in your language, you really struggled with that. And it kind of made you... Remember the teacher describing you as the class clown? Yeah, I remember that. Tom, the class clown. That doesn't kind of work for me. It's not who Tom is. It's really... Tom was like, I wonder why that's happening. Friends. So actually what Tom was doing was friends were pushing him in a position where he would do what I told him to do and he would get the repercussion and he would make a fool of himself. Sorry. No, no, no. I remember that, like, especially at parties and things like that, or at school where... You would get the blame. You went to a party and your friends told you to call this girl a name and you ran around shouting this name and then didn't realise what the repercussions were. And we had a lot of incidents like that where people were kind of... I'm not saying you were perfect. No, no. Your kid is perfect. But a lot of situations where the social skills just weren't kicking in and obviously hormones were kicking in and friendships became more complex and you weren't going to be left behind you were a couple of years behind your peers in terms of your social skills. So it started to get a bit of bullying, creeping in. There was a little bit of tussle with friendships and actually you started to withdraw a little bit and it became more rigid and... Sorry, I'm just going to have a drink. That's all right. I do what I do. Because I kind of... No, in my head I felt like... I was kind of more my sort of genuine self when I was a lot younger. Like I felt a lot more free and loving and expressive when I was younger but I remember going sort of around that sort of age going into around the age where I go into secondary school or perhaps the end of primary school that I felt, I guess, a little bit... I don't know, I just... I just became sort of a drone in myself and I was questioning a lot like my interactions with other people and I found it very hard to grasp exactly what was going on in situations. Yeah, I mean I think you were being sucked down a tunnel really. I think it's like one of those psychedelic tunnels where you just like everything's going on around you and you kind of didn't know where you fitted. Yeah. And I think when you start to move back through that tunnel it kind of became more withdrawn which you never had been before and partly not reportedly the school were not understanding and I kind of got a very negative response to that point and I went in with the Zen Code of Practice and I was told there was nothing that could be done for you because you were very academic. And I hear this a lot and a lot of parents hear this that actually their child is okay at school and doing well and coping and actually it's not okay to just cope. No, it's not a... Coping means you're on the edge and you're kind of teetering and you need to be supported and progressed and feel comfortable and not just cope because that leads to mental health difficulties. It's not just about the academic side as well. There's a big heavy social element of... Developing that social-emotional side is quite important around that kind of formative years. It's absolutely huge. If you don't have a connection with how you feel and you can't name it and know what's going on in your body how do you form relationships with other people and kind of progress with that? I think with boundaries as well. Setting boundaries was really... It's only something that I really understood when I got into sort of late teens, early adulthood. It's kind of... I didn't really understand... I thought that being difficult or putting boundaries in place or getting upset at people was inherently just a bad thing. I felt very strongly that any show of anger or dismissal was a bad thing in every single circumstance. So it was kind of like... I didn't allow myself to be upset with friends, I guess, as much. You were quite a passive human man and you'd always pick up on different tones. You can't be with me at the moment. If my voice changed, you always thought it was because I was angry with you. So it kind of went the other way as I didn't notice it. I did notice it, but I didn't know how to exactly what to do about that. Or understanding it, I guess, in the whole picture of the context of it, I guess. Yeah, and I think sort of moving to the other side as well. Kind of looking after yourself. You struggle to kind of know the routines of how to shower so that executive function inside. So we spent probably about a year, year and a half kind of having routines in place for you to be able to shower because if we changed the shampoo, you thought it was a different... It wasn't shampoo anymore. If we kind of realised that visual pictures didn't work for you but actually lists that we could go and take half and nine different visuals. And visuals really worked and then it just became embedded and then you do it. So that worked really well. And it was a friend that said to me, you do realise that everybody does this, don't you? And I thought, actually, I know they don't. And I think, you know, a discussion obviously between Tom's dad, he was very supportive and I think the lead up to the diagnosis was mainly because I knew you were coping and I thought actually moving into secondary as a lot of our parents, I know too, as the child is moving into secondary, you kind of want... You know, it's a bigger problem and you know that there's going to be lots of teachers dealing with you in different ways. It's a very complex social interactions. Huge complex. I thought, actually, I need a piece of paper to let people know but it's formally that you need everybody. What's happening? There was also a side of me that felt really guilty. And I thought, is there something I've done as a parent? You're sort of blaming yourself for the struggles that I had. Huge girls. I know you did as well thinking that actually something was wrong. I didn't do something. I wasn't loving enough. I wasn't... Actually, I knew I was a loving parent and I know that we were warm parents. Is that a whole stigma around like the refrigerator mother hypothesis? I can't remember. If you don't know what refrigerator parents... I think it was like a hypothesis that someone came up with that people ran with whereby autism was not like, as we know, like a neurodevelopmental thing. It was more if your parents didn't show you love or interact with you or engaging like physical contact and stuff with you that it would cause children to become withdrawn and more autistic. It's a complete bollocks spot. I agree. Yeah. So if there's any months out there feeling guilty or dad's, don't. Because this is not your fault. And that's a really big thing to take away and you're doing a great job. And I always think the best children, the children that need the most come to the right people and the right parents. So just keep doing what you're doing. And, you know, I was saying about before before we sort of got into talking, I mean, one of the sort of key sort of stages in my life or key moments in my life was when you told me that I was autistic. Like, did you know that when you were going to get the diagnosis that you'd tell me by a certain age? And like, how did you go about sort of framing it? Because I do remember that it was kind of framed more as like a neutral thing rather than something inherently negative or inherently positive. Like, how did you, what were your thoughts around like telling me that? The diagnosis, I was quite teary and quite really selfishly quite relieved that it wasn't me that had caused that. You got that stigma around. It was something that was happening or had happened and it was who you are, you know, who you are and we had to learn a great deal with that and it was okay but we just had to make other people aware of it. In