 Back in black, I need a nap. I've got the feeling like I want to hit the sack. Cut loose, need a deuce. Now, what's on the agenda today? Let's have a look here, go into the notes tab and... Oh yeah, I'm doing a YouTube video! I'm back! Back in black. Not back in black, I'm actually in grey today. It's a mistake that's easily made, so given our relationship, I forgive you. In today's comeback video, I am wearing and sporting the new Asperger's Grove t-shirts and there are, I believe, three other t-shirts currently on the Asperger's Merck site and from now on it's going to be down in the description if you want to go check it out. Nice t-shirts, very sensory friendly. Today we're going to be talking about the dreaded Covid-19, of course. Isolation, gotta make a video about it. Everyone does, everyone's jumping on the bandwagon. In order to make a statement, I have waited a little bit of time before I make a video. I find the whole action of jumping onto trends as soon as they happen quite irritating, so I try not to do it. You may have experienced a lot of anxiety and difficulty when isolation first came into effect. So today I'm going to make a video on how to cope with isolation once it ends, which is the inevitable that will come, although we are very happy in our own minds, very happily pursuing our special interests until the end of time. It's a beautiful thing. It's going to end sometime. And how are we going to deal with it? In this video I'm going to be highlighting the similarities in the difficulties between starting and stopping lockdown. It's always going to be difficult, it's a transition, so it's good to highlight specific areas so that we can better understand them and work on them to find a solution. I'm also going to highlight some of the difficulties that have come up many times over on my Instagram account. People find the concept of the end of isolation even more daunting than the start of it. And at the end I'm going to give you a comprehensive list, some things that you can do to alleviate the stress that will inevitably come. So let's address these problems in a well-structured and well-thought-out video from none other than Thomas Henley from the Asperger of Channel. I suppose my experience of lockdown is going to be very different to other people's experiences. I'm talking about autistic people, cool people, like yourself. As soon as lockdown happened, I was plunged into an abyss of uncertainty, lacking routine, lacking all sorts of structure. It sent me into an absolute frenzy. I don't know what I was going to do. So I did the only reasonable thing and I latched onto something that gives me structure and gives me routine and that was my documentary, which you probably heard about enough. The difficulties really came in from the experience of not knowing what's happening, not knowing how to replace things that you could do out of lockdown and translating that into lockdown. There's a lot of difficulties around uncertainties with job and where you're going to get your source of income, where you're going to get your support. A lot of the things that we have that are part of our routine and give us a lot of stability and comfort got wiped away with the isolation and we had to develop new ones, which I'm hoping that you did or else you're probably still in a hell of uncertainty. Four eases and asphetic reasons I've split up. Problems into four categories. Into four categories. The first being uncertainty about what's happening. That can be anything from just general uncertainty about where the world's going to go and what's going to happen and I suppose that sort of gradually gets easier over time but it's still something that's an issue when you're coming up to the brink of a new social change and a new living where living. One of the main difficulties that people highlight is how are you going to cope with going back to work? How are you going to cope with discarding all the time that you're putting into your special interests and things that you like? It's going to be hard. And it is. And that's one of the problems. Another fear that you may have is fear for your own health and the health of other people around you. I guess one of the fears that I have personally is just the amount of people who just don't socially distance anymore. It's the amount of people that congregate in large crowds and beaches and social places and people lining up for sports direct when they're only about half a meter from each other. What's the point of going into a store and only letting a certain amount of people in when everyone's infecting anybody? I guess the difficulty with this comes in as a general mistrust of the government. You know, they didn't push isolation on us soon enough so we did have a big spike in Covid cases and stuff. Is it really time to end lockdown? Should we be ending lockdown now? Should we be letting all these shops open and pubs open and restaurants open? It's a very scary place. The next thing is routine dysregulation. And this sort of just come with the uncertainty to some degree. If uncertainty is the wave of the wave of water in a pool, your stability is the walls of the pool. Those waves are getting very heavy. Definitely in my mind and I'm finding it quite difficult to imagine myself in the working world once again, especially with all the social interaction that's going to be coming upon us and all those social things that we feel that we need to do. Routines are your stability in that. Routines keep you afloat. They make you feel safe. They make you know what you're doing and you're going to do that and then that and then you're going to go to sleep and then you're going to wake up. It's easy and it makes you feel a lot more comfortable in yourself. One of the difficulties of going out of lockdown is that you're going to have to change a lot of that routine. It's inevitable. If you've got a job, if you've got anything, any sort of requirements that you need to do and to commit to, then it's going to change. Lastly is social worries. And I know this won't be for everybody. I understand that a lot of you may be isolated and you may not have the best network of people around you and friends and I wholesomely empathize with that a lot. As the end of lockdown approaches, I feel an increasing anxiety around having to be around people. I don't know how to interact with people. I went to Aldi the other day and I started talking to people like they knew who I was. Basically, there was this line of shopping trolleys outside Aldi and I had a shopping trolley and it was blocking