 Good day my lovely listeners, you are listening to the Forty Auty podcast. Tune in every week to explore inspiring stories and insightful information that dive head first into the world of autism and mental health. With all those tantalising tongue twisters out of the way, let's get into the show. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Forty Auty podcast. How are you doing? It is a very nice sunny day in good old North Yorkshire and I'm feeling pretty good. It's a Friday afternoon, feeling fresh. Today we've got a very interesting and different podcast today. We're going to be talking about autism in sport, which is something that I feel what I felt like I should talk about at some point. It's something that I've had a lot of experience with in terms of Taekwondo and sort of competing for GB. And today I'm joined by Sarah Hope, who is a GB Paralympic squad member doing wheelchair basketball, which is absolutely amazing. And yeah, how are you doing Sarah? Yeah, I'm doing good thanks. How about you? Pretty alright, pretty good. I had a bit of a slow start this morning. Pretty much just lazed in bed until about quarter to two and then rushed downstairs and switched on the good old PC. Would you like to give everybody a little bit of an overview into who you are and how you got into a GB squad? Yeah, sure. So yeah, my name is Sarah Hope. I am a full-time athlete. I do sometimes use a phrase professional athlete, though wheelchair basketball isn't technically a professional sport in the UK, but it is my job. I have been playing wheelchair basketball for 10 years now, initially in the National League with Coventry, but then with Great Britain. And I've been full-time with GB for the last three years. Wowee. That is a very impressive resume. I've had some experience sort of competing for GB, but I've never been an official member of the squad. How is that for you? Yeah, I mean it's nice to be surrounded by people that have the same goal as you. It helps with that motivation when you get up in the morning and you know that there's a training session, there's people waiting and relying on you to get there. I'm surrounded by a great support staff. It's just a really nice atmosphere, but you can get in this little bubble, this elite sports bubble where you forget what the rest of the world is like. So yeah, everything in moderation. That's very interesting and is there any differences between the Paralympic and Olympic training? Do you have any like physio, extra physio coaches or is it mostly pretty much the same? Yeah, to be honest, as far as I can tell, we share our training facility with a few other Olympic and Paralympic sports, but as far as I can tell it is pretty much the same or our physio, our doctor and our coaches have to have a bit of an understanding of everyone's impairments, everyone's disability, what people can and can't do. You know, there's no point asking the team to do star jumps when we all use wheelchairs, but other than that, it's pretty much the same, yeah. And do your coaches have experience with wheelchair basketball, are they disabled themselves or are they just sort of general coaches? Well, we've got a mix of on-court coaches, but most of them are wheelchair users and have come from playing wheelchair basketball in the past. Our strength and conditioning coach is able-bodied, he's never coached disabled athletes before us, so it was a steep learning curve for him at the beginning. But yeah, a lot of people, they'll just sort of learn about us. I mean, everyone's pretty much treated like an individual anyway. You know, you can't really learn about disability and instantly be an expert because everyone's such a unique case, I guess. But yeah, it's pretty much a case of learning as you go. That's really interesting. Do you find that having someone who has sort of gone through the whole process of competing and stuff and then coaching you guys, does that give you some sort of motivation to keep on going with it? I think, you know, you can have great players that don't necessarily make great coaches in the lightest possible way. And then you can have, you know, great coaches that aren't necessarily great players themselves. I mean, ex-players can bring so much experience and wisdom to coaching. But, you know, if their communication skills aren't on point, then they're never going to be great coaches. You know, I've been lucky to come across coaches that are great at both playing and coaching, but it's a small field, yeah. That's interesting because I used to sort of go to the GB headquarters a few times to do like test matches. So we'd sort of go there and basically do sort of matches with the GB athletes, like the professional GB athletes. And some of the previous Taekwondo players are now coaches. And I definitely agree with you on the social skills because some of them absolutely just have no idea that they usually leave it up up to the players a lot to sort of choose what they're to do. They're not very sort of strong willed and planned. But when they're demonstrating, obviously they are pretty good. Yeah, yeah, you'd hope so. What is your experience with autism? Like, when were you diagnosed and what sort of changes did it bring in your life? Yeah, so it took a little while for me to get diagnosed. I think I suspected at quite a young age that I was different to my peers. And I tried to sort of research it myself, which didn't really come up with a lot because back then, autism and girls just wasn't really widely reported as being different to boys. So for me, it got to the point where I was 18 and I experienced sort of quite a significant burnout, which I didn't really understand at the time. It then led to what I'm guessing is depression, which is when I had to go and seek help. And then that sort of started a very long journey. I was initially only diagnosed with depression. The autism was missed. I was then told I needed to seek treatment for anger management problems, which was a misdiagnosis of my meltdowns. This went on for years and years. And, you know, in the end, I sort of self-diagnosed. But I couldn't find myself admitting to other people that I was autistic. I felt like self-diagnosis to me didn't seem that I could be open about it. And in the end, I went and got a private diagnosis, which was about four years ago. And getting that sort of official stamp on it just made it easier for me to be authentic and to be able to tell people that this is who I am and this is how I want to live. And it's made a massive difference to me. I'm sure a lot of people have been in the same situation that were diagnosed late at life, just being able to be honest without being worried that you've got it wrong. Being able to sort of look back on experiences that you've had and reanalyze them in a different lens. Oh, yeah, so much. Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's just, you know, I think from, from suspecting that I was different so early on, I couldn't help but think that, well, what if I'm not, you know, what if, what if this is what everyone is going through and everyone's just doing it better than I am? You know, you, you get this feeling that you're kind of failing at living. And I was so desperate for there to be an answer as to why and so scared that there wasn't one. So finally knowing that actually, yeah, here is your answer. It was a big relief. Yeah. I definitely empathize a lot with artists. It is, it is quite strange when you, when you, when you compare yourself to other people, like, I mean, the typical sort of routine and way in living for an autistic person is not ever going to be what it's like for a neurotypical person. No. I mean, I often find that, although I am, I am sort of like open the autistic and I like to tell people about it and stuff, it, sometimes it does feel like I am exaggerating or, you know, like, I don't, it's trying to think of a way of putting it. Yeah. I think it's different. I definitely feel that. Yeah. There's, there's a line, I think, when you've, when you've conformed to neurotypical expectations for so long, you can kind of forget what your authentic self is like to an extent. So then when you turn around and say, actually, no, I, I'm autistic and I, I do things like this, you think, well, do I, am I just exaggerating this? Or Yeah. Is this what I actually want? Yeah. And it's, it's sometimes hard to, because I think we tend to put a lot of pressure on ourselves to, to, as you said, sort of conform and live up to every single area of life that, that neurotypicals seem to get on with quite easily. But I guess it's always important to sort of bring you back to the, the positives of it as well. It's, it's very, it's very strange. It's like my, my mum, my mother is, is quite a big figure in the, in the world of sort of special needs education. And she sort of compared autism and neurotypical people to like an Xbox and a PS4. Yeah. Now they both do, do the same thing, but you can't put an Xbox disc into a PS4. And I think it's the same way as like, I can't expect like neurotypical people to sort of get so interested into a topic and work at it for hours and hours and hours without giving them a break. I suppose there are limitations to each of them, I guess. But it is interesting that you said about the misdiagnosis because it does, it does seem in a, in a lot of cases, I've had quite a few girls coming on to the podcast and they've said that they have been misdiagnosed a lot. And I think there's this one at one individual called Lottie. And she, she was, she was very open. She was, she was amazing at so being honest about her experiences. And it got to a point that she was misdiagnosed with about five or six conditions and she was sent to like a mental psychiatric hospital rather. And yeah, it's crazy, isn't it? That even now, even though we know that autism does appear in girls, it's just a little bit harder to spot that this stuff still happens. Yeah. Yeah, a kind of anger management. Yeah. For meltdowns. I know, I think, but then again, you know, I really didn't, at the