 Okay, I believe we are live. How's it going everybody? How are you doing? Oh, it's been a weird one this week, very up and down. It's kind of, yeah, lots of different events, things happening on my life at the moment. So it's been quite hard to get a good fitting, a good footing on things at the moment. But we are back. I managed to drag myself out of my burnout hold for another live today. I hope you guys are doing well. Hi, Wander in the Flame. Welcome back to the stream. How are you doing? Hi, Jay Lawrence. For some reason my audio quality on my headphones are like not very good at the moment. So it just sounds all weird. I might just turn it off to be honest. Hello, Jack the Lad. How are you doing? Nice to see you back. Wander in the Flame, you look like you've been crying. Are you okay? No, I'm all good, actually. Not too bad. No crying today. It doesn't tend to happen with me a lot, to be honest, because I think it's because of, like, the elixir fire and stuff. I just don't tend to cry as much as I would want to. It's kind of weird to want to cry, but I think sometimes it's quite cathartic. Hi, DJ Wilson. And Pedro, how are you doing, man? Juzy, hello. Awesome. Well, today is just as usual, Autie Time livestreams. So if you have any questions that are on the tip of your tongue or burning to ask, please go ahead. Please go ahead. These questions, they can be anything personal, autism related, mental health related, personal development related. Go for it. Hello, Bentley Strongman. Hello, Tom from Australia. Love all your person. They've been a blessing. Great. I'm glad. It always makes me smile to hear that I'm doing some good out there. Jay Lauren says, what have you done today? Actually, not a lot. I was wanting to kind of get up and do my reels for the next couple of weeks today. But it just seems that I just haven't been able to kind of get going, which, you know, with mental health would burn out. It's not always an easy kind of road up to the top, back up to the top, as I have experienced and so it's very much adjusting things at the moment. Based on what I can do each day. And they tend to vary quite a lot. Some days you can get loads done. I'm all good. Other days, not so much. Hello, Angela. How are you doing? Gulakamel says, your voice is amazing, bro. Thank you very much. Wondering flame says, I know some, now I'm somewhere on the internet, but if needed, I'm available to listen. Thank you for all you do with your awareness and advocacy work. Thank you very much. I very much appreciate that. I think with me, there is like a, in terms of like my recovery, there's like quite a heavy need to kind of be on my own and self regulate. So I don't tend to reach out to a lot of people when I'm kind of in these situations, but I really appreciate the offer. Gulakamel says, just found out I'm autistic and your page helped me in some ways prior to diagnosis. I'm very, very glad about that. And congratulations on the autism. PM says, oh no, no worries about that. Yeah, I think it's just good not to engage with that kind of stuff, to be honest. I've turned off the comments on our stuff. So now, so I mean, this week, it's, it's mostly being for me, just trying to get back into the, into the swing of things. Quite unsuccessfully, I'm going to say, I did manage to get my podcast out a little bit earlier, a little bit late this week. And I am in the, in the making of the next one, which is going to be a really interesting one. We're going to be talking about autism, philosophy, we're going to touch on like the experiences with like religion and spirituality and things like that. So as you, as many of you may or may not know, I am quite a diehard atheist. So it was, it was quite an interesting chat about, you know, the ways that, you know, what draws kind of autistic people to philosophy and things like that. Yeah, it was a really good one, actually. And I'm thinking at some point, because this person very much likes their tarot readings and astrology stuff. So maybe it maybe have like a kind of a fun Instagram live where I get would get some readings done might be quite cool. Good luck man says, is there any clothing brands you recommend clothes that are softer in fabric, if online shopping suits better for the person. I definitely say that there is my, if you go on my link tree, there is like my gym apparel that you can check out. It is like autism related and it's not to everyone's taste, but I've had a lot of positive compliments on it when I've like worn it to the gym and stuff. So yeah, go check them out. I've also been sent, you might have been seeing it around with different kind of creators and stuff. These, this company called Rare Birds, which is sending around some stuff. I currently have their t-shirt and joggers on. They're really, really soft, lightweight, pretty, pretty good actually. I think the only issue is that they kind of, I mean, I probably wouldn't wear the joggers out in public just because they kind of look like a little bit like pajamas. And they do feel like pajamas to be honest, just because of like how soft and thin they are. So perhaps, perhaps maybe not outside, but definitely when I'm inside working doing things like that, definitely. Yeah, I understand Pedro. I really just don't want to be talking about controversies and things. It's not really what