retrospect, that probably would have done more work around it knowing what I know today I would have done a better job at supporting you with the diagnosis but that's in hindsight so we decided as soon as you got the diagnosis we would go and tell you immediately so we took you to that hospital and I took you to that hospital chicken nuggets, tappy mail So we sat down and we talked about why we'd have the meetings why you couldn't see this lady and blah blah blah I'd say you've got something called autism which makes you think a little bit differently and you feel differently and maybe you see it's the world through different classes almost and you just have a lot that doesn't smile and you're like, oh, that's why that's why I feel differently and that's why I do the things that I do and you just kind of took a big sigh it's like a weight was lifted off your shoulders something just clicked into place and you were just like, okay I'm good, I'm okay with that I did recognise even that time that I was different just from my interactions with other kids I don't know, it's just kind of a feeling of just being like a bit of an alien it was very hard for me to put on exactly why but I remember just feeling completely overwhelmed and everything that was happening around me was just so complex even with kids my age it was hard for me to have any sort of clarity on what was happening to me I felt a little bit like I was in a different universe and I think other parents were all so saying things like oh, Tom gave a tea and he sat on the table in a table, that's very odd but I kind of went with it and it was like, well he doesn't like the opposite with the eye contact it was all too much, too much social at the table and noise, but we had some parents that were really supportive and supportive friends and others just like, you know, move away don't be his friend, kind of, I think which is social exclusion I was saying quite frankly some of the things that I know a lot of the parents come across really and it's hard, it's really hard that's a big thing, isn't it the willingness of parents to kind of integrate, like there's a lot of social exclusion a lot from other kids also from parents as well parents of neurotypical children I think it would really look good because you're a lovely little boy you always got invited to the parties and so forth the network of mums were really good but I hear of, you know if you could do one thing just invite that little person who is sort of seeming like a fish house of water in the playground just invite them to a party they may not be able to cope they may not come, but just invite them you know, make them feel more included and the parents as well they will probably go through a really tough time so it's just to have that thought really, isn't it and just, I don't know just send this off I think a lot of parents they get a bit I mean humans in general just from any type of discrimination and a lot of it is based on not understanding and not being scared or, you know it's sort of ignorance and also but it's so damaging it's so damaging it really can I'm very sad and it's not great but the special school that I work at at the moment, if I look at our amazing people, I don't just think they're so vulnerable it needs to be a community we need to be a community supporting each other not just kind of pushing out the people that we don't want we're all different I think that's a big issue but especially sort of in modern times with the advent of social media and online things like communities are becoming very atomised like people are becoming more seeing themselves as individuals rather than parts of the community you go to smaller communities around and perhaps they have a lot more like they have weekly church meetings and stuff where they invite all the members of the community to talk and chat and build that community but I don't really see that a lot of that nowadays it seems to be very broken up like it is I think that support is really important particularly for parents to just have a chat just know you're not isolated other people are going through the same thing as you are and that's okay it's just a different way of life it's a different way of living and your children are amazing and you just want to share that because I think people that are children do amazing things and you know, Tom's proof of that stop it it's going a bit further do you have any difficulties when it came to parenting with me I guess like was there any like individuals I don't know speakers or role models or parenting groups which kind of informed your opinion because I feel like a lot of parents nowadays especially with the types of practices that a lot of autistic people feel very negatively towards and don't agree with whereas my experience of parenting from your side and also your style of teaching it seems to be a lot more kind of holistic individualised as opposed to like trying to fit everyone into programmes and setting like very stringent milestones and things like that so difficulties perhaps with parenting me about certain things and what kind of informed that okay so when we were leading up to diagnosis and diagnosis I read and read and read everything that was out there and I think one of the biggest influences was reading Anna Kennedy's book and not stupid which was an amazing book if you ever get to read that I'm an ambassador to Anna Kennedy if you want to go check out her work I was very pleased that that happened it was like coming full circle really also Tony would particularly look at Asperger's which Thomas was diagnosed with at the time we've come under one umbrella of autism but that was a diagnosis so that's what we looked at I also read a lot by Wendell who was Wendy Lawson who did a lot of work on relationships and kind of sexual health as well because I knew obviously Tom was going to go into puberty and if there would be other things coming up I'm pardon the pun Jesus Christ sorry you're the worst like you and Dad you're the worst for that kind of stuff was there something about your generation also there swiftly moving on go for it so when so when I just read and read and read obviously I was using a lot of strategies in my teaching and a lot about approaches particularly kind of scrinching approaches particularly coming maybe from America just ABA and so forth I think a lot of this I'll know what you're talking about and it really wasn't for me and I just thought actually we have to go from the child and just strip back and know what the child needs and how we relate so it was more of a relational approach to parenting and see which is how you parent anyway it was more explicit of everything we did we made it explicit you don't do this because when we're here we do this because and we taught UEDMs you know when you put a smile in your pocket Tom and you jumped a mile we taught you because you were very so we taught you a lot about idioms so we did everything very literally absolutely so we were kind of I think after settling to your own flow and I know I said to you wouldn't I but I actually know you were in your book bed and you said to me mum would you change me would you take my autism away which was a really random question I think you were about 12 it's a very deep question it was a really deep question you threw me really and of course I was like no because you wouldn't be here you wouldn't be Tom and why would I change you to I think that's you know you are my family I think that's just like it's something that I think you know I think that sort of approach was quite important for me I went through stages of absolutely hating autism myself and I kind of blamed a lot on it but I think you know you're right it's like if you make someone not autistic you're changing their brain they're not the