time, I wouldn't have known that what it was was autism. I didn't really know anything about autism except the very stereotypical way and how it presents in, in boys. And I was trying to explain to this guy that, yeah, this is what happens. And, and yeah, he's like, well, it sounds to me like an anger management problem and that I should be going to these classes. And I was just no, like, I know, but I don't know how to communicate to you what it's like. And you know, and it's not until years later, when you find out, oh, this is what other people experience, you're like, yes, I wish I'd been able to say that. But at the time, I just, I just didn't know what it was and how to, how to explain it to this person. But then, you know, I was dealing with a mental health professional who, who never even suspected that it could be autism, despite me seeing him for a number of, number of months. So I suppose you must, you must be very inching to sort of hiding your autistic traits, then. Yeah. Would you, would you say that? You're good at masking. Yes. Yeah, very much so. And I think, you know, that that's what took it out of me. That's what led to this burnout I had when I was 18, just, you know, so many years of, of hiding a way of watching other people, how they interact, trying to copy them. And, but knowing that it just doesn't come naturally. So not only is it exhausting trying to, you know, watch, copy, emulate, fit in. But you've also got that added mental weight of, you're not good at this, you're a terrible person. Like, you know, no wonder so many people end up with mental health problems relating to undiagnosed autism. And I suppose it sort of feels bad as well in yourself. You feel bad for doing it as well in terms of like, because you've got to, you've got to put on that, that mask in order to fit in and in order to get along with life, especially like in sort of secondary school and stuff. Yeah. But you still feel bad about doing it as well. Like, yeah, I felt bad about doing it. Yeah. And, you know, with how many years of experience and a lot more knowledge about myself, you know, I finally found that balance between like, I know I'm going to mask when I'm doing X, Y and Z, but then when I come home and I can be myself and I can, you know, engage my special interests, I can do whatever makes me feel better so that I've got enough energy to go and do it again the next day, as opposed to this constant masking 24 seven that just takes it out of you. And do you find that meltdowns and shutdowns or any sort of anxieties is quite a big part of your life now? Or do you feel like it was more of something that happened when you were younger? Yeah, probably less so now. But I think that a lot of that came with understanding now what it is, like, my needs as an individual and sort of living a life where my needs are more managed. You know, meltdowns are very rare for me now. Whereas as a teenager, they were you know, quite not prevalent, but they did happen more often. I think yeah, self self awareness, like, if you if you can understand what you need, and then you can you can give yourself the break that you need, whether that's, you know, literally a time out or whether that's, you know, sticking to to like, say your sensory needs or whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah, I've definitely found that. But I meltdowns and panic attacks and anxiety was definitely something that happened more when I was younger. And it's, but I don't think it's because I was younger. I think it was just the environment that I was in. I find mainstream schools, which I think is probably a thing that most autistic people can agree that mainstream schools are horrible. Yeah. All that noise and all those those assholes those people picking on you. Yeah. It can really really sort of make you paranoid and anxious. Yeah. But I still get meltdowns and it is very strange for people to, for like my friends and stuff, if they've never seen me have a meltdown before. I just get embarrassed afterwards. You feel like you're putting, you feel like you're annoying people and that you're being an inconvenience, like when stuff like that happens. Yeah. That's what I feel like it's, I feel depressed after after it happens. Very relaxed, but depressed. Right. Yeah. So do you think you have less now because you're in more control of your environment? Like you know what you need or or just like you said, you know, schools are difficult time. You don't really have much control over it. But as an adult, you have a bit more control over your environment. You can sort of, you're a little bit more aware of what you need. Yeah. And I think I'm nowadays I'm also more assertive with my needs. Like if I spot a problem with the sort of routine or anything to do with those social interactions that could sort of drive up my anxiety, I almost always try and fix it as soon as possible. Yeah. I think having that confidence to sort of say, you know what, I would love to sort of see you my friends and stuff and I would love to see you and talk to you. But I've had a hard day at work of talking to other people and my social battery is flat. Yeah. The ability to say no is so powerful. And it took me so many years to be able to do that. But it's it's such a massive help. It is. I think that's, that's one of the biggest things I love. Autistic people need to do in life because it's not always that everybody really understands the extent of things. Like you can say, I'm a bit stressed, just to try and, you know, push it to the side or you or you could say, if stuff keeps going on like this on such a constant basis, I am going to have meltdowns and stuff and I won't be able to work. Like, have it been able to sort of be honest about it and give people what is needed to make those changes I think is important. So we talked a little bit about autism and I think this is probably something that a lot of the listeners will be interested in knowing about because you are part of the Paralympic team for GB, but I know we had a little bit of a chat beforehand, I think like a week ago or something over on Instagram and you told me that you haven't always been disabled and you told me that there was sort of like a transition part of your life where you went from being able-bodied to disabled. Yeah. Could you tell us a little bit more about that and what the initial challenges were that you had to overcome? Yeah, sure. So I have a condition, a hereditary peripheral neuropathy which basically affects the nerves in my lower legs. So being hereditary, it is something that I inherited, but for the first 24 years of my life I would consider myself to be able-bodied because I had no symptoms. Just to give everybody a bit of an idea of what peripheral neuropathy means. But peripheral is like, you've got your peripheral and central nervous system, your central nervous system to do with your organs and your brain functioning and stuff like that, but your peripheral is the little out-shooting bits from your central nervous system that go into different body parts and stuff. Would it be right in saying that neuropathy is a condition of the nerves? Is that what it stands for? Yeah, pretty much. So in my case it mostly affects my sensory nerves, so the one sort of just under your skin. So below the knee. Sounds painful. Yeah, it is. Strangely, I've only got about 30% of my intrepidermal mud, the ones under your skin, those nerve endings left, but the ones that are misfire so badly that I get the wrong signal, essentially. So I do get a lot of pain from it, but also sort of mixed up signals. So if my feet are cold, they'll feel wet. I can't feel heat at all below the knee, and yeah, a lot of pressure is related as pain. So, you know, they do get quite confused. That's interesting. Do you think that being autistic has any sort of influence on the amount of pain that you experience? That's something I've thought about, but I'm not sure how it does relate. Hereditary peripheral neuropathy is considered a rare condition, so I don't know many other people outside of my own family that have it. So I can't really ask what it's like for them. Can't get a consensus. Yeah, exactly. So I mean, I know that for a little while, I didn't notice that I couldn't feel heat. It took someone asking me and pointing it out for me to realise whether that's a sensory thing, or whether that's just the case of my brain was filling in the lacking information. I really don't know. And what parts of those conditions mean that you have to be in a wheelchair or you have to be on crutches? Yeah, so I tend to use a wheelchair most of the day now. So like I said, the pressure going through my feet is interpreted as pain, so it hurts to stand kind of like, you know, standing on a hot stove. It's not pleasant. Yeah. And the lack of sensation in feeling the floor means that my balance is quite impaired. So if I'm concentrating, I can stand up straight. But if I start doing something else, like playing on my phone, I have a tendency to fall over. And that just brings its own complications. So I mean, it was it was a very gradual process. At first, it was just sort of some minor pain. I used to be a runner. So it was just a bit of pain in my feet when I ran. And I honestly thought it was like a running injury. And it just got grand splints. Yeah. And it just got gradually and gradually worse. And it kind of snuck up on me in that respect. And, you know, it got to the point where I couldn't even walk to the shop when I was just like, yeah, this is this is a lot more serious than a than a running injury, you know. And did knowing that people in your family did the knowledge of knowing that helped you sort of go and go and get a medical sort of checkup? Um, to an extent, I mean, mine is a lot more severe than than other people in my family. So my mother got diagnosed before me. But actually, I was in terms of symptoms, I was a lot worse than she was by then. So it did it took a number of years for me to get diagnosed with with the correct condition. I'm paranoid I was there