my channel's about. So I kind of prefer not to engage with it. Robin Pope says, perhaps this is too personal, you don't have to answer of course. How does Alexa Fimea affect your ability to recognize if you love somebody? For me, it's really hard if I like someone very much or love somebody. That's a really interesting thing because like, like, it's kind of different to like the base emotions that we have, like happiness, sadness, fear, anger, things like that. Love is a bit more like, up to interpretation, subjective, I suppose. And I think everyone has their own ideas of at what point they decide that they are in love with somebody. You know, for me, I kind of find it, you know, find the most use in characterizing what love is by looking into philosophy and like, more of like the thinky kind of subjects rather than science like I would with the other ones. I think it tends to be a lot slower for me. It takes me quite a while to feel that kind of thing. And I don't... Yeah, it's a difficult one. I'm not going to lie, you know. Angela says my boyfriend is also struggling with that. Yeah. No, I get that. Well, it's not as easily characterized and it's also like, at what point could you say that that is the case? Is it just because you decide that there's like certain factors that you look at to decide whether you feel that way or not? Because I think for some people, it can be a very kind of flippantly used word. But for others, it can be quite an important, like, sort of serious word that you only use like now and again. So if you are kind of more akin to that, like, oh, this is like a serious thing. And if I say this, this means something very, very important, then it's probably going to take you a lot longer to like decide whether that's the right word for it. I hope that helps. I realize it's a bit of a roundabout kind of answer to that. Alephia says, thank you for everything you do. As someone who received a late diagnosis, it helps a lot. I'm really, really glad about that. I know that the late diagnosis experience can be tough. It's kind of like having a new adolescence, I guess, in some ways. I only hope your perception of me hasn't changed since the interview. Now, honestly, like, I didn't really feel like that was the center of the podcast anyway. Like, the television and Miko stuff, it's like a very small part of it. Andrew says, my boyfriend, yeah. Robin Pope says, yeah, it helps. Thanks so much. No worries. Paint, Byron says, oh, it's fun getting older. Finding out now that I hit my forties. I need more bounce back. So if you're going to stop, don't push hard. I did and I think I'm regretting it. Hmm. Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. I think for me, like, it's less of like a... It's kind of always been the case for me that I have very, very high expectations of myself, but at the same time have pretty bad, like, poor self-esteem. It's quite a difficult combination, I would say. If you imagine, like, you're constantly wanting to achieve more and constantly feeling like you haven't achieved that, it's tough. Hello, Shaney. How do you feel about body hair? Is it sensory health or not an issue? I don't like it, especially this area. If it gets, like, even a tiny bit of hair in this area or it gets too long on my facial hair, it can be, like, very annoying or distressing or, you know, constantly scratching and stuff. But, I mean, to be honest, I naturally have quite a lot, and I've only recently been trying to, like, groom it and shape it and things like that, so... I don't know. It's better for me because, you know, going to the gym and stuff, like, it's nice to feel clean and smooth. I kind of like it. It's a lot, though. I'm going to experiment with different ways of controlling that at the moment, but, you know... Do you have... Did you have a hard time fitting in? Oh, I always do. I don't think I fit in many places in life. I don't think there's... But, at the same time, I don't think that's an issue because, you know, I've never had the need or want to kind of fit in. Like, I'm happy being kind of a bit of, like, the black sheep kind of person within a friend group or within a community. I know that I'm different, and I know that I'm not kind of... I don't fit into certain boxes very well, so... It's never something that I really, you know, strive for a lot. Plushmark says, hello from NYC. I learned a lot from you. Thank you. You are very welcome. Welcome to the stream. PM Ferreira says, Thomas, do you have any insecurities about defending the negative autistic traits? I feel I have flaws because of being autistic, but not sure how to reconcile them. Defending the negative traits. Yeah, perhaps things around social interactions like processing time. Processing time is very difficult to self-advocate for, especially in the moment because it usually you have to do it when you're not in a good place and it's difficult to kind of communicate and get your point across. So, yeah, I definitely say that that's probably the hardest thing to... I don't think I would feel that I need to defend my autistic traits from other people. It's more about whether I can self-advocate for myself and get my needs met, kind of thing. That lad says, Alex Fimea played a massive role in me not realizing I was in love with my ex for the very first time in my life, which resulted