 Okay, we are live on YouTube. Welcome to Aughty Time Talk. How are you guys doing today? I'm just gonna set up my Instagram side of things before I get started with this, but let's just turn my light on. There we go. That's better. Set up the Instagram, if I can. My brain's not all over the place. Okay, I see. How are you doing? Why are we having troubles starting a live video? That's very annoying. No service. Sorry, I'm just setting up my Instagram side of things. I'm not the most put together at the moment. Sort it out. So today, well, if you haven't been to one of these Aughty Time livestreams before, it's basically an opportunity to ask me any questions, whether it be about autism, about my own personal experiences, or something related to the podcast and video content that I put out on YouTube. So this is very much like a subscriber-led thing. Feel free to ask any questions. I'm gonna set up the Instagram thing, if it will let me. Hopefully it will, this time. A bit of an intro for them. Hello. Hello and welcome to another Aughty Time autism Q&A livestream. Again, today we're gonna be... It's basically gonna be like an autism Q&A session where you can come and ask questions about different aspects of autism. And I know that previously I've been doing it at about half-five, but I've kind of changed it up based on an Instagram story poll that I did, seeing that most people liked the 9.30 option. But we'll see. We'll see. I'm not sure, personally, if I can do the 9.30s, because it is a bit of a rush from going to the gym, trying to rush over and get started with my podcast. I haven't timed it very well today, so I have been... Hence the tank top. I haven't managed to jump in the shower yet, so... Very sweaty from the gym. Apologies for that. I'm good. Thank you. The real Colino Connor. I'm not too bad. Feeling quite chill again this week. Things seem to be going quite well. Hi, Jack. I'm well. Thank you, man. I did see your DM before. I will get onto that. My communications have been a bit rubbish this week, but I will get on that promise. I'm going to play a bit of music in my headphones, as I usually do. It kind of fills up the blank space for me, because it's a bit weird, like, talking in complete silence. Sometimes. Trazza Torna Ortista says hi on YouTube. You have an amazing body. Congratulations. You're very, very strong. Thank you very much. I've been trying to. To be honest, I haven't really put much muscle on at the moment. It's mostly because I've been reducing my calories and my diet. So I've just been getting rid of my fat, and it's kind of showing through at this point. So that'll be why. It's amazing. It's amazing what, like, body fat percentages do to you physique. It's crazy. That's what I was doing. I was putting some music on. What am I going with today? I do have a playlist. If you want to check me on Spotify, it should be Thomas Henley, me and a red t-shirt. I have this playlist. All of my playlists are public. I have this playlist called Autistic Chills, which is basically, like, all the relaxing music that I like and I enjoy. But I go through and I remove, like, specific songs that are just too much for me. Like, they have too many, like, weird noises or, like, high-pitched instruments or something that I just can't deal with. So if you're interested in that, looking for some, like, sensory, nice sensory playlists, that would be a good place to go. I might put it in my link tree at some point. Let's check the chat on Insta. Hello, girl from Planet Aspie. Thank you for joining. 760linda asks, what is the best way to handle my teen not wanting to go to school because he's up all night watching TV? It's a good question. I don't tend to focus on autistic children and teens. I know personally a lot of the issues that come with me. Around sleep and sort of mornings and stuff can be more solved through a routine. So if you have a good bedtime routine, you get off at a certain night every night. Once you're in kind of the flow of it, it becomes a lot easier. I think the issue is, is that with TVs, you have a lot of blue light. So if they're wanting to have, like, something like myself, have something on in the background that you can kind of watch and or a game that you can play. I think it's always good to try and find some kind of device that has the option of like putting a night filter on it. So it like reduces the blue light and increases like the orange light and stuff because that works. You can't lower the TV brightness too much. So like phones can be really helpful for that. I think putting the light really low, just having it on in the background, not necessarily looking at the screen, just kind of listening in. I think that really helps me getting off to sleep. And whenever I forget to turn the blue light off, I always have a difficulty getting off. But I hope that helps. Loka for Cocoa Puffs. Love the name. You bring so much love and inspiration to my life. Thank you. I am very glad to be able to provide that for you. I appreciate your comments. Hello. Sweet Lawless says, what suggestions do you have for managing over stimulation and meltdowns at work? I'd say try and utilize as much of the sensory supports that your workplace allows. There are a lot of adjustments that you can ask for. But I did recently receive a comment where someone had gone to their employer and asked for some reasonable adjustments and stuff. And they've had a really big issue with getting that, and they got fired. So I think it's definitely worth to be a bit wary. If the culture is not too bad in your workplace, it's a bit more inclusive than maybe give it a shot. But I think overall, just trying to use some of the sensory supports that are on hand can be really helpful for that kind of thing. Things like earbuds. If your company doesn't want you listening to music or watching videos or stuff, you can get some earbuds. I've got some earbuds that I use called D-buds. They're really helpful because they're adjustable. So you have a certain decibel reduction. And then if you want to hear somebody, you don't have to take them out. You can just flip the switches up. Makes it easier to hear people. Those can be good. I think as well, maybe some blue light glasses that could possibly help. Some light shades to help with the lighting. The best case scenario is that you talk to your workplace and they get you out of an open office plan into a more secluded place that you can manage your own environment a lot better. But I definitely try and take some breaks, try and find some places that are perhaps less sensory provoking that you can go to when you lunch breaks. Because often people go to cafes or they go to the shop and although that can be quite nice to get your food and stuff there, but they tend to be even more busy, noisy than workplace environments. So it is worth being aware of that and just having, I guess, a bit more awareness of where your anxiety is at during the day, having times that you can check in. Say like, oh, how am I feeling? And then scheduling breaks or having, you know, if your workplace is not that accommodating, you can kind of go to the toilet. Have a break