with my autism diagnosis. It took it took five years from initially going to the doctor. Yeah. Before I saw a specialist that could tell me what it was. Honestly, the medic, I'm happy that the medical system is free in the UK. But so frustrating, they take their time. It really was. I mean, I was I was basically just waiting for consultants appointments and going from one to another to another. And you know, I love the NHS, but it could sometimes be six months between each appointment. And yeah, it was well, you know, the doctors were doing a great job of trying to diagnose what was wrong with me, even though, you know, they were failing, but no one could really tell me how to live my life. In the meantime, for me, there was, you know, knowing was quite important. But I also wanted to know the practicalities of how was I supposed to carry on? How was I supposed to drive? How was how was I supposed to go shopping? What was I supposed to be doing? And there just wasn't any of that at all. So yeah, quite a frustrating time for me. I guess that ambiguity around not knowing what to do isn't very helpful. I can imagine myself, to some degree, in a similar situation. I suppose even if you were to sort of, I guess, buy your own wheelchair and all that, there would always be that sort of uncomfortable feeling of knowing that the doctors haven't given you one. Yeah, and I think, you know, much like when I said that, you know, I had, I'd realized that I was autistic, but I didn't feel comfortable telling anyone that until I went and got that diagnosis. It was much the same with my disability in that I knew that something was wrong with me. But I didn't feel like I could consider myself disabled. I didn't feel like I could go and get any mobility aids, because I hadn't been diagnosed as that by a medical professional. In hindsight, it seems silly, but at the time, it was really important. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah, isn't it? Honestly, I do emphise a lot with you with trying to get a diagnosis and stuff. I think because I was diagnosed at the age of 10 with autism, it's never been a problem for me to sort of get support around autism. But I definitely feel that in terms of mental health. There was only one particular doctor that I managed to see, a really, really lovely guy who listens and tries to work things out through with you. He was like the only person who properly listened to me about my experiences with depression and stuff. And before I went to see him, the treatment and the medication was for someone who was having sort of mild or moderate depression, which obviously wasn't appropriate for me, because my depression depressive conditions were quite severe. And he was the first person who sort of helped me out with that. But I think if I didn't have that person, it would have been very difficult. It's hard to talk to a doctor. If they don't think something's happening, because obviously they've got a medical degree and all that, but they don't listen to your experiences and take it seriously. They just make their own mind up. Yeah, absolutely. They just sort of ignore you. I think being autistic as well obviously presents a lot of social anxiety in those situations. Going to the doctor in the first place, yeah. I've often been quite a few times, I thought, you know what? This is enough. I need to get proper treatment for this. I go, I have a horrible experience. I'm like, I'm never doing that again. And then obviously it happens like half a year later or a year later and the cycle continues. Yeah, definitely. So I feel a lot about that. It can be hard definitely in the UK to get that support unless it's private, I suppose, which is not ideal. No, but if you've found someone that actually listens to you, it's just invaluable, because at least you've left feeling like you've been heard. That can make such a difference. Yeah, if you don't feel like you've been heard by the doctor, you're not likely to take on both what they're saying. Or at least die down and just think in my head, this person is ignorant. They're not listening to me at all. I don't care what they're saying to me. It's not like a decision. It's just the same way if someone coming up to you and being an asshole to you, but having medical knowledge, you're not going to want to listen to them. I once went to a consultant who suggested that the problems I was having with my legs was psychosomatic because they're like, well, the neurologist hasn't found anything wrong. The rheumatologist hasn't found anything wrong. So we're assuming this is a mental problem. And it's like, how do you then convince a medical professional that actually I don't think it is? Like if you just don't, you just don't feel listened to. Sounds like they're just sort of giving up on you. Yeah. Yeah. That was part of the frustration. Yeah. So I'm glad that you found someone that will listen to, just listen to you and your experience. It's, it's, that's really great. So going on to the topic of sport and wheelchair basketball, how did you, how did you get into it? What was the process and journey that you took to get to the Great Britain team? It's amazing. Well, I mean, we could talk about this for a while because it was quite a tempestuous journey, shall we say. Yeah. So I started having problems with running in 2009. I had a friend at university who was part of a wheelchair basketball team. And I, I went along and just watched one of his training sessions one day. And by the end of it, you know, they said, oh, yeah, we've got odd numbers and we really want to play a game against each other. And before you know it, there's me in one of their wheelchairs, completely unprepared for sport. And I just absolutely loved it. And then the following year I found a club I signed up and, you know, it kind of went from there. I just, it was a first sort of team sport that I'd really got into. So it, you know, it was a bit of a transition there. But I was working at the time. Were you able, were you able bodied when you died? Yeah. I mean, at the time when I first started, when I first had that go at my friend's club, you know, I thought, I thought this is just a running injury. It's, you know, this isn't going to last. It's not a problem. This is just a bit of fun. By the time I joined a club the following year, I realized this, this isn't a running injury. This is, this is a problem. But because I didn't have a diagnosis or have any idea of what was wrong with my legs, I couldn't then apply to get a classification. So, you know, the thing about para sport, you get a classification depending on how able or how impaired you are, which in wheelchair basketball is one to five. So a five pointed player would be able bodied. And then the most impaired player would be a one. So I played my first season in the domestic league as a five point player able bodied player, which you can do in this country. Which makes it great as a fully inclusive sport. You know, we've got friends and family members that play with, you know, they're disabled friends and family members and everyone gets to play together on the same team. Yeah, it's great. Absolutely great. And I'm glad that they had that system because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to play that first year. Definitely. That's amazing though, like being able to play a sport and sort of being it beyond, I'm just, I'm just thinking like, one thing that sort of strikes me about wheelchair basketball is that, like, are there any differences in the rules? And are there any sort of different challenges and skills that you have to pick up on as opposed to normal basketball? I'm sorry, normal basketball is a terrible way. Apologies. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. At least you recognised it when you said it. A lot of people don't. So in the running version of the game, there's slight differences. I suppose with you've obviously got lateral movement, which you can't do in a wheelchair. You can't move side to side, which just makes it a bit of an extra challenge for us. The only rule change that I'm aware of is the double dribble rule. That is, if you dribble the ball and take two steps in the running version, you then have to pass or shoot. In our version, if you push your wheels twice without dribbling, as long as you then dribble, you can then push your wheels again. So there is no double dribble rule. But otherwise, everything is the same. The basket is the same height. The court is the same size. Yeah, it's pretty much the same game. Is it difficult to dribble the ball with being in a wheelchair? Do you have to put your hand out favourite to the sides? Yeah, there is obviously a little less movement with the ball. It's harder to dribble it behind you. You obviously can't put it through your legs in the same way that an able-bodied player can. Obviously, you probably want both of your hands to be pushing your chair. So you have to be a little bit imaginative with where you push the ball to, how you dribble it. Obviously, it's a very quick game. So you have to make a lot of snap decisions about, you know, if you push the ball out in front of you, you need to know how quickly you're going in order to then be able to pick it up again. So yeah, I mean, some people, you know, the first time they ever get in a basketball chair, they can't figure out how to push and dribble at the same time. I mean, some would argue that I still can't. I'm sure you can, considering how far you are. Ask my teammates. But yeah, it takes a while to get to grips with it. But once you can do it, obviously, it becomes quite natural for some more than others. It's really interesting. In terms of like your career as a way of chair basketball, could you give us some sort of like the highs and lows of your experience? Yeah, sure. So like I said, I joined a team in 2010. And then in 2012, I was invited along to they call a development camp for Great Britain. So it's it's basically just people that they're interested in having a bit of a look at to file away for the future. So I