same person the reason why I'm so keen for like identity first language things like that because you know it's not like I've lost an arm and I used to have an arm and it's something that I guess it's somewhat a part of my identity in a sense but like it's not as so tied to who I am as like something about my brain that's different it's not a disease you know it's a different way of wiring different way of looking at things it's a useful way of looking at the world as well through different lines it really is we were talking the other night we were like there really shouldn't be a word called normal because there are so many different variations you know we're all unique we're all a finger print we're all different we're all unique so what is normal you know how do you define that it really shouldn't be a word should it no I think there's two ways of kind of looking at it I mean I find normal to be a very negative term I agree normal is not a compliment or a validation like the most you know you want people to be interesting and to have different views on things and to be able to add something to like the melting pot of humanity it's not like like if we're all the exact same person we would never get anywhere with things like and a lot of like the big visionaries and stuff in the world that's you know they're often different from most people and I think for me a lot of like my mentality around it is that you know I see being strange and weird and quirky is a good thing like it breaks up the normality of boring everyday life and it allows you to you know if you meet someone who's vastly different from yourself it's quite illuminating to like see how they look at the world and what they think about things and how they behave it's um I do you know because I think there is a stereotype around like autistic people being really fascinated with like objects and things like but I I didn't really identify with that kind of thing so I remember like reading stuff from like Temple Grandin talking about you know we're more fascinated by objects than people but I've always I don't know if it's something that you saw but I've always been incredibly like fascinated with understanding how other people work like you've always kind of had that need to understand other people and unpick them and that's been a big motivator in you to find your social skills but I think not all people have that but it's just like we're always told you know you teach one person but one child with autism you teach one child with autism you know everybody is so different yeah but um but I think some of the things you're doing and the things you're talking about you know if you don't have those difficult conversations and kind of challenge things people never change their thinking so it's good to challenge and it's good to kind of talk about things that might be really difficult you know and kind of promote art and strike a conversation and a discussion about it hmm is there anything else that you wanted to add about the difficulties or yeah I think it's a common one for a lot of parents to sleep so when you were a baby you were very routine and you slept beautifully but as you got older obviously I didn't know about melatonin at the time such a big thing with autism there's a huge thing but you wouldn't go to sleep you struggle to drop off to sleep once you're asleep you're okay it's the same in adulthood as well yeah so you used to kind of lay on the floor with you but you were very sensory is it okay to talk to for everyone so Thomas would always crap whether it was me or his dad I would always crap your mouth and kind of squeeze and squeeze and squeeze your lips and it must be sensory thing that you would eventually just drop off to sleep and it was I mean it went on for years and years and so in your teenage years right melatonin and it helped for a short time but it's not like that you still struggle with your sleep and we've tried everything haven't we really I think it's because I'm so wired like I'm so cerebral about everything that I do like if I stop doing things and try to relax in like the typical way I just get really irritable and bored and like it's like my entire day from waking up to to the evening it's like I'm always thinking about something doing something and when it comes time to sleep it's like I can't really break out of that that kind of way of being to a point where my brain calms down and that I fall asleep but I mean I think for me like the most the things that helped me a lot were having something to focus on that didn't require me to think really so I still have like somewhat of a focus on it it's like nowadays I'll you know turn my phone down to the lowest brightness and turn on like the orange light stuff the night screen thing on my phone and just like watch a video or play like a mindless game and that seems to help a lot and I think that's probably reflected in a lot of things in life the way that they say a lot about go with the flow, go with your gut never work for me it almost always causes me a lot of distress and it just doesn't work it's too loose it's not literally it's also based on emotion as well I think around especially when I was younger I didn't trust at all I remember looking at like my friends and people around me and just thinking I mean socially you know I was behind but I could still recognize that like some of the behaviors that people were doing and like how they just did stuff because they felt like doing it or they just instantly did things and I found that really confusing I didn't understand why people did stuff without thinking and knowing why they're doing it thinking it through, yeah and I know you never switch off because even when you're in the bathroom you're always listening to research or you're audible like you you never stop you're always working and then you get the burnout that's the only drawback is the burnout the sensory overload sometimes when you go to events and so forth and you you do really well and you've socialize really really well and you know you have a good time but in the next day you're just wiped out completely yeah that's social battery absolutely and you just need to have that downtime and people need to understand that part there's families just need to not take it so personally really it's not that they don't want to talk to you it's just that actually you just need that that almost that reset isn't it well we have like a friend of the family who's like an autistic daughter and I absolutely love her you know whenever we interact or something we'll have probably like an hour we'll chat and stuff but then after a while we'll just kind of just sit in silence and just like play with some metal watch something or it's it's it's interesting like with that because it's I feel like some parents they feel like they have to do stuff all the time or they have to teach them all the time or get them involved and be like really on top of them and stuff and I think sometimes they you know obviously like a lot of the time the best approach is to kind of you know try and help them experience different things but also you know feel okay to withdraw and pull back when you need to yeah sometimes you just need to back off and stop talking and a lot of teachers find that with autistic children that when they're having to melt down they do more, they sing more they ask them questions more people come around then yeah that's really interesting actually just back off they're kicking you because you just move away and they can't verbally say it at that point yeah it's really important it's really interesting when I went to these special needs teaching stuff like obviously in some areas I wasn't so good with you know because I just didn't have the experience with teaching kids and no understanding like