there. Put in your earbuds, listen to some music. Just try and de-stress a little bit when you feel that. But you have to be very proactive with that kind of stuff if you're in an environment that you don't have control over. So you've got to be very like on it and aware of where your head's at. But meltdowns can be really tough, especially around people that you don't really feel comfortable with as well. I think avoiding meltdowns would be the sensory stuff, but also you've got to mix in, like, how much socializing are you doing? Are you using your lunch breaks to go and chat to people? Maybe don't do that. Just trying to reduce those common sources of stress, I think, that sensory stuff that... What did you say? What did I say? Social stuff. And also just being a bit more aware and cognizant and a bit more, like, preparing for it rather than reactively dealing with it. Because I know that's something that I struggle with quite a lot. Reactively dealing with things when you're, like, 95% at your limit and you're just like, your mind's so boggled that you forget about all the anxiety strategies and stuff that you have. So proactive, definitely a good place to be if you can't have that control over your environment. Hi, Austin. Thank you for joining again. I love your red infinity symbol. Really appreciate you being a... What was it called? Member, YouTube member. Thank you. Sud Hanvar Kishap says, Hi, Thomas, been following your podcast for a while now. Great work. I do want to know how you deal with... I'll have you, any thoughts of dealing with demand avoidance? Actually, you know, I didn't really have it when I was younger or at least I wasn't sort of diagnosed with that kind of trait of PDA. For anyone who doesn't know pathological demand avoidance is... It's less about control. It's very misunderstood. It's a lot about expectations. It's when people very much struggle with the expectations put on them from other people. People often see it as being like a bit of a control freak or like being difficult, but it's quite often a lot to do with that validation aspect of things. PDA for myself, I think a lot of it is internal for me sort of dealing with those needs to avoid... Avoid direct instructions or criticism or demands. It's hard to process them and work with them. Some people, if you have like a reasonable adjustments model and you have a very understanding colleague or manager, perhaps you can sort of help them understand a little bit more about PDA. Sort of give them pointers on perhaps what language they could use better. I know a lot of people say that instead of saying, please do this or do this this way, you can say, oh, I'm really having a difficult time with this. You're sort of asking for the same thing, but you're doing it in a less direct way, which some people with PDA can struggle with. I think for me internally with PDA, it's a lot about removing myself from taking on that. My brain's a bit boggled today. Taking on those expectations from other people and just seeing them as a criticism or a demand that's not necessarily a personal attack and sort of rewiring that in my brain a little bit. Trying to distance myself from my working self or my self as a friend. That's helped a lot personally for me and that's helped. A lot about not taking things personally and kind of having a bit of separation and viewing it yourself as a separate entity to the work that you've done. Once you get it down on the page, it's easy to criticise something, but if you came up to someone and you said, hey, I've got this idea. I want to do this, this and this. What do you think about that? And someone says, no, it's rubbish. They give some criticism. It feels like a personal attack, but once you have it written down, it feels a little bit more detached from yourself and that's kind of the same way that I think about demands and asks that people make of me. It's a little bit of a separation, I think. I'm going to check the chat on Instagram because I've fallen behind a little bit. I hope that's helped. No worries. It's Olivia's World 2020. It says, hey, Thomas, I have sent you an email. I'm a female on the spectrum. I will check that out. Thank you. So yeah, I've got a question, actually, in the actual question for you. And it's emojis. Interesting. Whatchijak says, how are you finding things relationship-wise at the moment? Don't really have to go into detail. Good. I'm actually, you know, I'm too bad. I'm not doing too bad. I think a lot of people... It's kind of a hot topic, isn't it, with the autistic community? It's hard to... I mean, a lot of people nowadays are really struggling to find dates and relationships because our generation kind of... the younger generation now may be into the mid-early adulthoods. It can be hard because we're very atomized. It's a concept that I'm going to talk on a little bit later, sort of, in probably start May. I'm going to talk about this atomization concept. It's all basically around how social groups, communities are becoming a lot more less connected, like less physically around each other. Whereas in the past, we might have had situations where we have communities around us, people that are friends that we can kind of go and do physical in-person things with them. Whereas nowadays, because it's very, very online and a lot of people are getting there, socializing through things like gaming, it can be very hard to connect with people in sort of the physical sense, like one-to-one person. So I think that that's a big contributor, I think, to a lot of difficulties finding dates and relationships. And we know dating apps are not... they're not the best. Especially if you're autistic. It can be a rocky kind of weird side of life that's a bit hard to navigate. But yeah, atomization, really interesting thing. I recommend anyone go and check out that because it is something that's becoming more apparent to me with talking to different people within the community and such. It's definitely something that I experience. You know, I have friends, people in my life that I talk to. And the thing is, they're not necessarily in my hometown. They're not necessarily in my area. And so it's kind of... it's hard to develop that social network in-person. It's something that I'm working on at the moment. I think the best way of sort of traversing that, like whether it's if you want to make friends or you want to find a relationship or you want to go dating, I think always the best part of call is to try and find some groups in your local area. Some social groups and hobby groups. Some sporting groups. Anything that you're interested in. Because number one, it plonks everyone together who's interested in the same thing. So it's not too hard to think of conversation starters. It's not like you're going out into the world and saying like, hey, do you want to chat? The weather's been going quite weird today, isn't it? Yeah, interesting. You don't have to have all that stuff. You can kind of just jump in, do the hobby, do the sport, whatever. And chat as you go with it, which it works a lot better for me in terms of finding friends and making new contacts with people. And