went along to that. It was good fun. And then I was invited to my first senior Great Britain women's camp the following year. And then it got snowed off. Oh, no. So I got very excited and very nervous, very anxious. And then yeah, it snowed so bad that no one could get to it. So it was a it was a rearrange for a few months later, and I went along. And honestly, my anxiety levels were through the roof. I arrived, I didn't talk to anyone. I didn't know what was going on. Everyone knew each other, but they were this really tight knit team. And you know, a few of the girls, they, you know, they reached out and, and explained a few drills to me and that sort of thing. And I'll always be appreciative of that. But, you know, I actually hated the camp. And I was just like, I'm never doing this ever again. I can't, it's just, like, I can't keep up with everyone, you know, physically, the speed of the game was astronomical. And I was just, you know, it took a lot of convincing for me to then go back and do another camp and another camp. I suppose this is a good, good opportunity to talk about autism in sport. One thing that was, was pretty much the same throughout my experiences as a Taekwondo fighter was the crippling anxiety, whether it was like a week before. Obviously, like, as, as the week was progressing on, on to the, to the weekend, like these competitions were held, the anxiety would, would build up slowly and slowly. I get like quite a lot of stomach upsets and sleepless nights, I guess. And then sort of before things like GB training camps or competitions, think, think about 50% of the time I had, had a meltdown before each, each one of my fights. It was definitely a difficult thing. So that, that anxiety and I think also the, the sensory environment of people cheering, the, the other players shouting, the, the noises, the floodlights and the, the sports hall. All of, all of those things were quite intense for me, I think. I think it was only like until, until I sort of got a bit older that I realized that maybe I should sort of take, take a few more walks outside and, and sort of chill out before competitions. Did you find the, like the crowd and the, the sensory experience of them, any less so once you were actually in the fight? You know, was it still quite distracting? When the adrenaline was going, when the adrenaline was going, then I was, I was, I was in sort of what, what you would call flow state, I guess. Yeah. Definitely when I was in the fight, I sort of tuned out a lot of the, the noise, but even just walking up to the ring, getting ready to go, you know, putting all the gear on, that was, that was, that was the hardest bit, but once I was actually, I'd gone through the first round, that's when I started to feel a little bit more comfortable. What are your experiences with competitions and, and training and all that? I know you spoke in a little bit about the anxiety and stuff. I'm really interested to hear about, you know, once you said you're getting into that flow state, because I find that for me, training in terms of a, you know, sensory, you know, being in that high sensory environment, that once I'm actually on court and playing a game, I can tune out the crowd, but when I'm sitting on the bench waiting for my turn to go on, it's horrendous. You know, I've watched back video of me being on court and there's, you know, thousands of people in the crowd and everyone's yelling and, you know, they've got those horrible clapper things and, you know, it's, it's so bright. You've got the screens and all that lot. I can hear on the video, my coach yelling to me from the sidelines, but remembering back, I didn't hear a word he said because it's, I'm either going to tune out the whole crowd or none of it. So, you know, he was yelling at me not to do something and I just kept doing it. And I'm watching this video back going, why could I not hear him? And I was just like, because I've tuned out the crowd, I'm paying so much attention to my game that I just couldn't hear a word that he said. It's something I've got to think about for future games, but so yeah, I found that really interesting that you said that about, you know, feeling more comfortable once the fight goes on. For me, training is definitely worse in terms of sensory overload. You know, the lights, the, you know, just the balls bouncing, people yelling, when you clash chairs together, the metal on metal noise. It can all be like a bit much and that's usually, you know, if I'm going to have a meltdown during the day, that's probably going to be what tips it over the edge is that environment. But, you know, my teammates have all been quite good about it and, you know, we tend to have only 50% of the fluorescence on when we train on the court. That's good. You know, I've got earplugs, which are sometimes wearing the gym, you know, especially towards the end of the day and people know to just kind of leave me to it. So, you know, there are ways around it, I think. I'm really glad that they've sort of taken on board what you said then. That's, yeah, it's really great to hear that. Yeah, yeah. I think it would not happen in GB Tech one, though they would not do that kind of thing. Really. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, one of the things that I've noticed about sort of playing in a disability sport is, you know, everyone's got, you know, their own abilities, things they can and can't do. You know, you can't treat everyone as disabled because we're all so different. You know, there are some that can walk, some that can't walk, some that can't even really sit up without holding on. So the fact that there's someone like me who's like, yeah, actually I like slightly dimmer lights. It's not really seen as something different. It's just everyone has their own things that they can and can't do and this is just one of mine. So it does kind of, you know, the sensory side just kind of does blend in with everyone being treated as an individual, which I think is great. And it's definitely made me feel like my needs are more accepted. Yeah. That's really great to hear. I guess my experiences of sort of competing at that high level is a little bit different because I was competing in sort of the mainstream sort of able-bodied arena. And there wasn't much of that support put in place for me. So there was just one incident that I can remember where I went to train for the Commonwealth Championships and I had a meltdown in the parking lot. I didn't particularly like the atmosphere of the other GB athletes created, found it very anxiety-provoking. And I went in obviously about 10 minutes late because I was in that. And you know, the anxiety and the difficulties that I had were quite prominent throughout the training session because it was obviously a new environment. And the coach, the person who was overseeing these training sessions, they actually went up to my coach after and told him that I wasn't trying hard enough or I wasn't motivated enough and I was lazy because of these difficulties that I had. And the person who said that was actually, I think, one of the most decorated athletes in the whole of the sport. And the one thing that I always held dear to my heart was my motivation, my willingness to push on and try my hardest. And this was the thing that they picked up on and said, this is what you're bad at. And that absolutely destroyed my confidence for a long time. And I think that's just a good statement of what the difference between including other people and listening and making adjustments. I suppose more in your case, comparison to what I experienced with those people who just really didn't want to listen. Yeah, that's horrible to hear. I could go, you know, I'm sorry that that happened to you, just a complete lack of understanding. Yeah, that's so demotivating, I guess. The funny thing was though that the good thing was that I went to these two camps, I went to the Commonwealth one and I went to a camp for the under 21 European Championships. And in the Commonwealth, I got gold. So the coaches didn't really care much about me until I started doing well, obviously. And then there was sort of, you know, pandering to me and saying, oh, you can do this, you're doing really good and all that stuff. So I went and I got gold and I got this trophy for best male fighter of the Commonwealth, which was obviously surreal. Yeah, that's amazing. I never, I'd never expected to get anything like that. And then also when I went to do the European Championships, I got the furthest out of all of the athletes and up into the point where all of the other athletes dropped out, the coaches basically paid no attention to me. As soon as I was doing the best, then they started paying attention to me, which is kind of sad, isn't it? Like, just how much people overlook autistic people because of, because of what they see and their judgments. Yeah, so much. Yeah. It can be really tough to deal with that, especially if you're younger and you're, you know, you sort of coming up in a sport that is, you know, I think in both of our cases, very physical, I guess. And I think that can come back on a person. You know, there've been a number of times in my career, you know, even though I'm an adult where I thought, you know, maybe maybe I just can't do it because of my autism, maybe the challenges that I have mean that I'm just not cut out to be able to do sport at an elite level. So, you know, it doesn't take much of a suggestion from someone to say, oh, you know, well, if you can't do it like this and you can't do it at all, and then you'll start to believe it yourself. And, you know, you'll never get anywhere with that kind of lack of support, I suppose. It really does instill a very toxic mentality. And it's, I think, just in general life, working on our confidence and our assertiveness and our, our belief in ourselves is quite something that we have to work on quite a lot, just due to the common experiences that autistic people have in workplaces and schools and stuff like that. If I was to have that support