I think I found really hard with the thing that I found really hard with teaching is being more authoritarian like in the way that I act I found that really hard to do but I remember like there's been quite a few times when you know perhaps a kid that was working with who you know they were struggling with something and and the way that they dealt with it was by going towards them and separating them from people whereas what I really tried to do with them was to say that look most kids they're not allowed to go out of the playground and go to this area but it's quite does it help you does it sound better or like you know when I saw that they were getting overwhelmed I was like do you want to go to that area that we go to and they just kind of sit and they can't like the stones on the pavement and you know regulate themselves get some hold back also making them aware of how how what they're doing is helping their emotional state as well because I think there is a tendency sometimes with autistic kids to try and take the reins a little bit with stuff rather than like teaching them how to do how to like regulate themselves and what to do and like you know another thing introduce stimming to them like some some you know quite often you have situations where teachers all try and suppress their stims but more often it's they don't introduce things it's not like they go and say hey would you like a vigil or should we get some lights for the classroom or should we make like a sensory den or like they don't have that like proactive understanding they're just they're thinking about all the schedule the school schedule we have to get this piece of work done by then and then not wanting the child to look different we used to get told a lot we don't want to make them look different it's like I am different and this helps me and I think it was really interesting what you were talking about with the emotional coaching that's a really powerful way of getting children to identify their feelings and regulate them by just again be literal and commenting and saying I can see you look tense I can see you're shaking I can see you're kicking because you want me to go away and that's because maybe you're angry or maybe you feel frustrated labelling the emotions so that actually they can do something with that and they start to connect what do we do when we feel this we do this that helps you help your last dance so we try that one yeah I think that's important it's a really powerful thing to do rather than just surprising everything I'm actually giving it a label and a name that's a lot about I guess some of my early school experiences but I think there's a big element to my story that I think is harder more difficult I guess I'm talking about my experiences around my secondary school age I guess I'd like to understand a little bit more about your perspective on situations that I had whether I was at school around my mental health around my harming behaviors and sort of something I guess was there a point in which you kind of realised that something was a bit off with me was it like a one day it kind of clicked and I just didn't talk anymore and I looked really dysregulated and unhappy or was it kind of a gradual I think this was a tough one we'd always kind of had quite we had this little boy that would chat talk and we could guide and support and then like I said you almost went through this tunnel but went through this tunnel backwards but all of a sudden you kind of left we lost you and it was almost like that like an instant kind of realising that we'd lost you and I thought it's teenage years and everyone used to say it's teenage yes it's teenage it'll be fine whereas I've done a lot of freedom and I knew that with last purchase you could develop mental health difficulties because of high anxiety social demands and so forth but I thought what we've been supportive comes from a nice family being support people around him is fine he's just been a teenager but what I didn't see was that you could not find your place you just did not have your place in the world you did not know where you fitted so you went from finding your autism diagnosis a relief to absolutely despising it and not wanting anything to do with it and moving as far away from anything like that as possible including talking to myself people that were close to you you kind of shut down the first time I knew about your arming was you used to be a brilliant swimmer yeah all of a sudden you didn't want to go swimming and we thought it was because of the sudden light coming through but actually which was probably one of the hardest things for me as a veteran was you were actually arming and again selfishly I thought it's something I've not done or I have done of course you kind of put yourself as the blame for it selfishly yeah probably and I didn't quite understand self-harming but I kind of knew that I had to let you do it and as a parent that goes against the grain completely because you want to protect your child and make sure your child's okay but you have to just make sure all these simple simple things and then you kind of move through it I think that's one of the hardest things ever really and yeah yeah that was difficult I think we just the only support we had really was the school nurse it was great but the school didn't really understand it secondary school I was like I didn't understand it so it was still doing okay academically wasn't it? and that was fine as long as you were performing academically you know actually it's not you know a priority that you were okay emotionally and that didn't seem to be a priority so it wasn't a great deal of support out there apart from CAMHS and you got referred to CAMHS and you were taught to your health work but you wouldn't talk to us in a fun way to be honest I didn't really say much to her either which was fun you know you had to go through that process didn't you I didn't find it very fun there was little guidance and support there was a very little guidance and support for you as a young person if I'm honest it's better now and I think if I'd known about social care and how they could have supported and maybe I would have gone down that route to get you a PA or support but I think there was always a stigma with social care that there isn't now that actually social care is a really positive thing to actually add support to the family you know and to make sure that everybody is doing what they're supposed to be doing and there is a network around you and around the family was there a person who was supporting me were they autism trained like did they know much about autism no autism training just didn't really happen at that time at all no no because I just I look back with all the knowledge and the research that I've done in adult life and stuff like lexithymia and cognitive empathy and all sorts of different things never was never really touched on or used in the context of support that I was getting because I'd come away with these sheets of what to do when I'm anxious or what to do when I've had low mood and they just didn't work because how am I supposed to regulate my anxiety when I don't know that I'm anxious until at the point where I'm having a meltdown or a panic attack it's like it just didn't work for me and I really felt sort of during those sessions I didn't talk to them very much at all to be honest I didn't open up about hardly anything because it just kind of felt a bit I just felt like they didn't really understand me and I didn't understand me but I knew that they didn't like they couldn't really offer me anything that I felt was I don't know I didn't feel like that they could offer me anything that would help I think there's some stuff around methods to like stop with the harming behaviors which kind of worked a