when you make new friends and you go out and do stuff and you're out in the world, it's more opportunities that you can find someone that you might be interested in. It also kind of flexes that social muscle because I find that if I go for prolonged periods of time where I'm not either speaking, even to do with speaking like doing my online stuff or with social things, I can find it very hard to get back into it and get into the flow of the social conversation. So you have to kind of flex it now and again. You know, for me, ideally, that would be like once every two weeks, not once every week, that would be too much for me. But I definitely think like once every two each, try and get out there and, you know, see what's out there. You know, the best place to find people who are like-minded is within those groups. You don't necessarily have to be autism groups, but it could be. I definitely say if that's something that you're looking to do, that would be really, really, really a good idea. Lucky Leo asks, what do you find the hardest to deal with on a day-to-day basis? For me personally, in terms of autism, executive functioning, food, that's the hardest thing for me. Organizing things, talking to people to try and set things up, that's the hardest for me. It's something that I'm looking to get support for when I get my business set up and stuff. But in terms of in general life, it's definitely the mental health. I know it's something that I've talked about in the past, but I know that, you know, I think it's worth talking about again, but, you know, I do deal with quite a lot of mental health issues on the daily. Quite severe anxiety and depression most days. So that takes a lot out of you. Makes life very hard to enjoy. Sometimes it's kind of the reason why I started all my online stuff because of my mental health. But I won't go too much into it because we want to kind of keep the energy off, maybe not talk so much about the depressing things in life, but I hope that gives a bit of an insight. How do you cope with demands and balance in them day-to-day life? Very poorly. Very up and down mostly. Thank you, Leo. No, it's hard. It's all about building a routine and being able to stick to that routine and making adjustments if you don't manage to keep to that routine. And slowly adding things each day. Removing things if they're a bit too much and they take a bit too much out of you. It's a lot of experimenting, and to be honest, because of the variance in my mental health, it kind of... It's hard to do that, but it is something that you can kind of... I'm learning to kind of adjust to a little bit more. Positive sensations. I think I missed some parts of the live. Can I ask how old you were when you've been diagnosed on the spectrum? I was 10, 10 years old. John Sheffey says, Sorry, dropped out there. Any suggestions for bad ADHD and anxiety at the moment? I just don't get anything done. I'd say that's more about executive function, which is what I've been talking about. Executive function is basically life things. It's like time management. It's organization. I'd say that if you are in an executive function dip, where you just can't seem to do anything, the best idea is to set, although it's boring and although it might sound a bit obvious me saying, it's setting small goals that are achievable that you can do and you can scale up each day. So, example, you want to I'm just going to give the example of the gym because it's just something that's very much a part of my life. If you want to go, hey, I want to work on my fitness a little bit. I don't really get out of the house. Don't really exercise. Maybe jumping into the gym straight away and starting like a four day week program. That's the best idea. It might even be that you struggle to get out the house, which can be an aspect of it. So in the situation of trying to organize yourself enough to get to the gym like once a week, let's say, you would start by perhaps going out for a walk for five minutes or even going outside or spending time in the open with like flatmates or with people and not necessarily on your own for a certain amount of time. And each time that you, each week that goes by, you want to try and make it a little bit harder, a little bit out of the ordinary. You might want to extend the walk that you do each day from, it might do five minutes, you might go up to 10, up to 15, you might go up to 30 even at some point. Once you get into it, you know, you've got a podcast going, listen to some music. And then after a while, you can perhaps try out the gym. You could go for a walk. You could walk to the gym, go in for five minutes, see what's happening, go on the machine, just try stuff out and do it that way. And then after a while, again, you can keep scaling it up and eventually, you know, you might go for a half an hour at the gym and might do some exercise and just take it very easy. Once that's part of your routine, you might want to up it to two days, you might want to three, four, depending on what you want. And you can kind of go from there. And once you feel a lot more comfortable with that being a part of your routine, it becomes less of a taxing thing on your brain to actually do that each week. So the key thing is you've got to keep it up. But the great thing about those situations is it can sometimes feel a lot more comforting to do the routine rather than knocks. It can be a bit dis-regulating. You might feel sort of bad about yourself if you don't do that routine that you've been doing for a while. So that'll be the way that I approach getting it out of those executive functioning laws. But it doesn't necessarily have to be the gym. It could be anything. You might want to go downstairs, start giving your hands a wash like once a day in the water or wash a few things up or use the dishwasher first and then go and do it by hand depending on what you want. It's all about those small, achievable goals that you can set yourself. And once you get in the habit of saying that you're going to do something and then doing it, it gives you a lot more confidence in yourself. And it also reinforces those routines and it makes you feel better to do those routines rather than not. So that would be the way that I go about it and I have been in situations where I've not been able to function at all executive function law. It can be really, really hard to get out of. But it's all about those small increments. Small, achievable things and feeling good about it. Feeling good about just doing little things. Because you can scale it up as much as you need, as much as you feel able. I hope that helps, John. Roller Skater says, success story. I went to a skate park meetup because of a flyer that I found and started dating another autistic skater. Very cool. Very much a success story. I hope you still here. I know that I've been a bit lax with keeping up with the comments. You know what? I'm getting the... Although I did the Instagram poll and most people liked 9.30 I don't think it's been as popular this kind of time at the moment. So I think next time we're probably going to go for 5.30 again. It kind of works a bit