when I was at the GB camps, I would probably feel a lot more comfortable. I only needed one coach just to listen to me and be empathic and not think that I'm slacking just because my anxiety is through the roof. And yeah. I mean, it certainly took me a little while to be able to get to this stage. I mean, you know, I was doing camps in sort of 2013 and the program turned into like a centralized training program. So that people were training every day. That was in 2014. And I went along to join that. And, you know, I was, I was really stressing about how I could do that and work full time and be around all these people constantly. There was this sort of social expectation that even when you weren't together on call in the break times, you would still be socializing with each other. And I was like, how am I supposed to do this all day? I just, I didn't know how I was supposed to do it. And that, you know, I committed to training in the morning, getting up at half past five to train seven until nine to then go to work for 10, finish at six, go to the gym, try to fit all this in. And logically, I thought, yeah, I can do it. There's enough hours in the day. And it took a matter of weeks before I had another burnout. And I ended up having to leave the program. And I, you know, I wasn't back in it full time for another two years, because I just didn't know how to communicate my needs to say, you know, I don't think I can do this. Is there another way for me to join? It's that black and white thinking of I'm either all in or I'm all out. I couldn't see a middle ground. And therefore I couldn't ask for a middle ground. And it delayed my career for two years, because I couldn't say, you know what, I can only do this for two days a week, because it's, it's ridiculous for me to be able to do everything at once. So it has taken a while to get to this point. But yeah, I wouldn't say that that's, that's a fault in, in your own because quite often, institutions and organizations are quite, what's the word, scary, scary, maybe not scary, a bit, you're a bit more tentative around asking for things, because obviously you don't want them to like kick you out or something. Oh, massively intimidated. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess that that's that's the barrier. I don't think that in a lot of cases, it's an issue in, I mean, it may be in your case, but I don't think that black and white thinking is really something that influenced that. I think it's just like that, that intimidation of a big organization and uncomfortability around any, you know, sort of confrontation in that manner in terms of the set in yourself. Would you say that that's, that's some, something that you agree with or do you think that it is just a mindset? Yeah. I mean, I tried to speak to, you know, a couple of the members of staff that, that GB had back then and sort of, you know, I said to them, oh, I suspect I'm autistic and I'm going to struggle with this and that. And I don't think they understood what that meant. And they're, you know, so that made it perhaps a little bit more difficult for me. I couldn't then take that above them to someone else and say, you know, this is what I need. I just, yeah, that, yeah, the whole thing was quite intimidating. And especially when you're, you're first starting and you're like, well, I need to go along and, and play by their rules. Otherwise, they'll never accept me into the team. Yeah, I can feel that. Yeah. Especially, especially when the, the environmental sort of conditions are for everybody's else as well, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine that that's quite something quite hard to assert. But it's, it's, it's great. And it's amazing that they are making those adjustments. They didn't make those adjustments for you. It's, it's really nice and, and lovely to hear. Yeah. Yeah. It has been a big help, but I think it's like you said earlier, you know, it's me being a little bit more assertive now that I understand myself better. And it's being able to say, you know what, to get the best performance that I've made, this is what I need to do. And I think probably back in 2014, I wouldn't have been able to say that. So yeah, being, knowing yourself, knowing what you need, and then having that confidence to go and say, this is it, this is what I need. That's, you know, it's a massive step. So let's go into a little bit. This is a question that we sort of made up on the the video call that we did. And I thought it was quite an interesting thing to talk about. What are the contrasts between having autism and a physical disability in terms of like, you know, we talk a lot about diagnosis, first language in autism. How, you know, just how people react and treat you. Yeah. You know, when we hear about those conditions. Yeah, I mean, living in both worlds can be quite interesting, I suppose. You know, like, like you mentioned, with the language, I mean, as far as I understand it, most autistic people prefer identity first language. They prefer to be called autistic, not a person with autism or person touched by autism or whatever random things people come up with. Stop touching me. Exactly. Whereas, you know, as far as I understand it with a lot of people with physical disabilities, it's a lot more split 50 50, you know, either they want to be called a disabled person or person with a disability. A lot of people just don't care. It's good to hear. Yeah. I mean, I don't mind. You can call me disabled. You can call me a person with a disability. Someone the other day called me handicapped. You know, I really won't take offence unless you're deliberately trying to be offensive. I didn't know you played golf. Yeah, exactly. You know, she was blessed. You could see that she didn't know what the politically correct term was, and she was looking for it. And that's the one she came out with. So I don't blame her. But yeah, there's a big difference. And I think obviously that comes partly from, I mean, for me, obviously, I was born able bodied, I acquired my physical disability. So for me, there was a time when I wasn't physically disabled. So I can understand why someone might say I'm a person with a disability. Whereas I've always been autistic, I was going to be autistic. So a person with autism, just it doesn't make sense. But it's just that the differences between those worlds, you know, you've there's obviously a reason for it. But I find that quite interesting. I definitely think it is interesting. The thing is, I'm not one of those people who gets overly worried about what, you know, what terms are used. And to an extent, obviously, it's more about, you know, how I think how you treat people. And if someone wants to correct you and say they'd be called that, then that's that's all right with me. And I just, I think with autism, it's kind of like you can't be the same person. If you weren't autistic, like your brain is an autistic brain, I suppose. Whereas, I guess, having a physical disability is and especially, I guess, acquiring it over time. Because I don't know, like, how do you feel about having a disability? Because it's I think I get where you're coming from. I mean, like, a person's autism and their personality are so intertwined, that you can't really separate it. Whereas, even though my experiences as a disabled person have shaped me, I, you know, I don't think I would be that different if I was still walking compared to just sitting. There's not really a whole lot in it. So, yeah, I can't imagine myself not being autistic, but I could imagine myself being able-bodied. If that makes sense. Yeah, I think that's a very good, that's a very good sort of contrast between, let's say, how do people react or treat you when you've told someone that you're autistic as compared to having a disability? Obviously, they'd be able to tell. Yeah, that's the obvious difference, isn't it? Because when it comes to sort of first reactions, the fundamental difference is they see my chair. So they've already made an assumption before I've even spoken. I have had some really sort of peculiar reactions, you know, the amount of people that have tried to push me up a hill when I'm out and about is just too many to count. And especially when- Random people? Yeah, random strangers. And especially when I'm moving faster than them, they do this kind of funny quick walk to try and catch up with you to then push you to help you. And I'm like, dude, I was going quicker than you. What about this? Did they ask you? No, no. That's not very nice. Absolutely not. That's very- No, that's wrong. I've got no handles on my chair either. So they literally grab me as a person and just start pushing. And it's really off-putting. But people see me and they immediately assume I need help. But you know, I've had sort of quite condescending comments in the past about, you know, it's so great to see you outside. I'm like, I'm just like a Tesco's or something, you know. Immediately as you- Well done, Sarah. Thanks very much. Well done for going outside. You know, and I remember I've had a few experiences at an unnamed London airport whereby the Special Assistance Desk, the woman there, will only ever talk to the AB, the able-bodied person that I'm with. You know, I could be there having a conversation, holding my passport and this woman, she turned to my friend and went, oh, can I have her passport too? I'm like, I'm holding them. I'm right here. I can talk to you. I just can't stand up, you know. People just make these assumptions before you've even started. Whereas with autism, you know, it's up to you to tell the person, you know, if you're having to be good at masking, I can get away with not telling someone I'm autistic if I don't want them to know. So of course, I mean, they'll obviously still gonna have assumptions based on that. They'll assume that you can do X, Y and Z, can't do anything else. I think for me, when I do disclose I'm autistic to people is that there's this lack of understanding. When it comes to the wheelchair, they look at it, they don't necessarily