me in leaving that person. So it is hard. Yeah, and I do go that as well. And I think for me, having a general look into... It's very much on par with the podcast that I just recently done, but definitely looking into different people's writings on different emotions like love or even things like hate, things like that, and really going into the philosophy behind those kind of things and those concepts I found was really helpful for me. Rob Parton says I have a question. They say people on the autism spectrum prefer routine, but if things don't go according to plan, would that bother you or are you flexible about small changes? Good question. I'd say that in general, having a routine that I follow and if I fulfill that routine, it generally makes me a lot more comfortable and calm in life than if I don't have one. If there are small changes in my routine, it tends not to bother me, but if it's a small change and then a small change back and then another small change, that's when it can sometimes cause me a lot of stress. It's kind of shifting gears in your brain. It's like having multiple transitions in the same kind of period of time. That can be really difficult. But then again, I would say it's very much tied into how I am feeling generally. Is my mental health okay? Am I doing well? Have I expended my social battery a little bit too much? Have I been doing too much work? There's a lot of factors involved in that. It's never a definitive, this is always going to make me stressed. Sometimes it might be that I can tolerate everything and can just seemingly glide and float through a sea of chaos. But other times, even a smallest kind of change can just be way too much. Peef, various as my judgment when it comes to dealing with people or daily tasks can be impaired, so it's sad for me. Also, the need to obsessively go back and forth to state my viewpoint is also my downfall. Yeah, I think that's another thing. You feel like you have to explain a lot. That's something that over time I've kind of realized that I don't necessarily need to do too much. The only times that I find creating content and receiving negative comments from people is when it's wrong. If it's a fair judgment and it is sort of right, then it doesn't affect me. But if people misinterpret who I am or what I'm trying to say or doing stuff like that, then I think sometimes that can be a lot like it can be much more annoying than it would be if it was true. But I think you just kind of have to have a bit of a shake yourself and just be like, oh, this doesn't matter and just get on with things and let that person kind of stew over it. Because the thing about being annoyed and being angry or anything like that, it feels like it's an emotion that affects other people while you're feeling it, it really just affects you and especially like in an online context. It really just affects you. So I think that's always an important thing to remember about that stuff. Ikra Best says, hi, how are you doing? How do you deal? I'm not sure what that means. Barry Spicer just wanted to say thank you. You provide a positive role model and provide really helpful insights. You're very welcome. Jessica Fortune says, I don't dig facial hair on my face. Is it common for autistic men? I don't know if it's common. I don't know if there's, I don't know. I don't know if I know a lot of autistic men who have facial hair, to be honest. Autistic Callum does. Yeah, Paul McAlliff, the Aspiod. Yeah, I don't know. It would be cool. Epical to like, no, do a study. Like, do you guys have facial hair and compare it to neuro-typical control groups? Retin is what people want. Not good for men a half, totally. Lake Swessa, hello, hello. How do you deal with social anxiety? I used to deal with... I think the way... It's always a long-term thing. Like, I have yet to find something that has reliably helped me feel better in a social setting other than, you know, the obvious outside influences. So I'd say that overall it's kind of about your mindset. Like, we can often feel in a social group, like... Especially if we have had a lot of experiences where we've had negative experiences and not really had many friends and we might feel quite isolated. We sometimes feel like we have to, like, force ourselves to engage constantly and not, you know, if you are someone like myself who, you know... I kind of like to just sit back and listen to what people are saying and perhaps pitch in now and again. And it's not always the case that I feel like I want to pitch in and I think that's okay. You don't always have to be, like, engaged wholly in a conversation. I think with other people, it's also important to remember that, you know, it is cheesy and I know it is. But definitely being yourself is important. To some extent, you do want to make some effort, especially if you are one-to-one with somebody and you, you know, it passes in like an interview or it's the first time you meet a friend or a friend group or a romantic partner. I'm sure that there is always going to be kind of an element of pressure because you do want to kind of make that effort and show that you are, you know, someone worthy of being friends with or having a relationship with or being hired for a job, which I do get. But I think, overall, just remembering that, you know, it's not necessarily this