better for me. We're going to switch back to that. We'll give it a try though. I hope that's okay. Is this a bit late for me? It's trying to get back from the gym and can be a bit hard. I hope your arm is okay. Welcome to the chat. Welcome to the awesome chat. You are all very welcome to ask questions. This is a chance to ask any questions that are on your mind, any personal, autism related things or even to share things that have been going on in your life. John Shiffy says thanks man. Sorry to hear about your anxiety and depression. I hope you've got some support. It's been something that I think it's been an up and down thing in my life and it's been since I was 14 so it's not like it's a new thing. It's something that I've had to learn and work around and manage. As with everything, once you get the process down, once you notice the signs, once you have the right strategies to implement, perhaps some support that other people can give you, it's a lot easier. I think a lot of people think with mental health that it's going to get better as you get older and for some people it might just be like a blip in your life but a lot of the time it is about those changes that you make. You learn to work around it, learn to deal with it and perhaps I would say probably nowadays I feel a lot happier than I have ever that I can remember. It's been like 11 years I think. It's been a while. Soran says she's been really educating work about autism, being facing autistic burnout just being referred to in adult ASD, ADHD services for assessment, long road ahead. I'm glad that you're doing that work. A lot of companies although diversity and inclusion is a part of what the government asks workplaces to do it's not always something that people do. So I think the fact that you're going out there as an employee and doing it yourself I think that's really great. But autistic burnout really, really, really tough and I wish you luck for the assessments because it can be not the easiest thing to navigate not the most fun thing to navigate thank you for your posts been following you for a while hope you're okay, so I'm good. Ironically I work for the NHS union has been ultra helpful they've got this box tick they've got to set these reasonable adjustments they've got to tick the boxes it's not about making individual adjustments that suit the individual it's about which program can we push these autistic people through because it's like a research backed thing it's a bit annoying sometimes well it's not annoying it's a bit awful Railersgate says it's 5pm in the US Jack says I prefer 5.30pm it's a hard ask for you so late in the day when you're trying to wind down yeah it's true I think as well one of the issues with making polls like that is that my audience is varied so you know time zones time differences they happen and it's pretty hard to translate that into a poll I think unless people like Google time zones BST to whatever time zone they are and do it that way I think we're going to stick to 5.30pm because it does work for me and it's nice to kind of end the week having a chat going live and not having to like rush back from the gym and yeah so I agree with you on that one Railersgate says for me anxiety is a consequence of sensory overload and what it looks like and what looks like depression is burnout yeah I think that's another thing you know the thing is that I do get burnt out I also do I feel like being burnt out does make you tent you know because your functioning is not what it is you can't tolerate as many stressors sensory, social anything like that so it can make you a bit more sensitive to bad things and for me I feel like very much when I'm in a burnout I feel like really catastrophizing you know thinking about all the the things that are going wrong and worrying about them yeah sensory overload, social overload even doing too much having too much in your routine can be all big and sort of feeds into burnout yeah definitely and sometimes yeah depression can look especially if it's like a situational thing for you and it's not something that you've experienced before and you're autistic it could be a burnout rather than depression because it does often quite burnout does get misdiagnosed as chronic fatigue syndrome or depression as you said can be a very common sort of misdiagnosis especially if you don't have an autism diagnosis Sauram says strong family history of autism thought was diagnosed I suppose I just had to play for pay for a private assessment as she masks so much as do I yeah it takes a lot of time to sort of put things in place to unmask and to sort of make those changes but I think it definitely is worth it it's a very slow process so don't don't rush yourself with it it does take a while and you know the autistic communities whether it be on YouTube, whether it be on Instagram they can be really great sources of sort of helping you through that process and I think for a lot of people masking tends to mean different things so I think it's really important to understand who you are first perhaps go through process experiences that you've had that have been quite hard particularly times in your life where you've given yourself a hard time in a social situation or in a certain relationship or a certain friendship and really sort of reassessing that I think that's definitely the first place that I would start or the first place that I did start and then after a while once you've sort of gone through all of that stuff learnt a bit more about how you work in comparison to neurotypicals then you can kind of go through understand which parts you're not being so genuine which parts you would want to show people and then making those adjustments slowly I think you're feeling burnt out yet I feel I've been so much in my life all the bullying, all the isolate alienation, all the imposter syndrome just tired I think a lot of people can relate to that, it's a really tough it's really tough being autistic and it's definitely very tough being autistic and not knowing that you are because there's so many things expectations that you put on yourself and comparisons that you make with neurotypicals that can really push you down in terms of self esteem and stuff so I can imagine that you're tired it's a really, really tough thing but you are doing some work you know you're coming onto the live stream sharing your experiences I think that's brilliant let's check the Instagram how do you prepare for a new environment via the meltdowns preparing for an environment I imagine like you're thinking like social situations like going out and going to the bar or going going to an event or going to a club or a group I think always you want to have time set aside to do nothing beforehand and after that's the first thing to do sometimes to kind of de-stress calm yourself you know if you've had a hard work week and you want to go do some things it's important to do that sure all places you've never been to yeah it's a I find situations where I can cope well with new environments is when I'm with someone that I'm comfortable with or if I'm going to a place that I know and I'm meeting new people so it's