need to know what's wrong, though some people still feel the need to come up and ask you what's wrong with you, as if they have a right to my medical history. Random stranger in the street. Thank you very much. And one woman in airport who once thought I was just lazy and was and had hired the wheelchair to get around the airport. But otherwise, you know, they don't need to know what's wrong with you. They'll look at you and go, okay, you know what, that's fine. That's all I need to know. When I tell someone I'm autistic, it's generally this kind of vague look of confusion. Like, I've heard of this term that I don't really know what it means. The experience that I have with this term, no way matches. Yeah, you're not rain man. What? Drop some matchsticks. Yeah, exactly. Or, you know, if they have, it'll be the, oh, what's 3,641 times 8,300? And you're just like, no, I'm not one of those. Yeah. Yeah. Has someone done that to you? Yeah. Have they not done that to you? No way. No, they haven't. Oh, you're missing out. What the hell? I have to get a calculator out. I have no idea. Do it yourself. You're holding a smartphone. Yeah. I mean, what are the best reactions that you've had? Anything great? You know what? Like, often the most sort of inflammatory conversations to do with autism are not necessarily what you would think they would be. It's more like, I'm explaining my views on autism and saying that I'm an autistic person. And the other person is like, no, you shouldn't say that. Like, it doesn't define who you are, you know? Oh, yeah. Trying to be nice, but just completely not hearing me at all. Like, it's like that they automatically assume that you don't like being autistic and that it's a negative part of you, part of yourself. Yeah. And I get that with the physical disability as well. There's a guy in that uses the same gym as me. And whenever I go in there, he'll start like listing off, oh, you know, I've heard that they can do great things with stem cells now. And I'm just like, wonderful. But what makes you think that I'm desperate for a cure? You know, you've immediately assumed that, I mean, yeah, it's inconvenient being in a wheelchair. Like, don't get me wrong. But at the same time, you know, I wouldn't be an international level athlete having traveled around the world and won a World Championships medal. If I wasn't, there's this immediate assumption that, oh, your life must be terrible. You must want to change it at any cost. So yeah, I get what you're coming from there. I think like, because I, you know, growing up in that and it being autistic sort of presents a lot of social challenges in terms of like, when it when I was a bit younger, I was a lot more blunt and direct and a little bit clueless in situations that I wasn't aware of before. So I'd sort of struggle to understand how I, in the past, I struggled to understand how I should talk to someone who has a physical disability, just because it's, it's kind of like that thing, that ping pong game in my brain where it's like, should I ask about it? Or if I don't ask about it, am I not sort of seeing that they are disabled or, you know, that sort of uncertainty around a new situation was quite hard for me to don't understand in that way, I guess. Like, do you think that that's something that comes across people's, people's mind like, they don't know how to react to this nowadays? Like, I understand that, like, just because just because it's there and and it's it's out in the open doesn't mean that you have to talk about it. Like, yeah, yeah, I think the the wheelchair definitely does give these people, these people, some people, like a signal of yes, ask me about the all intimate parts of my life, when in reality, like, would you do that to enable body person, just come up to them and say, you know, oh, what medical things have you got run with? Yeah, just, do you think some people want to want to take talk about it to sort of give sympathy? Or do you think it's just complete obliviousness? Um, I don't I don't know. I think sometimes it's, it's kind of small talk, which is then difficult for me because, you know, I'm not really great with small talk. If I'm going to talk to someone, it's like it's like an exchange of information, you know, I'm not the debate. Yeah, it's like a casual debate. I went for my my push in the park yesterday, you know, and and this woman just like, oh, you know, that looks difficult pushing up the hill. I bet it's a whole lot easier on the way down. And I'm like, yes, obvious, obviously, you know, but like, she felt the need to talk to me because there's a person out in a wheelchair. She's obviously just trying to be friendly. But yes, obviously, it's it's going to be easier on the way down gravity. Like, you know, my small talk game is not great. But yeah, it's difficult. I once had like a, like a four year old is like asking his mom a question when I was, I was there, we were both heading out of the gym into the car park. And she said, oh, so sorry if you heard him, like he wasn't being rude. And I'm like, honestly, I didn't hear a word, you know, what, what was he saying? And she's like, oh, he just really wonders how you drive a car. And I'm like, I have no problem. Like, telling a quarter four year olds not going to know how someone that doesn't use their legs, like drives a car. And I showed him, I said, this is how you do it. And you use your hands and this is how I get in. And, you know, the mom was really appreciative that I took the time to explain to him, because if you don't explain to kids, you know, disabled people can do all these things. And they're going to grow up to be adults that randomly start asking questions and pushing you up hills in the street. I guess, I guess that is sort of a exposure and curiosity, I guess. It's not something that is the most common thing to see out and about, I guess, especially not in my town. It's not often that I see anybody who's using wheelchair. No, I didn't know anyone until until university. I didn't know anyone that used the wheelchair. So I wouldn't really know how to go about, you know, talking about disability with them. I just sort of ignored the fact that there was a wheelchair there and just carried on as if they were a normal person, which of course, they are. I guess like, obviously, because I don't have any any experience with with that kind of thing. It's, it's hard for me to feel like what what I'm allowed to ask, if that makes sense. And there's always sort of an ambiguity around it. And, you know, if I say the wrong thing or a lot of sort of like background stress to having any sort of mention to to a disability, I guess. But it's, it's nice to hear your thoughts on it. Like, I think it's it's refreshing to talk about this. I suppose you can think of it in a similar way as autism. Like if your autism was like physically visible, even if all you're doing was standing stationary, not saying anything. And someone came up to you and just started asking you questions about, or can you do this? Can you do that? And you didn't know them? Like, would would you want to reply? Would that offend you? Whereas if it was, it would make me laugh. It's just, it's just funny. Can you have a girlfriend? Like, oh, what? What? Why are you asking me these questions? You know, whereas if it's someone that you know, someone that's genuinely curious, because they want to get to know you, like, you know, that's, it's slightly different. So yeah, I suppose it's, it's, how would you feel if it was you, I guess is the best way of, and of course, everyone's gonna be different. Some people don't want to talk about it. Some people don't mind. Some people just be so shocked that a random person's coming up to them and asking them what's wrong with them, that they'll just kind of say just to get rid of that person. Yeah, it's, it is a difficult one. Well, that is, that was very enlightening to talk about. I think, I feel like if in situations where I talk about Augustine, which does come up a lot, because if I get a conversation going with someone at some point, it's gonna, part of my life is going to relate to the YouTube channel and the podcast, and then they're gonna know that I'm autistic. But it's, it's never I lead with, Hi, I'm Tom, and I'm autistic, which I suppose is a difference, a difference, I guess, because it's, it's like, if you're, if you haven't really come to terms with a physical disability, and it's not something that you want to talk about, it's not like you can hide it. It's, it's very much out, out in the open, I guess, which I guess brings a sort of different, different, different arena to social talk around it, I guess. Yeah. But yeah, cool. Just to sort of bring it back to sport again. For people who are listening, I know that from my experience, sport doesn't seem to be a massive special interest for a lot of autistic people. Yeah. But what would you say that the benefits of doing sport, sort of bring you in terms of, I don't know, simply like, like social cohesion and working as a team, sort of helping with mental health conditions, what are the benefits that you, you've seen in yourself from getting involved in sport? I mean, there are a lot of positives. I mean, not necessarily sport, but, you know, I'm a big advocate of exercise in general. You know, I used to run before I played basketball, which was actually a special interest. So I got a two for one there. Nice. Yeah. But running, you know, it doesn't have to be a sport. It can just be something you do at your own time. For me, it was to get out of my uni accommodation when it all got a bit loud. But, you know, for sport, there are a lot of added benefits. You know, so for say disabled people, you know, if you attended a school, like a mainstream school, a lot of the time you might not have been able to do PE. So doing sport in a sort of disability specific environment, suddenly, yes, you can keep up with your peers, you can be active, you can do all these things. The self-esteem and the confidence that especially kids that I see at basketball