performative thing that you can make it out to be. Like, it's okay not to achieve this high level of charisma all the time. And you shouldn't strive to take things as you would yourself in terms of what you like to do with social conversations. And if you come across someone who is like you and likes that direct stuff and all of that, then you're probably going to get on. If they're not and they don't perhaps like that and, you know, you just don't gel well together, then that's just how it is. And it's kind of, you know, you can't be liked by everybody, sadly. PM says, oh, Angela says, I love the deep conversations I can have with my autistic friends and boyfriend. They all have the beautiful, unique look on things. They talk for hours. I love it. Also, the honesty, I appreciate a lot. Definitely, definitely. The honesty is a great thing. And it's not favourable to a lot of people. Like, some people just don't like it. And you can have situations like that. You just say stuff bluntly to what, you know, in a conversation and people are just like, what? They just don't expect someone to be so kind of direct and to the point and kind of wanting to fill up the space with like a word salad. Like, you know what I mean? Is it possible for impaired judgement to be forgiven as an autistic trait? There's no excuse as being autistic is no excuse for being an a-hole when not my intention, I'm still learning. I think it's very complicated. I think it's really important to do take accountability for some things but also, if you know that it's not something that you intended then you should self-advocate for yourself or you should at least think for yourself and kind of be like, oh, okay, I misinterpreted this wrong. They misinterpreted that wrong and just kind of leave it at that and not try and think about it too much. I think it's always good to try and understand situations but I think to a certain degree, you know, you've got to take things as they come in social contexts. It's not all this complicated thing that I have a lot of the time made out to be. Rachel C. says, hi again, hello, welcome back to the stream. MyKNAlien says, what was your latest eye-opener you had about autism? I still seem to learn new things since my diagnosis. Well, latest eye-openers. That's a good question. What are my latest eye-openers? I think I've recently been doing some research into this condition called body dysmorphic disorder which is basically like body dysmorphia as we know it but it's particularly about your face. I was watching a documentary on that and it was really interesting because they did some studies and they could actually identify people who are very likely to have BDD, body dysmorphic disorder, by the way that they interpret faces. They show people different faces and use an eye tracker and stuff and I was like, hmm, this seems strangely close to our differences, the autistic differences with interpreting indirect communication. I've kind of been having a think about that and looking into some more stuff around it so I'm hoping to do a podcast on that at some point. Yeah, definitely. I'd say that if I could give one concept to everybody to look into it would be like sphymia of course because it was just the most transformative aspect of autism that I understood that had the most impact on my life in a positive way. Jenny says, I've finally caught a live. Hey, hello, welcome. I think this is the most joins we've had on YouTube streams so I'm very happy about that. Luke Swiss says, I'm on the list with Asperger's Service Essex going to wait another year, any advice for the assessment? I think just try and reduce anxiety as much as possible because they're going to ask you some things and they're going to do some things which, like they're wanting to see a natural response to that, to some things and some of our natural responses to some of the ways that the assessors are going to be, you know, confusing and perhaps a little bit of anxiety provoking and a bit weird and stuff like that. So I'd say definitely just try not to do too much research into it and just go to the assessment and just go for it and have some time beforehand, have some time afterwards to kind of chill after. That would be the main thing that I would suggest. Ikra says, your content is inspiring and helpful? Very, very good. Nadia says, hello from San Francisco Bay Area. Love your posts. Thank you. Nadia and welcome to the stream. So we have hit the half an hour mark, so we've got about half an hour left. Yes. Any questions? Please go for it. Angela says, Alex Fimea was an eye-opener for me and my boyfriend, it was very helpful to learn about. Totally. And it's very strange like how little, like autism specialist, GPs, medical practitioners, just don't know about Alex Fimea. It's just such a massive thing. It's like surely there would be a package or like a learning module for working with autistic people considering we are a vulnerable group in terms of mental health. But no, nobody knows about it, which is really frustrating because it has such a big impact on the way that we process emotions and life and also the outcomes of therapy. Very, very, very important thing to know about. Autism says, do you have any tips on how to learn to take care of yourself? I have long suppressed my needs and only recently received my