like there's two scenarios it's either I'm going with someone to a new environment that I feel comfortable with and that I can talk to and they don't have to feel like I have to mask and stuff that's important and the opposite way around as well you know going to an environment that you know to meet some people that you don't know if you have both of those aspects you're going to a place that you don't know with people that you don't know it can be really tough and if that's not something that you can do you sort of bring people with you that make you feel comfortable I think you could you could pay a lot more attention to having some sensory aids or having breaks or being very proactive with things you know trying to check in with yourself how you're feeling perhaps like sort of a little vibration alarm that you can go for and stuff used to remind yourself a thing that can be really helpful Brella Skatty says I'm so proud to be among the amazing community of strong brave autistic people they are they are brilliant aren't they absolutely being life changing for me so Aram says I feel I've been through I've already read that sorry I would recommend everyone not suffering silence I'm forcing work to address the neurodiversity issue even if when I leave it it won't be so hellish for the next person very true and I think those those sort of active changes within organizations and society they add up and they will help and you know I think that's the you know it was the really important thing for me for a long time when I was not doing feeling so good or not doing so well in my life using those negative experiences not as something to ruminate over and to punish myself for but it's something to inform other people about and to try and make some changes so I think you're doing really great work that you're welcome Todd so I'll probably get about 15 more minutes and then I will shoot off I've got some jelly tots here I might have I don't know I know that a lot of autistic people have a misophonia so I perhaps will not do that I am a bit of a loud eater so got the old signature taxi bottle very very fitness health related on this channel on this on this page I'm so bad with this stuff you know what it is I just really struggle with water it makes my stomach turn if I just have plain water it's something I used to drink a lot of water but it's kind of just never it's never right if I haven't eaten anything before I have the water it literally like gives me a stomach ache ASMR yeah welcome to Thomas Henley autism autism ASMR ASMR today we're going to do some we've got some jelly top bag can you hear the jelly tots just open these jelly tops up or now we have one of these fabulous autism fidget spinners listen to them in your ear and enjoy it oh my god I could do there's so many things that I would want to do I think you know for me ASMR is quite relaxing I think everyone has mixed opinions on it but I just found it a bit weird sometimes like the interactions that the person is making the ASMR stuff I don't know it just it feels a bit surreal to me sometimes it can be quite relaxing but it can also be a bit strange sometimes as well fizzy water with a fresh lime squeezed into it that sounds good man although fizzy water also do not like sparkling water can't deal with it carbonated water we're getting into a lot of different crazy topics today roller skater says it works what what works this is a good one positive sensations asks do you drink alcohol and does it help you you know what I don't I have the voice for it yeah we're gonna start off the new Thomas Adley autism ASMR podcast oh my god today we have an array of fidget toys and stim things that we're gonna yeah what was the question sorry let's have a look do you drink alcohol no I used to have a bit of an issue of alcohol for a while for about a year wasn't the best so I don't I do have the odd one it's not like I'm totally T-Total and really against it I just don't really enjoy it anymore I have that kind of negative kind of mindset of it now it kind of just feels a bit a bit weird to me it kind of helps sometimes in moderation for some social situations but I try not to go for it too much because the meds that I'm on I don't want to screw up the medication yeah we do tend to have addictive personalities I still haven't got run to kicking the nicotine habit that's something that I'm still battling with I've quit vaping now so I am using these nicotine pouches so we're making progress but yeah addiction can be real bad and I think definitely in the UK and the US and Australia and probably a lot of other places alcohol is a really dangerous thing because it's so like socially acceptable it's so easy to buy if you're of age or even if you're not and it's really dangerous it can really screw up your body it's not a good thing the old alcohol do not recommend maybe a little bit now and again but not too much raised you Ricardo says hello Thomas I recently started following you I'm a Chilean autistic male I really agree with you for the most part most of your ideas and admire what you have accomplished thank you very much I'm glad to have you on the live stream it tends to be with these things that like the viewers that like spike up after after like you know I'm nearly at the end of my live stream which is what are you doing guys maybe I need to rethink the old one hour thing maybe it might be good to do like a I don't know if I can do two hours would that be something that you'd want two hours of me just spouting nonsense on the stream getting a lot of that there okay Soran says I've had them in the past and blunting I just can't do it I've cleaned up my diet and doing a ton of exercise I hate meds two hours too long one hour good yeah I'm one of those crazy people who goes to the gym six days a week and does two hours for each session I'm a bit insane with it at the moment I'm thinking of scaling it back because it's just becoming very hard to manage alongside of the things but I found it really helpful that's the top thing that I would recommend to anyone about getting anxiety sort of throwing our mental off massive like we talk a lot about cardio being like good for you and stuff but there are a lot of benefits to like weight training that are not just getting big muscles it does help your heart it does help your brain so I was reading about it recently because a lot of people they say that lactic acid is like the thing that makes your muscles burn when you're doing exercises but it's actually not lactic acid is like the buffer for that so it's what happens when you exercise is that you produce loads of these like hydrogen ions like hydrogen molecules and that makes your muscles really acidic and the lactic acid comes along the lactate comes along sort of combines with it I think it makes lactic acid and then that sort of buffers it and sort of gets rid of the acidity so this was really funny because I was always thinking like lactic acid that's the bad thing it's not and that like lactate travels all through your body and it has some really great things really great effects on your heart and your brain and I think your liver really