get from actually being able to take part in sport and compete in sport is great. Especially, you know, post injury or people with illnesses, you know, your self-esteem might be low because suddenly you've lost an element of your life that you were used to having. And you can get confidence back in your physical ability by being part of a group of people that are the same as you. In terms of, you know, for autistic people and, you know, people with mental health problems, especially in organised group activity, it's a new part of your schedule, something that can be routineed in, something that's always going to be the same. You're going to a training session, same time every week in the same place every week. That's always been good for me. I guess that's one of the benefits of being autistic, having that concentration and willingness to stick to a training res schedule. And you'll find that, yeah, if you want to get better at something as well, like having that ability to practice that one thing over and over and over again until you're really good at it without getting bored. If you've got that ability, then you're going to progress in your sport. But yeah, yeah, I mean, for me, obviously basketball was my first sort of proper team sport. I'd always done individual sports beforehand, and it kind of forced me to address some sort of interpersonal skills, which I'd kind of avoided, I suppose. Whereas, you know, previously when I was at work or worked in an office, and there was obviously a team there that I worked with, but we were, you know, I worked on my own, but part of a team, it was kind of one step removed. Whereas, in a sports team, you have to work so well together, you have to, you know, understand each other and how each other play, especially at the level that I play at. And sort of, yeah, your interpersonal skills have to be of a fairly good quality. And being as part of that team has really sort of forced me to improve those skills, sort of those social skills. I know this was something that briefly came up in your documentary, so I'm interested to hear what you think as well. Yeah, well, it is something that came up in the documentary that it was, I sort of interviewed my Taekwondo coach, Master Rack Simpson, Master Rick Simpson, and he is trying some very top athletes in the country, you know, people who sort of go along to competing different places in the world. He's a very great guide to have on the documentary. I think, and there are a few things that training in Taekwondo brought me and I think some of them are quite similar to what you've said. I find that I'm a lot easier to socialize in and learn social skills in an environment where I know what the topic is, you know. I know it's a Taekwondo class, so going to be talking about Taekwondo or some part of our day, it doesn't really change from that. And there's a lot of instances where you're not talking and then the chat that you do have is very relaxed and casual and you've got that relaxation from competing, sort of doing your sport and being physically active, which I think helps a lot with anxiety. And then I guess in terms of, sort of, like, fine motor skills, I know that fine motor skills are something that's quite difficult for autistic people to learn, but I never thought that I would be able to learn those gross and fine motor skills to a large degree. I always thought that my autism would have an impairment on that, but as I started to, sort of, progress through the sport, I realized that, you know, like, if you work on it hard enough, you can get as good, if not better, than a lot of people. Which is good to know for anybody out there who's thinking, I'm such a klutz, like, I've got no balance or coordination, like, I can't do this. You can. You can do it. It's gonna be harder. It's like catching a ball, like, I was terrible at catching balls and when we did PE at school, I was, sort of, like, in the top set and everybody was into them, them team sports, if we'd play something like cricket or, um, rounders or something. And it would just always fall out of my hand. So I just took a tennis ball round the back of my house and just practiced, you know, at increasing speed, throwing and catching the ball against the wall. And that improved my motor skills quite a lot. And then I guess lastly is definitely the confidence. I think it's so important for autistic people to have confidence in themselves, not sort of that, like, superficial swagger-type confidence, but just confidence that you know that you're physically good at something and that you are, especially for me, doing a combat sport, it gave me a lot of courage to sort of stand up to bullies or courage to, you know, work on my body posture and stay relaxed in sort of inflammatory situations. That level of confidence that competing gave me has never sort of dwindled and it's always been something that I fall back on, I guess. Yeah, that sounds good. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I'd agree with you there. In terms of, like, mental health, like, I know a lot of autistic people struggle with sleep. Sleeping is a difficult one. If you don't have medication, like melatonin and stuff like that, sleeping can be hard to get sorted in your life. And I feel whenever I do exercise, I always try to do it in the evening because that's the time that my anxiety peaks the most and being able to exercise really helps sort of get rid of that anxiety and helps me to sleep better. And then just general sort of well-being, like, it feels good to be able to move and not feel, I guess, you know, like, it makes movements a little bit easier, I guess. Yeah. Like, it's nice to feel strong and, you know, we have that sort of pride in your own sort of abilities and your own body, I guess. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Cool. Is there anything else that you wanted to sort of have a little bit of a chat about? Or shall we move on to the roundup for the podcast? That's fine. I'm looking at my notes. You can't see me. Struggle with not doing a video call. Yeah. No, I think we've pretty much covered everything. I think we've had a really, really productive and nice conversation. I think it's been very interesting for people to listen about this. And, you know, you are the first athlete on the podcast. Well, apart from you. Yeah. I'm not an athlete anymore. I'm boxing now. I'm not doing Taekwondo because I injured my leg. So if you ever need a disability sport, basketball is here for you. I can hook you up. I don't know if I'd be able to do a team sport. I've always struggled, like, so much with team sports. Well, I didn't think I was, but, you know, I got there eventually. Here you are. But yeah, I'm aware I haven't really talked much about sort of what basketball's been like over the last couple of years, just sort of, you know, the life of an elite athlete, I guess. Your day to day. Yeah. I didn't know if there was anything. There's probably not much in there, but just for context. You told us a little bit about so waking up in the morning. Oh, back in the day. Yeah. Doing your training. And then thankfully it's not early now. Relaxed. Yeah, I don't start until nine, which is much better. But no, I think, yeah, that was pretty much it. So I was, I was going to briefly talk about the very first tournament I ever went on when you were. Oh, yes. Tell us about that. Yeah. When you were speaking earlier about how anxious you used to get before your tournaments, before your fights, you know, reminded me about the first tournament I ever went on for Great Britain. And this was back in 2016. I'd just got, I wasn't even officially back on the Great Britain program, but I was training with them. And it just made me think, you know, before games, I'm not even particularly anxious, but before going on that tournament, I was an absolute wreck. You know, we were told, oh yeah, you'll be going to the, this tournament in Osaka in Japan. It was going to be my first, my first international and it was going to be all the way to Osaka. Yeah, I've been there four times now, but I haven't actually seen a whole lot of it except for the tournament venue and the hotel, but you know, it's a lot about going there and getting the flights cheap and the accommodation cheap as possible. You don't really have much time to walk about and thankfully the hotel and all that's all paid for us. But yeah, there's, there's absolutely no time once you're there because the schedule's packed. But but yeah, they announced, oh yeah, you know, you'll be going to this tournament. It's, you leave on this date, this is the flight number. And I was like, okay. And then I started sort of asking around, you know, other athletes just randomly dropping into conversation, like, oh so, you know, what, what do I need? And, you know, what's it like? And do people talk on the plane? Or do they put their headphones in? And what sort of food do you take with you? And I think in the end, they all got the hint that like, I needed to ask a lot of questions. And they actually, we all had to have a meeting. All of the team got together with the staff and we had a meeting about what the tournament was going to be like, what the trip was going to be like. And I don't think it's something that they've ever done before or again. But I was, I was that anxious. And my subtle questioning was not very subtle. And they literally sat down and like, right, this is the flight. This is the time you'd be at the airport beforehand. These are the things that you want to bring. This is where we're going to be staying. This is the schedule. And I'm like, this is all I needed. I just needed all of this information. Yeah. And then once I got to the airport, I was fine. From then on, it was fine. But just the ambiguity. Yeah. But the fact that I was just amazed that these people could just accept the fact that, yes, we were going to get on this flight and go to Japan and do a tournament. And that's all the information that they needed. And I was just like, no, I need every single specific bit of