little bit but now it's kind of like one of those situations where I thought I had to kind of go to these and let them know that I'm okay to talk about the feelings that I was having I think that also there was not a bully going on at school you again didn't share with us and actually through your podcast we've kind of got to know about it and sometimes a bit heartbroken because we didn't know because you didn't want to share it I mean you said you didn't want to share it I didn't tell anybody about anything not even like my friends about the bullying and things like that it was more like the only thing that school really did that was quite helpful was they allowed me to go to the sort of like the special needs department area that they had but they didn't do anything with me they didn't support me they just let me sit in there and have them out down and now and again I talked to some of the teachers and stuff but it was never something that was like proactively giving to me I had to like seek out the support from the teachers and some teachers were really bad with understanding my difficulties and allowing me to like go outside when I'm having issues with my sensory stuff some teachers were great and some teachers were not so much and I remember one of the issues that I had particularly around PE is that I didn't like to get changed in front of the other kids and so I'd always wait until the end of the thing to get changed and I'd always get like told off by the teachers when I came late I didn't know that I didn't know that I was so hyper-vigilant about the boys changing rooms they're a bit rowdy and I was in the top set of PE so I was with all the popular football kids and I was just constantly aware of that stuff up until the point where I realised that when everyone started leaving I was like oh my god I haven't got changed and I'd always get told off by the PE teachers that I was late no sense of urgency no and I hated PE and it's weird that I hated PE because I know I think what don't be part of a team really turned things around for you it was kind of a bit of a random thing wasn't it trying something else to take over from the swimming just because I like to animate because you're special in trust there's always been some pokemon yuki Japanese is that good risk because they did an exchange if you actually went on the exchange didn't you enjoy it that was amazing it was around the time that Fukushima incident happened we were having an exchange program with the school in Fukushima it was a bit hard it was a lot different to what was planned it was good, it was a good experience it was one of the only times that I really felt accepted by group for a long time because the Japanese students they were really impressed with my academic stuff and they were really impressed with my taekwondo I was like oh my god I just never get this in my school wow they actually see me and they want to talk to me I think that was the most that's how it should be that was the most transformative thing for me and I was talking to someone recently about I think I was talking to Timmy about the how the American schools work versus British schools because in the American schools if you do well academically in sports you're like instantly just the popular person whereas in the UK it's not like that at all no it's not sometimes the opposite but I think you taekwondo I mean you tried a few kind of martial arts yeah you did you tried karate and then eventually taekwondo and you just you just took to it it kind of the exercise and the routine and the formalities around it as well was good because it kind of helped your mental health but then of course you took it too far in terms of doing too much exercise even brushing your teeth you'd be doing squats and kind of yeah he's really obsessed with it and also there was that weight category that's being a lose weight and you lost a bit too much weight and then so that's a bit unhealthy but you faced a lot going into competitions and so forth I've had a lot of meltdowns and panic attacks before and you would use mindfulness and kind of focus on time you were amazing you've achieved so much really and you and dad have been amazing in helping me get to like taekwondo clubs the sport taekwondo clubs I started like a traditional one like a run harrogate and then I think one of our friends encouraged us to kind of go to a sports place try it out they kind of head under me and started training there we used to travel back and forth after school two hour run trip yeah to train I don't know I felt like I kind of I remember my secondary school secondary school experiences feeling kind of worthless like I didn't feel like people really saw me or found me interesting and I I had like a some kind of passion or ignition to make myself better like all the time in every setting I wanted to like you know I always had these goals because you know your goals and your meaning and the reason why you do things that kind of separated from how you feel like if you're looking to be happy all the time it's not always something that you can do but you can always have a goal or a meaning that you strive to do and I think that's what Taekwondo and what the academic stuff was about cause I was like alright I'm going to prove myself you know I'm a good person I am good at stuff and I kind of thought that when I started getting awards and medals that people would I guess once talked to me more be more social and that did happen within Taekwondo and with the teachers like in the top sets and stuff but not like with the kids at school so I always just felt like every time that I went to school it was kind of like right this is a task and any time that I was actually in lessons or in the library revising or researching like I felt good but then it was the stuff around it that I just couldn't cope with I tried to be social now and again I got involved in different groups but I was very much like a drifter like I didn't really have like a like a best friend or like someone that I could rely on or something that I could you know talk to about my feelings which I found really difficult there was nobody you could really trust whilst they're at that point in terms of talking I don't think not friends, not people in my social circles it was a hard time wasn't it really hard on you and bittersweet with all the Taekwondo and the positive things and the travelling so you learnt to be more independent because you were travelling to different countries and working with a team and then that kind of set you up to kind of Oh with Taekwondo yeah I think we always kind of said give it a go Tom you know and then we did the prep around it in a way and tried to kind of find the best way to kind of support you to do those things even though they were a challenge I think that was the good thing about you is you would always give it a go well you mean you taught me from we always said have your autism in your pocket kind of thing if you need it but don't say I can't do it because just give it a go if you don't want to but just try it so it feels like a lot of parents a lot of people kind of go to the two extremes they're either like they can't do anything so we're not going to expose them to her or they're like they have to do everything that's expected of them and they have to do all these things and if they don't do it then that's a bad thing and that they should be punished or they should be whereas with you growing up with you as my mom it was kind of like I was exposed to that stuff but then if I needed to I could exit and it wouldn't be like an abortion or an issue that I couldn't cope with it I think that's the kind of dynamic that really works for me because I still got the experience of it but then I felt safe enough to exit if I because quite often we'll