cool stuff it's also really important pointing out because a lot of time we think about when we get older we're going to be like unable to move and you know hunched over and not being able to walk very well they've actually shown in a lot of studies that if you exercise you do like muscle training once a week you do sort of a full body thing you know for a little bit you can actually stop that and just continue walking and doing well in life it's interesting I kind of assume that as well I do like to look into a lot of like fitness exercise related things I say I'm doing kickbox two to three times a week plus do you see it calms your mind calms your mind eh bit of a old combat sports to to relax you now I love smashing pads like so great love it and I'm so excited to get back to it after my ACL operation where let's get you asked do you stream on Twitch I don't at the moment I don't know what I would play to be honest I don't know if my Mac can handle it as well I'm actually I've had a call with these this couple called Lisa and Bob and from this channel called Planet Aspie a girl from Planet Aspie and they are thinking of creating me like a space within Discord within the Discord community to allow people to sort of connect with each other talk about things allow me to have a bit more interaction because Instagram can sometimes be a bit one sided like me creates I'm creating stuff and then people comment towards me there's not a lot of that kind of chances to kind of meet people who have similar feelings on things or want to discuss certain things so I think that would be really cool I'm gonna set that up I think sometime in May so I'm gonna have a Discord server it's gonna be really cool but yeah I'd stream Twitch I'll think about it I think once I get a bit bigger on YouTube I might consider going to Twitch might be something that I might do but I don't know I think because I run so many different social media channels it's like everyone that I talk to is like oh you gotta get on Twitter or you gotta get on TikTok or you gotta get on Snapchat and bloody everything I don't know if I can handle that I have a tough enough time like sorting my Instagram and YouTube out maybe if I have a team behind me that can help me with that I'll think about it I don't know what I'd play though I'd probably play some horror games or something but then that doesn't really give me the opportunity to speak probably RuneScape I'll probably go for old-school RuneScape I'll just play that I'll have to be strict to myself and say I'm only playing on stream not outside because I've got in situations where I've just like I've got very into RuneScape it's absorbed my life for a while so I'm asked a question for you you used to do Taekwondo didn't you? Yes I did when you're inspiring did you enter that with zone when I'm doing kickboxing sparring is like that ethereal existence I think yeah sometimes I get into the zone the thing is I don't tend to like a lot of I didn't tend to like a lot of sparring because because I was quite big and I was quite high up in the like the rankings and stuff some people were very like some people were respectful and I really enjoyed like it's kind of like the playful aspect of sparring but I really enjoyed that like sparring with the kids and stuff and that was really great but I don't know I tend to go very very very very very light and sparring because I understand like it's a dangerous thing you are in control of that other person's well-being so you got to take it seriously I think ReyesG Ricardo says I think if you if you're sure of yourself you can perform better in relationships when can you say what can you say about becoming more self-confident I think the best way to become more self-confident is to become more competent at something when you succeed in things that you set yourself to do when you do things that you tell yourself that you're going to do you become more self-confident over time I think it's a lot about also sort of tempering yourself against the negativity you can become very when you sort of going to achieve something there will be a lot of situations where you don't do too well and you have a lot of negative thoughts towards yourself I think learning to deal with those I think is really important and just I guess not taking them as seriously and just being like there's a bit of a road bump we'll try again tomorrow kind of thing it's more of a way of being because if you're feeling your life with things that you're good at and things that you're wanting to do and things that you're enjoying and you're on your own path you don't tend to to threaten worry about the small things you know you have a bit more direction to your life and how you approach life which I think is always going to be really helpful getting rid of those like that chatter in the back of your head that just makes you feel small it's the best way I can say oh apologies for that I need to really like get on top of charging my phone I hope that helps I could talk a lot about self-confidence but it would be very very long Kieran Shepard says man of the art is so popular thank you, appreciated positive sensations ask what do I do do you have any job I'm asking because I think I might be on the spectrum I'm not too sure anyway always have a problem with socialising and coping at work I do have a job I work two days a week a inclusion charity which is really great I get to do some work with the government on implementing different strategies for like one thing at the moment is I'm working on improving the amount of internships at in the UK so that we're trying to double the amount of internships given to people with special educational needs that include autistic people and stuff it's going to be really cool I'd say that as much as you can I think trying to find your own path is usually the best I find it really hard to work nine to five five days a week it was just absolutely exhausting enough energy enough opportunity to actually do things that I enjoyed because the weekends were kind of I was so tired and so drained from it all that was really hard I think the issue of being employed is that you have to do a lot of things that you're not so good at for me that's communications organising small tasks that people put on you when you have a bit more of a self-employed kind of thing you can be around something that you have a lot of interest in and when you spend a lot of time within your interests you become you enjoy life a lot more I know it's easier said than done but I would definitely look for different ideas on moving job I think there was this podcast that I was listening to I can't remember the name of it but they were saying a lot of people don't understand how much control they have over their life if you're not enjoying or feeling satisfied by the way that you're having now find something else you can do that if you're not having too much luck in the country that you are in move somewhere else there's a lot of places you can go move to a beach if you want to move to a beach and run a small business from there you can do what you want obviously it's not as easy as doing what