information I can get, please. It was just, yeah, it was an experience. Wow. Cool. So we've hit the one and a half hour mark. Sorry. And now it often feels like the first sort of 10, 20 minutes are a bit sort of hard on the old psyche, especially if you haven't done a podcast before. But as you start to get into it, it just, it's weird, isn't it? Because it's sort of like a conversation, but it's sort of not. Yeah. It's peculiar. In some respects. But it feels good. Yeah. In a way. Yeah. Yeah. It's nice, isn't it? Yeah, it's not bad. Maybe I will have to start my own. Yeah. You will. Yeah. You could do, you could do a, you could have GB athletes on and stuff like that. You could do like a sporting podcast. Can rope more than that. Yeah. That would be good. Get me in contact with some of the, some of the top ones. Oh, I've got some boxes, Sheffield if you'd like. Do you? Yeah. That's where GB boxing are. Yeah. I'll have to hook you up. Properly, properly got a big spell on my face now. Right. So would you like to give people free main things to take away from a podcast? I know we've talked about a lot and it's always difficult to boil them down into free points, but do your best. I think you, you probably nailed the first one, which was, you know, autistic people can do sport. You know, there's a lot of literature out there I found about, you know, getting like autistic children involved in sport or involved in exercise, but there's not much in terms of elite level sport. And but, you know, as we've discussed, you know, you meddled at the Commonwealth games, you know, I've meddled at the world championships, you autistic people can do sport. Let's not assume that they can't. So for anyone listening that thinks, oh, I can't do sport because I'm autistic. Of course you can, you know. There's some benefits and some, some downsides in sport. Yeah. Obviously you've got to find the one for you, which might take a little while, but but there is a sport out there for you. I honestly believe there's one out there for everyone. I think there was the such, there's this GB quiz, GB sport quiz, which sort of gives you like a personality quiz and recommends some sports that you can use. Yeah. I'm just gonna, it's gonna have a little search for it. I'll have to find it, but it's, it's quite a good, a good little thing to put on. You sort of, it shows, it asks you about like your aggression levels and Oh yeah, I'm way too timid for basketball. Your explosiveness rather than endurance. It asks you a lot of sort of important questions to sort of nail down what type of sport you'd be most in tune with. So that can be a good thing to do. I will, I will put that in the description of the podcast for people to take. I'll have to do it, see what it comes up with. Yeah, so second thing, third, sorry I interrupted you with that. No, go for it. I'd say the second thing probably is to know yourself, examine your own strengths and weaknesses, you know, ask why about, you know, the things that you can do well, the things that you don't do so well. You know, like I said, one of my biggest regrets was putting my basketball career back two years by not understanding why I was struggling so much. And, and now I understand myself better and, and I can make allowances for myself. You know, I'm just, I'm progressing so much, so much better. So if you can understand yourself, understand your own strengths and weaknesses and exploit those, there's no limit as to how far you can get in your chosen field, regardless of whether that sport or anything else. Brilliant. And last one. Number three, I suppose something, we haven't really talked about much, but sort of it's just sort of occurred to me that that as an autistic person, if you achieve, then you're probably going to be a role model for someone else. You know, something that's, that's only occurred to me quite recently, when I've been a bit more open sort of on my social media and life in general about being autistic, you know, I've had quite a few other people from wheelchair basketball contact me, send me messages or come up to me at tournaments and just say, you know, I'm autistic too. And I think it's great that that you're being open about it. And now I know that I can advance to this level. So, you know, it's not a small thing to, to, to be that role model, even if you didn't set out to do that. The fact that you've achieved something, the fact that you've achieved a Commonwealth medal, like, that's going to mean something to, to another autistic person that's looking to do the same thing. So yeah, if you have achieved, then show it off. You know, someone's going to be inspired by it. Brilliant. Those are some, some very good answers to that question. It's usually something that a lot of people struggle with. So, well, thank you. It took some thinking. I struggle with it. Yeah, it's hard to, it's hard to think about all of the things that we talked about. And so yeah, condensate. I should have taken notes. Yeah. Right. So this is the last question that I asked everybody who comes on the podcast. What does autism mean to you, Sarah? Such an open question. To me, and for me, it's, it's just a different way of experiencing the world. And that's why I like to think of it as a difference as opposed to a disorder. I think the disabling aspect of it is that we're in a minority and the world is designed for the majority. And that goes for sort of physical disability as well as autism. But yeah, autism is just a difference. I like your mum's analogy with the PlayStation and the Xbox. It's just, yeah, it's just the different games consoles. In the, in the documentary, she actually also stole one of the terms that I coined. I described autism as a, a disability rather than a disability. Oh, I like it. Yeah, it's good, isn't it? And she stole it. Oh no. She stole it and she said it on the documentary. I was like, I can't not, I can't not include that because that is, yeah. How dare you? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But she's my mum. So I left it in for her because it is a good point. Sweet. She's lovely though. My mum is an awesome lady. That's great. Cool. So I think that's all the questions that we've got for you, for you today. Have you enjoyed your experience on the 4080 podcast? Yes, it's been great. Thank you very much. And I'm very much appreciative of you taking time out of your, your day to come, come and chat with me and also that you went out and got yourself a little microphone. I did. And yeah, and the audio is absolutely brilliant. Excellent. So, uh, I'm glad. It sounds great. Good. Which one did you go for? Oh, I don't know. It was quite cheap. Was it? Yeah, or does it sound the front Yan Mai? I don't know. It was probably made somewhere in China or something. Anyway, it's doing the job. That's a good, good point. I might, I might suggest that if, if you send it over to me, I might suggest it to anybody else who comes on. Sure. Because it does, does sound nice. Sounds good. Some people just use the laptop mics and that is not always the best for editing. Yeah. That's, um, the lady I was listening to yesterday on her webinar said that she just used her MacBook, but in a cupboard, um, you know, whatever works. She was filming in a cupboard. Uh, no, just for the podcast. She takes her MacBook into the cupboard. Um, soundproofing, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. Sarah, would you like to give out any links to any of your social medias or anything that you want people to go and find out anything that you want me to put in the description? Uh, you are. If people want to follow my attempt to, um, stay in the squad for Tokyo 2021, then my Instagram is probably the place to do it. Um, which I'm fairly sure you've got the link to. Um, but that's probably about it. Very good. So I will put Sarah's Instagram, um, link down in the description. And I just want to say during this whole COVID thing, like it is, it is a little bit crazy and I appreciate every one of you who comes on to listen to, um, me chatting to, to my very lovely guests. It's, it's very nice to have this community around me and I've had such amazing positive responses to the release of the documentary, Aspergison Society. Um, I've also put a lot of the feedback that I've got on the website, www.aspergisonsociety.com, um, for everybody to see. And yeah, if, if you haven't already seen the documentary, I really highly recommend you go and go and check it out. We've think we've reached about 1,600 views in just over a week, which is absolutely amazing. Like usually, usually I'd have about 60. So that's, that's an amazing response. And I am so appreciative of everybody who has watched it. And you as well listening, listening to me ramble at the end of a podcast, which I know you probably want us to go. Um, right. Okay. So you can find a 40 or two podcast, if you didn't already know, on anchor, Spotify and Apple podcasts. If you want to go and check out some videos that I do, um, I'm, I'm being a bit lackstasical with it lately because of the documentary, but you can always find those videos on Aspergis growth, um, on YouTube if you fancy it. And if you want a little bit more of behind the scenes, um, updates on how life is going, what I'm getting up to during this, uh, isolation, um, go over onto my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages, which are all at Aspergis growth. Again, Sarah, thank you so much for coming on and yeah, it's, it's being lovely to chat with you. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. It's been good. This is, this is always the difficult part. How do I round it up? How do I finish the podcast? Um, get yourself doing a sport, get yourself exercising, get yourself pumping some iron or pumping your legs on the track or bouncing around a ball, get yourself out, get some social interaction once everything's obviously blown over. And, um, this has been, uh, Thomas Henley from the 40-odd podcast. And, uh, thank you very much for joining us. See you later. Bye. It's ending now. Go hydrate yourself.