say to kids if we're going to commit to this we're going to do it week after week actually it doesn't work with maybe with my younger son but not with you absolutely but I also recognise that some parents won't really struggle with their child with autism going to activities and doing things like that because maybe you're on your own maybe your child has no sense of danger and that kind of thing and that is tricky so I do recognise you can't always do that with your children no but it's about the adjustments though isn't it it is doing something that challenges I'm a little bit yeah it's not so exposing that it just causes them to find life just overwhelming them yeah because life is life and you have to have little tasters to know that actually I know how this is going to go so the next time I do it whether I like it or not I know how predictable it's going to be and eventually I'll be able to cope because I know about that and that experience all that sensation and I can deal with it it kind of things get worse before they get better I guess and it's writing it down sometimes I hope you guys can hear me okay you're doing great you're doing great so not awful voice to listen to well um I mean you're going a bit further because I know we were talking about how it was hard to get me support like in an ideal world what would you have wanted for me or what do you think would have been helpful either from the school or from mental health systems I would have wanted a coordinated team around you what else as a family that are trained in autism that were trained in sensory were trained in mental health um so it's not kind of one size fits all kind of got had the chance to get to know you and kind of fed that back into school and into the family as well so it was more joined up um I think that would have worked better and also I think which is really powerful and um particularly in schools there's a bit of awareness and other kids you know so you identify this child's being bullied for whatever reason and just give them a voice or being their voice to say this is the reason why this is what you can do to help this is what you could do to support and kind of turn it on inside a little bit so that's something else that I found with my teaching as well this is so powerful but I've done embroidery schools before with teachers um the child has always become more powerful and kind of has a voice that is able to change things because whether or not they're able to tell their story and what they find difficult if other children are aware then they don't it's kind of more rare, not hate to use the word but more normalised and then it does become accepted you know and accepted I think it would have been really good for me to have like a like a role model that was autistic that you know like when I went into schools and the kids and stuff no programs, no films nothing, there was Rain Man wasn't there and that was it so everybody thought everybody that was autistic behaved like Rain Man that's just not the case it's very stereotypical but even just someone that I could, who was older who you know was doing stuff that I wanted to do when I had their life like sorted and their adjustments sorted in daily life and just someone to like talk to about being autistic I think would have been really helpful but I think you know a lot of autistic people we just have such a hard time in life it's hard for us to get into those positions where we're able to be active role models for for kids and I think it's changing overall I think it's changing and I think I think kids are kind of looking you know and finding my place easier you know with some more diversity but it's taking a long time coming isn't it really yeah there's so much like work that needs to be done for like preparing autistic kids for manipulation and bullying and I don't know exactly how the best way to go about doing that but I think it just it definitely needs to be tackled because we know that like long term anxiety in formative years leads to development of depression and mental health you know it's something that really needs to be tackled I think that that bullying and social isolation and the sensory elements social elements at school they're absolutely just so impactful on like someone's long term mental health you know it's something that can follow you into adult life to find every aspect of life scary isn't really I can't imagine what that feels like really to just find everything in everyone and every sound and every feeling really scary it's about having an impact on your mental health and your well-being I think it's so important that we have that not awareness because awareness is just that tough lip service saying oh yeah I know about autism I've read a bit about it it's about about doing something about it actually being proactive and saying look there's a kid over there or there's a mate over there or there's a kid over there that actually people are bullying and not being supported and actually just going look if you want to join in you know come and join in with us we'll be part of it and I want children and new people I've just got so much to offer as friends as children as colleagues you know just so much to offer really totally just didn't know I was sometimes really I know what we talked a little bit about uni and travelling and taekwondo and stuff but what did that feel like because obviously I was putting myself out in various different ways you know with the quite anxiety provoking like what were your thoughts about those things sort of in the media and how did you feel when I did those things and I actually succeeded and you know I went to the Commonwealth and I got gold and I went to the Nationals and I got gold and I represented my country like how did that feel for you Well I was incredibly proud obviously I mean I heard the Commonwealth was one of the most overwhelming times but you got one of the games as well you got one of the games because of your hubbubbleness and your sportsmanship and the way that you were so fair just said everything to me about the nature of your character which we were really proud of and that's nothing to do with you being autistic or not autistic that's to do with who you are as a person so that's amazing really I knew you were capable of going to university but I didn't think you would choose a city I was surprised you were choosing a city it's because of the program the industrial experience I found it when I was quite young like when I was looking at I was looking at Unis before it came to the point where I was doing my levels because I was like I want to be a scientist but I was surprised you were choosing Manchester because it was so busy because I remember the first time you went to visit the uni you didn't want to go anywhere near it so we had like a 15 minute visit and then we got back in the car and went home the next time you kind of got out and when it looked around we kind of did it very slowly but you were so independent in seeking out your support that you needed to go to university you got really good support and yeah it was tricky wasn't it? in terms of deadlines and timetables and organisation because we both know you're not but that is something that is really tricky for you isn't it? it's not like I can do it it's just that I don't leave myself enough energy to do it I know you looked after yourself you fed yourself you lived independently and you learned to drive as well you learned to drive but you don't like driving do you see you haven't driven you can't drive you driving so unpredictable all the people are unpredictable the noises and the sensory so it was really difficult you succeeded and then you went to Thailand which was an even bigger thing and that was like did I tell you about it before I did I just