you want and just going hey I'm going to move to Japan now obviously not like that it's the small thing that you've got to work work towards over the course of your life but you do have I would be feeling empowered enough to know that you can do that kind of thing it's something that you can do you just there's a lot of different aspects depending on the person and depending on the goal requires some planning but you can do that slowly it doesn't need to be a quick change I know that's not what you asked but I just went on a bit of a run there you can check the YouTube I feel strangely calm when inspiring it's like a mind-body connection with our over-connected brains like now I'm in hyperactive so sorry for spamming the chat don't apologise for that that helps me out a ton please go spam away Brennan says play minesweeper what goals are you working towards in life these days I'm working towards setting up my business going to be doing personal one-to-one consultancy workplace training public speaking I'm trying to break into the mainstream media so I am doing a lot of different things I'm working with a partner on organization that we're going to try and make where we're going to sell some video courses some work books things like that in the future those are the kind of things that I'm working on I'm also working with this American celebrity on this like ADHD autism character which I'm really excited about it could come pull through and obviously the podcast the social media a lot of different things I'm very very busy basically I think the life of a young autism is so tough it's only when I've been past 40 years I'm 50 now that I figured it all out it definitely is I hope that helped positive sensations by the way I know that went off on a bit of a run Julie says please come and go during the lives so so go on as long as you feel like far enough I think you're probably right in that I might do I might do it I don't know about Twitch I'll give it a go oh my gosh yeah I could do maybe Rosegate says I might be starting a new job running playgroups for autistic children that sounds like a brilliant idea probably even better than becoming a teaching assistant because you will have control over it and you'll be able to work to hours that you want to do something that you can have control over something you know if you're not feeling good enough to do that you're not mandated by a piece of paper contract that you've signed to do that thing you can take a break I think that's really really really great I'd be interested to see how that goes that's awesome that's awesome Karen says working five days a week is a killer especially when they refuse to accommodate and cater to your needs and disability it's a double-edged sword to acknowledge your disability and ask for help or let it it's not as streamlined this stuff it's tough like so much it would be much better if it was more streamlined everything post 18 that you could get in terms of support and what businesses mandated to do and that businesses wouldn't be able to fire you because you asked for accommodations and things like that that needs to change totally and I think a lot of the ways that we can change that is by shifting people's narrative they see it as an act of charity which is not it is a benefit to their business and if they could only learn to work and individualise things for autistic people the autistic person in question or anyone in question then it would the business would run a lot smoother and your work would be happy it would be more inclusive it would be a great thing I think autistic people have a lot to offer in terms of adding to organisations and businesses I think it's really important we have so many visionaries and amazing people out there in the world who do this kind of thing they're just not openly autistic I wish that they were it would bring a lot more attention to it but I think it's all a working pro we ask you now definitely Susan says dating someone who is autistic and I'm not he takes things literally and it can cause conflict he withdraws and avoids from me for days and I want to talk what's the best way to deal with that it's very complex Susan if you're wanting me to answer that I don't think I can do that it's a very give general advice on that stuff without knowing a bit more I do do some consultancy work so if you are interested in talking to me about that I do work with autistic partners of autistic people you can check my link tree go to my website there's like a contact page and you can ask for that send me an email yeah I would like to address it here but I think it would be too much positive sensations sorry if it's too personal if you don't want to answer then just don't are you single no I'm not single but Justin says diagnosed with asparagus at 10 years old oh me too was in a special mental hospital for a few years diagnosed again two years ago and diagnosed ADHD say SD now they lumped it in all the categories together totally autistic advice of the day stuck upon 20 pounds of rice now before the global shortage hits the market I don't know much about that maybe you guys got to take Justin's advice stuck upon that rice go for it my partner is nice be too long totally I found it really interesting just how many autistic people have ADHD partners and how many ADHD partners have autistic partners it's really interesting stuck upon bug roll that toilet paper shortage a girl from planet aspie hello I wanted to do twitch too but then I got twins there's no there's no such thing as limitless time though what would you play um you welcome Susan sorry I couldn't answer it in this this uh this live um you know uh uh I don't know what if I probably play like some really chilled game or like an indie game or something I really wanted I actually I've never played that um that game that was like really popular I think it's called undertale I'd like to play that if I was ever gonna do a stream probably do that um I'm not gonna play like any FPS shooters that require me to like be constantly aware of everything I want to like have a bit more chill um you know kind of thing I suppose you know really the limitation for me doing that kind of thing is my mac you know whether my mac can handle um certain games and stream certain games or whether it's just gonna like overheat and just be really laggy and stuff um if it's not and if it actually does work possibly maybe could could do um if anyone wants to run a twitch channel for me and just sort that for me that that'd be great I don't know if I can handle another social media platform in growing on that but um we'll see I could do like an autism Q&A stream with Undertale in the background so I'm so currently on Redemption 2 you know I've never played that I've seen people play it I've played a little bit but I haven't like played those games I'm just not really interested in like cowboy stuff western things it's not really a big thing for me um although I do love fallout definitely definitely um Resident Evil I haven't played that either I tend to like like really retro games like Spyro and Crash Bandicoot and you know like the original Harry Potter