the entrance so I didn't know what to do so I knocked on the window and this woman looked at me, me trying to mime to ask a member of staff and she just looked at me like I was crazy and it was a very uncomfortable situation. It just dawned on me that I'm really out of practice with the general public. I'm a little bit too much comfortable in myself and the idea of having to go to work every day and interacting with lots of different people as well as working just seems like an absolute horrific nightmare. So I've moaned a lot about problems and difficulties and things that we need to ever come them and so let's dissect each of these problems and try and find ways to alleviate some of the stress and anxiety that accompanies them. Let's first talk about uncertainty in general barring all the work stuff, we'll talk about that in a bit. You need to create your own certainty as much as you'd like to stick your head in the sand and bury yourself in special interest it's going to end at some point and if you're not certain about what's going to happen then it's going to be difficult. The main way to make sure that you are certain about what's going to happen is if you act rather than react. So reacting would be bury head in the sand until it happens and then blow up and feel all of the weight of the consequences of not addressing it. That's one of the issues. I'm not saying that I'm a god and I do all of that myself. Sometimes I don't, a lot of the times I don't but I wish I did. So being able to have an idea of what's going to happen, thinking about it maybe jotting it down if you have a psychiatrist or psychologist or counsellor maybe talk to them, maybe talk to your friends maybe talk to your parents just get an idea of what it's going to be like and some of the possibilities having that awareness in your head will make some of the changes that happen after lockdown less out of the blue less just in your face, less stressy The next one which I feel is going to be a massive inconvenience, a massive problem would be the uncertainty with work The idea of going back to work is very daunting it requires a view, a lot of concentration and if it's something that you don't particularly like or something that's particularly anxiety provoking you've got to do that job and you're expected to do that job to the degree that you did before as well as interacting with lots of other different people and coping with the major changes changes in your sensory environment One of the ways that you can combat this is by contacting your boss Now, I say this with a little bit of a pinch of salt pinch of understanding I know not everybody is open about their autism and some of their bosses may not know and maybe you're in a society where or in a work environment where that sort of diagnosis is going to be a hindrance to you and it's going to get you fired and I completely understand that but it's important we're not like everybody else we can't just easily transition from one to the other especially when it's such a big change so being able to talk to your manager maybe put in some support so that maybe you could do a few less days so you can go a bit more easy on you for the first few weeks just those small changes can give you a lot of peace of mind and you'll put a lot less pressure on yourself and therefore a lot less anxiety will come of it I think if you are one of those people who have a not very good network at work and maybe you're in a high position where you've got a lot of responsibility and you don't want to tell people that you're autistic I would always err on the side of getting some support and that can be anything from autism organisations for example there's one in Manchester called Southford Autism I interviewed one of the founders of my documentary and he mediates between autistic people and workplaces and landlords and all of that kind of stuff so if you go to an autism organisation and you tell them about what you're worried about and ask for help then they'll be able to at the least give you some guidance and give you a bit of information about what may happen and the sort of things that you'll have to deal with overlooking this, overlooking the transition into work again is a really bad idea if you've been furloughed or you've been out of work really bad idea, you need to be prepared another good point is that if an autism company is involved then you have somebody who is a witness so if someone decides to fire you because you're autistic and it consequently happens very shortly after then that company is going to get in a lot of bother so they're not really going to touch that area as much or at least in theory, something to think about the second point is fear for your own health and the health of other people now we all know that humans generally err on the side of irresponsibility once the government starts to alleviate some of the things that they've put in place and people will use that as a free pass basically they'll see that as the old clear so I suppose that brings a lot of problems people who are concerned about their own well-being and other people that they live with and all that I think one of the ways that you can try and avoid those fears is to maintain the hygiene protocols that the government have put in place try not to go into areas that have been opened but are clustered with mass amounts of people like major city centres or town centres or shops that most people like to go to even when all the cinemas and pubs and restaurants start opening maybe give it a couple of weeks maybe a month before you start to go to those things you know like we've been in lockdown for such a long time just prolonging that and sort of erring on the side of caution is probably a good idea I'm not saying everyone's going to do it if the government says it's okay then some part of you you've got to go with that to some degree or at least at some point you don't need me to tell you that the third thing is routine routine is your best friends and it's also your worst enemy being that when it's all good and when it's comprised of things that bring you joy and make you happy it gives a lot of stability and comfort to your life and when it's disrupted when it's disrupted by someone you know minorly inconveniencing your routine and your structure for the day then it can be disastrous especially when there is a major change in society like what we will experience when lockdown ends so we've got to put some things in place just to make sure that that anxiety doesn't go through the roof it's always going to be a little