tell you that I'm going to Thailand no you'd help me about it obviously that you'd applied for this placement yeah but I just applied and then it was like aren't we going to prepare for that it's the same we're getting like a tattoo and stuff as well I just said oh hey about that too I didn't like needles I didn't like I don't like needles like you were having a having a tattoo which is gorgeous but yeah it's just I think you've blown my mind with what you've achieved really and the things that you can do and you haven't had anything to stop you or anyone really you know you've got it I've always gone for like the most difficult things as well haven't I just you've always challenged yourself which is great show out for your comfort zone and and speaking of chips that have come with that we talked the other day about this rollercoaster so you have real highs don't you yeah and you support me a lot with my mental health and stuff because I do get like you know I talk about it on the podcast quite a bit where I'm you know although I appear and I talk well and I you know seem to be producing loads of content all the time and doing all these things like but I'm not always like that I'm not always on top of things like there's been lots of situations where I haven't been able to get out of bed for like months and you know we'd have to work up to me like going outside and like yeah eating the eating and the agoraphobia and you know I think there's still some things that I struggle with like I find a really difficult part of adult life is managing friendships that's something that's kind of come up I kind of come up with Michelle a bit and have learnt a bit more about you know I'm good at making friends it's just like the maintenance over the course of like the year or something around like texts and setting up events and things to do that I find really difficult you don't like kind of in between the small talk and things like that you don't do that very well no you've got a lovely lovely girlfriend and you've got some really good friends that have stuck with you and kind of you get friends I get you and it just kind of works you know doesn't it and it's not like in any relationship that I have it's not like they're doing it for me I need to have this friend and it's difficult to be my friend I offer a lot to other people in my life as well as being supportive if you're supportive to me and I think I think if there's one thing I could take away would it be the autism it would be the mental health difficulties I would just like to pluck that from you and just having you being on a level rather than you having to cope with your shutdowns and that's hard to watch sometimes but very resilient you always come back up again and I think that's amazing you get stronger and stronger each time I think and then I go too far and then I have a burn out I'm working on it though I'm working on relaxing even though I find it very annoying I know it's like I have a bad feeling it's hard for you to chill isn't it but I think that's also one of the reasons why I do well at things yeah you're very focused very focused very single channels absolutely that's good but I think a lot of like I wish I had that sometimes it's a real skill I think it's just because of the experiences that I've had of not being very good at something like Taekwondo and then working day and night and really hard over the course of years and then succeeding I think just like having that experience of going through that process has helped me a lot with anything that I do like I still I still get like annoyed at myself for not achieving targets that I want to achieve in a certain timeframe but you know it's still you know I still get disheartened and like my confidence isn't very good and I still feel not good because of my mental health but I still have yeah I don't know there's just I still have like for some reason I managed to maintain the mentality of just keeping going with stuff it's it's a bit weird actually I don't know so I think the big difference is you talk about it though whereas when we asked you you didn't talk you were closed but now you do talk to us I mean you do you do say look I'm not feeling great or I don't feel safe or you will talk about it which is absolutely amazing and I think everybody that has mental health issues should be able to have a voice about it or should be able to have somebody that they can actually say look I'm not okay we talk about a lot in some modern society about you know men you know men have a difficulty with opening up about things that they struggle with and mental health and stuff I think it's really interesting that people kind of view openness and vulnerability as weakness whereas like it's the hardest thing to do like it's not an easy thing to do and it's like people even you know it's it's crazy that I feel like that's like one of the biggest lies that it's strong to ignore your feelings and continue with stuff because it just doesn't work long term and we see that reflected in like the really bad negative statistics but I'm not seeking help and you know ending their lives it's one of the biggest contributors to death for autistic people but also men under some like the age of 40 or something that's crazy it is something that I think needs to need to have a shift around but I think it is slowly you know the push and pull of different online spheres talking about different values and things but I'm hoping that you know we will get to a point where you know it's seen as a strength to talk about things and not a plea for pity or I think that's a big thing you know when I comment I say I tell some people I'm autistic they're like oh I'm so sorry and they're like so what do I have to do when like you don't have to do anything it's like I'm not asking for support I'm just telling you that I'm autistic or pity yeah pity me well it just happens you know it doesn't bother me it's just like I just find a bit bit funny it's like and you say to someone my mental health is awful I have quite bad mental health conditions it's like yeah you know it's something that I've experienced for upwards of 10 12 years in my life so it's it's not like yeah there's a big stigma around that as well I think there is there is well we've got one last question I know that we've been recording for quite a while you probably want to get off I think I'm probably sick of my squeaky voice yeah gonna go for a bit of gym work after I think do some legs okay for a gym work so I guess like you know obviously we've touched on a lot of different things and I really want to end up with end on something that's perhaps bit more akin to like a learning experience for the people listening and perhaps something to take away but what a message or a lesson do you wish or lessons that you wish parents would learn or incorporate into you know how they view autism or how they support someone who's autistic whether they're going for a diagnosis process whether thinking about it whether they are struggling with different aspects of being a parent of an autistic person I think one of the main things is how faith in what you know about your child go with your gut and I think one of the main things is in terms of education the learning is important make sure the school is also developing your child's social skills in a very structured way in a safe structured way because you might be doing it at home but we know that our children with autism don't generalise their skills across different environments so they always so teaching those skills in different environments is really important to generalise it so make sure what you're doing at home they're doing a school in vice versa it's not just context dependent things I see that I find especially talking to my manager about how I am on podcasts