and the Philosophers stone stuff Positive Sensation says I'm so impressed you're such a clever person and what you say makes really real sense I'm glad I found your profile really interesting PS such a shame you're single haha just joking haha thank you for that positive sensations Dear Lord Skyrim was a time suck oh yeah totally I haven't played Elder Scrolls Elder Scrolls yet you know it's not not something I don't really have a lot of time lately I think if you know if I could probably justify myself playing games if I did like do a stream on some I just need to have a check and see if it actually does work for me to stream on Twitch I could also do streams on YouTube possibly could just do that you know might look a bit out of place with all the other videos that I do but could do that maybe I'll have a look see if my Mac can handle it New Elder Scrolls meets Fallout imagine the possibilities haha no it's okay don't worry about it well let's get he goes for the cowboy hat smiley face um I feel really bad like saying I'm going to rat things out tell you what we'll go for another 15 minutes um just give me it just give me a sec I just need to sort out I need to have a jelly top my blood sugar's a bit low after the gym um we'll chat for another 15 minutes and then I'll try and rat things up oh I'm good hmm so okay got a lot of good vibes going in the streams today um I wish there was like a way that I could like combine YouTube and Instagram lives together so that everyone can see like everyone's messages and stuff haha oh my god ah right so okay I'll tell you what 5 minutes we'll do 5 minutes and then I'll kick off and we'll set up a different stream for another day it's going to be next time 5.30pm British Standard Time yeah thank you everyone from Soram says thank you everyone hugs for those who can stand physical intimacy you can have a hug from me as well I'm not going to like I don't think I can reach the camera but hugs being given um it's been really nice uh so anything that anyone wants to ask before we rat things up um I know that I've made a few posts this week what I do every week seeing we chocolate covered crickets haha haha oh you guys are cracking me off haha haha what have I actually put out this week on Instagram I put out the podcast um which podcast are they put out Jesus um last week I think we were doing about ADHD and autism um that was a really interesting one I surprisingly took like well like 56 episodes to get around to doing that I don't know why it's taken me so long to do that topic I think it's because I'm not to clued up on the ADHD side of things um that's probably why I just don't feel like I don't feel like I have enough knowledge to contribute much and anytime when that's the case I find it really hard to like sort of do the podcast feels a bit more like like jittery stuttery for me trying to figure out how to contribute and things like that I don't need to get used to that because you know I want podcasts to be both a learning experience for everyone listening but also a learning experience for myself as well because it's really great to learn more about different topics I think these jelly-touch are good so yeah uh Instagram stuff oh yeah I did one on autistic imposter syndrome and some more what you should not apologize for stuff I think I'm going to go for another another what you shouldn't apologize for post but I think after that I think I'd probably use that sort of topic topic up a bit I don't want to like stretch for things just so that I can get another one out ReloadSkate says do you dance I dance to myself I dance if I'm going to like a nightclub which is like happens never I can do that I don't do like I used to do a bit of swing swing dancing I really enjoyed that when I was in Thailand but other than that no really not much I'm more into like the sports fitness combat sports kind of thing adding in anything else I would love to learn to dance but I'm just like I get really excited about new things and I want to like do everything in the day it's a bit tough sometimes so you guys still talking about bugs God bugs and bugs and rice nice yeah I interviewed Temple it's interesting um DAX 41 XD Anya says I'm autistic I'm 17 I'm insecure about my body I don't know if I should train I think it depends what you insecure about I think actually to be honest when I was younger I probably had a more aesthetic physique according to most people from I made like a transformation picture real thing where I went through my um early physique when I was quite younger um up until now which you know I obviously put on quite a bit of fat and muscle but I think even you know now I'm much more confident in myself um than I ever was when I was younger because I was always trying to change my body to get a certain reaction or a certain um response from people around me it was like I was bad at socialising and talking to people so I tried to make my body look better for some reason to make myself feel better um that was a really bad way of going about it because really what I needed to do is have less focus on that physical side of things and have more focus on addressing things that I struggle with and perhaps being a bit easier on myself and not being too hard on myself um I think the best thing to do for your ever well-being is to find some kind of sport or exercise or anything that you actually enjoy doing and try things out because once you do that you will enjoy yourself and you'll be doing something that is not completely taxing and just it feels ridiculous and you like every time you like stepping on the scales or you're looking at yourself in the mirror and you're like look at nitpicking all of these crazy like changes and trying to understand if you're doing well or not I think just being able to have a goal that's outside of your body will help you improve your fitness probably the best way to go about it or else you can become quickly very demotivated with that fitness stuff I would say you do you have mild but bodies more fit I used to be bulimic when I was younger it was uh it was tough I still do to a certain extent now but I feel a lot more comfortable in myself you do calisthenics and stretch every day that's awesome I used to do that a lot I did at one point I was able to do one arm jumping push-ups I was really like a lot lighter than I am now like I weigh about 110 kilos at the moment I'm about 6'3 and before I weighed about 73 kilos at the same height so I was much more light but I could do like handstand push-ups and stuff I could do like a plunge one arm I couldn't do that now I couldn't do that I was really underweight right we're gonna wrap things up it's been really lovely chatting to you all having some laughs talking about everything autism I will be back on at 5.30 very soon not very soon, not today next week, Friday at 5.30 come come back and join the live stream and ask some questions talk to each other and have a good time being really great chatting to you all I'm gonna turn off the YouTube side of things I'm really happy to see everyone joining having fun and chilling take care, have a great weekend see you later guys