bit difficult but you can work around it one of the things that I recommend every single person do is try and develop a sleep schedule and try and develop that sleep schedule around what life during work is going to be like basically if you take about a week maybe two weeks if you're extremely poignant and prepared then going back to work is going to be less of a crawl up a craggy mountain less of crawling over a broken glass to get out in the morning we all know that going outside in the morning is going to be significantly hard especially if there's going to be lots of traffic or there's going to be lots of people getting in the bus and being able to be not tired and not deprived of energy is going to be a good thing next thing you can do to help with that all encompassing destroyer of routine is to make sure that you plan out your day that you can do say if you schedule your life around what a typical work day would be like maybe do things that are a little bit more productive during the first part of the day things that are a little bit more relaxing and fun you know after work would end trying to schedule that in and make sure that you have some sort of framework before lockdown ends I'd also recommend that within your routine you try and focus on your mental health your mental health give yourself a week just to focus on your mental health your anxiety, your depression do a little bit of exercise and I'm not talking like do some kind of HIPS work out or something if you haven't done it before if you have them for play you're just going out for a walk doing something getting to the schedule of going out for a walk and get some exercise in place maybe try out some herbal teas to try and relax you try doing some things that you know kind of pseudo-scientist slang like meditation which actually does work being out in nature all of that sort of self-help stuff that's regurgitated on and on and on and on and I know that this stuff does not always help with everybody especially if you have a mental health condition there's going to be some natural variation in your mood but trying to flatten out those peaks and trying to you know lift those troughs up it's a terrible metaphor it can help a lot being able to be in the most stable position you can be before lockdown ends is going to greatly improve your chances of it not being such a horrific ordeal the last thing that we're talking about is social worries worries about socialising there's going to be a lot more of it once lockdown ends and it's going to be a lot it's going to drain your social battery social battery is going to not be able to weather the storm it's going to run out you're going to have all sorts of stress associated with people people sources of stress sources of cortisol increasing in my body sameness as I'm whipping my COVID haircut I recommend that you don't give into the expectations of others short lockdown will end and people will be able to meet people face to face and being groups and stuff but that doesn't mean that you have to do it immediately I guess there will be a lot of social pressure if you have other friends that are meeting up and doing things you're going to feel a little bit like you're missing out FOMO but don't ignore that FOMO that FOMO is not right give yourself as I said a few weeks back in normal life just to adjust just carry on socialising as you did when you went in lockdown and ease yourself back into it slowly by approaching it in a graded exposure like manner you'll mitigate a lot of the chances of being socially overloaded and having meltdowns and stuff I am very out of practice with society as I said with my anecdote about Aldi it's gonna take some time to get used to it again and I think I'm going to try and make that process as slow as possible so that I can adjust to it and slowly work my way up to the social life that I had before lockdown so that is the end of the video and I hope you enjoyed this video it has been a comprehensive video and a video, video, video a video it's important because I feel like these are things that I'm gonna slip up on and I'm not saying that I'm gonna do every single one of them and you should follow suit do as many of these as you can take into account and make considerations for all of these you're not gonna get everything done you're gonna miss out on some things and you're gonna you're gonna step over your anxiety limits a few times it's naturally gonna happen so having in place as many things as possible is going to make sure that the transition isn't as bad as you think it would be Final thoughts preparation is key, as I've said very important preparing yourself getting used to what life will be like back in society back in real life back out of the the viral landscape that we live in with floppy fringes and people walking about with lots of body hair and odour and like a hygiene lots of crop tops and people bathing in the sunshine you need to stop comparing yourself to neurotypicals they're gonna find it easier they are routine can be a great thing and our desire for certainty can lead us to become very analytical and put in place a lot of plans and stick to it and progress in life but when stuff like this happens it's naturally gonna cause us a lot of anxiety and you need to be easy on yourself you don't compare yourself to other people and how fast they're getting back to normal life and how excited they may be the only thing that we can do is go easy on ourselves and make the preparations that are necessary to try and alleviate that stress as much as possible thank you very much for watching the video I know I haven't uploaded in such a long time and I'm missing talking to a camera talking to this little bright little bright light over here T-shirts are obviously down in the description this is not the only T-shirt that I have in stock I also have mugs and bags and basically all of this was done by a guy called Richard who designed my new profile picture and my cover photo he's a very cool graphics designer and he's sort of collaborated with me on producing this merch and I know I'm not gonna get that on many sales but I just thought it's about time that we've got a T-shirt it's about time that if you want to display that you love Asperger's Growth and you love what we're about and you're part of the family then you can wear one of these T-shirts or you can wear the bag and you can drink your coffee out in the morning from an Asperger's Growth mug cheers and have a happy transition into real life once again I'll see you later in the video in the next video bye