and social media and how I am in work I do just I don't necessarily transfer the skills that I have outside of working into work and vice versa so yeah I think that's a good point I think also if there's anybody you can watch it I've seen Ross Plappen who's an amazing woman with autism and very academic and she's a great speaker I think I always remember saying I only know what I'm taught, told or shown so don't assume that you just pick things up automatically you have to teach it really literally just like you do with the emotions and the emotional coaching so just make sure that you've always got in your mind that just because she gave a really good example that she went to the seaside and she was she got some fish and chips and she was her hero was eating fish chips with fingers and she was like oh it's the knife and fork sweet with a knife and fork and they said oh this is the fingers time it's a fish and chip finger day she said but I would never have known that because I have not been taught in different settings I thought you know we've told or shown this really key and really important message to remember for teachers and parents anyone we do tend to like that kind of more transient learning with things we really need to like have rules even with exams I remember I was taught to do like loads of exam papers and I would always do those exam papers it's a union stuff and go through them and make loads of notes but because the exam questions were different it didn't really make any difference because I didn't know exactly what they were asking me to do I couldn't just learn I didn't sort of I wasn't able to pick up on cues of things that they were asking me to know what exactly they wanted me to talk about and I found that in situations where there was less of those essay questions and more of those smaller questions you know I aced them and those are easy but since it came to like the essay stuff I just didn't know where to like where to start and what they were asking me like if they said you know they'd ask a question like talk about inflammation in the body and like right okay and in what sense like do you want me to it's not specific you know information in diet or culture do I talk about it or do I write or do I discuss I think I got that one how do I discuss something with myself whereas if they said like talk about the inflammatory pathways that are related to the use of ibuprofen and how that impacts nerves and how that impacts this and this and that and I'd be like oh cool awesome but that's a boundary of structure yeah well and I just found that with exam questions I'd just write and write and write I'd be like trying to pump out words just so that I'm touching on every single possible basis around this this thing and it well it obviously worked just probably because I asked it afterwards so yeah I mean it could have been a lot better if they were more specific but again that's not absolutely to bear in mind it's not an adjustment we just get more time you know it's that needs to change definitely the education system right around those questions make more visual as well make more visual I think that's quite important isn't it well um if it's not the learners anyway the learners well we've touched on a lot of different aspects and we have, I've squeaked my way through he squeaked your way through um you're very nervous at the start weren't you obviously it's not my natural habitat no no I suppose not but as with all podcasts it tends to be like first 10-20 minutes it's a bit anxiety provoking when you get used to it yeah with you it helps you're a stranger it won't be worth I suppose so yeah yeah but I really appreciate you coming on to the pot to just talk about my life from a different angle I hope that you guys have found it useful to I guess here more about the things that I talk about on a regular basis within the podcast from you know someone who's experienced it from that different angle that different I'm trying to think of another way to say angle but I think that's that's probably perspective there you go um but yeah um thank you so much I want to ask you a question have you enjoyed your 40-40 podcast experience I have most definitely most definitely I hope it's good I hope there's lots of people watching yeah sure though well so usually when we finish around about the end of the podcast we'll do um what's called song of the day um and I didn't ask I didn't ask you to think of a song so it's kind of like a last minute podcast I remember I can edit stuff so it's you know you can think about what you don't say about usually we'd go for a song that either means a lot to you something that you like or something that I guess is related to the topic of the podcast um is there anything that kind of springs to mind that so there is there's pink perfect pink perfect and if you're watching pink I'd love to get yeah yeah a regular listener of the podcast pink there are a few sweat words in it so no yeah is it the f in perfect I think there's another version without the no radio edit f in perfect radio edit now I'll put the explicit one in sorry everybody I don't think I've actually heard about that I heard that one before um where is my playlist so that will be added to the um song of the day playlist which is always down at the bottom of the description if you want to check that out it's a compilation of all my guests songs from season 2 songs that mean something to them some songs that are related to the topic of the podcast that we talk about really highly recommend you go check that out um see all the range of different tastes in music and and such um but yeah if you have enjoyed this this episode of the faulty podcast and you want to show some love um I'd always point you to like subscribe do all of that youtube brewery stuff and if you are listening to this podcast on like Spotify or podcast so Amazon I think something that I'm done audible give it a rating that will um help me a lot with getting this podcast more out to people who will find it useful and find it something um find it transformative and and help them out with their autism journey um and if you want to stay up to date with my life the things that I do go over onto my instagram at tomattenlyuk I do have different social media platforms that I'm under the same name on but Instagram definitely is the place to go if you're looking for daily blogs reels videos um updates on my life that is the place that I usually reside um and yeah if you are looking to talk to me if you want if you want to book me for a um personal consultancy session coaching whatever you want to call it um my links always down in the description under all my links uh you can see it like a link tree you'll be able to see like all the stuff that I do and get forwarded to any of those things that I've mentioned um and yeah I won't ask you for any links because I know that you you're not a social media person but um I just watch you but if you if you've got any questions for for my mom for Michelle um just send me an email um hi at tomattenlyuk I'll get them over to her and be able to reply to that absolutely if I can be of any help just drop us a line you're probably gonna get back cause there might be quite a lot of people asking um but yeah I hope you have enjoyed this this episode once again and um stay tuned for the next one next week uh Monday try to come out about 1pm on the um Spotify and Apple and all that about 5pm over on YouTube if you want to watch some shorter versions of the podcast some of the clips that I do head over to YouTube and um yeah that's all from me rambling my head off at the end of a very long conversation with my lovely mother um yeah thank you so much for coming down to speak mom no problem I've enjoyed it alrighty see you there guys bye everybody