diagnosis. Greetings from Germany. I think, would you be able to ask me a little bit more of a specific question because I could think of lots of ways to improving taking care of yourself. I think maybe for an autistic person, definitely understand your own sensory profile and meet your sensory needs, whether that's through adjusting things in your environment, like your home environment, whether that's sensory supports, whether that's exploring different ways of stimming, meeting different needs that you may have. I think that's definitely a really good place to start off. And also, going through, you know, typing like a hashtag, hashtag like actually autistic or hashtag neurodivergent, any of those things and just following a bunch of people. You can even go into my following list and check out some of the people that I follow and just learn about it. And as you see things and as you relate to things, try and look into it and try and make some adjustments and over time, over time taking it slowly, you will start to see some positive changes in your life. PM Ferris says that when I look back at my interview face, I do not communicate well, yet people feel I was communicating clearly. That's good to know I come across timid in talking to people as a result. Yeah, I think you communicated well, honestly. I wouldn't kind of focus too much on that stuff, honestly. Angela says, true, never, never heard of it before I found your channel. It's really not talked about a lot. It's definitely like the main thing that I would encourage people to learn about. Jay Todd says, how do you deal with depression? I'm debating starting anti-depressants again, but I don't like the side effects, totally. Depression, as many of you may know, I have had quite severe depression, anxiety since I was 14, and it's been the case all the way up until now. So it's been a long time, about 12 years, and I'd say that medication is pretty much a lifeline for me. I have any time that I've tried to go off it. It just hasn't really worked. I'm not going to go into too much detail about why, but I think it's important to know that sometimes we may react differently to medication. So with SSRIs, sometimes it can actually produce anxiety in us, and it does definitely with me. So I'm on a very high dose of SSRIs, and my doctors, my GPs prescribed kind of a sedating anti-anxiety medication alongside it, which has helped. That obviously comes with its own set of side effects and things like that, but I think overall it's been quite... Medication has helped me, but exercise, you know, as much as... If we could bottle the effects of positive effects of exercise on the body and the brain into a pill, it would be the most successful pill ever, because it really does do a lot to regulate, and that can be anything. That can be sport, that can be cardio, that can be home workouts, that can be going to the gym. Anything really does... It does help. Anxiety, depression, pretty much everything. So I'd really highlight that. I think as well it's important to... When you're thinking about where you are in life, or what expectations you have of yourself in life, that you really take a look at those and try and be a bit kinder to yourself, because a lot of the expectations that we can have of ourselves, they're usually sort of these general expectations that are put on everybody in society, and we are not everybody in society. We are different, and it's good to have different expectations. You do want to strive to improve and stuff, but it's important to recognise that sometimes you may not have the capacity to do so, and sometimes it may take you a bit longer to do certain things, or to maintain certain things, and some things you might need support with, and some things you might need, not need support with. So just recognising that, and understanding that you are different, and the world is not built for you, and just being like, okay, I'm doing well, and just being like, there's more wins. Really important overall. Having a meaning and a purpose and a goal to strive for, very important, especially if a long term dealing with depression for me. Angel says, I love learning about autism so I can understand it better. I can be helpful and understanding to my son and all my loved ones of autism. That's beautiful. I love that. Faria says, I had depression since I was on the same age as you, Thomas. I can relate. Suffer with emotional fragility since I was born. Neither say you're braver than I am to do a podcast. Well, I wouldn't say that. You came on. You did your part, you know? I'm definitely not the most emotionally stable person ever. You know, I tried. When I'm in a good place, I am. I'm like a rock. But when I'm not, when my mental health gets the best of me, when things are a little bit too much, and they go down, they get into a slump or get into a burnout, very much the case that I have a lot of moments where I find things very, very overwhelming. So, you know, it's just something that happens. You know, we can't always be on a level with things and we are human. We're biological animals. You know, we're going to find things hard that are emotional. You know, they're just gonna affect us. You know, it's... If emotions didn't affect us, then we would just be robots. You know, I'm one of our robots. Hello, Austin. Welcome. And hello, Mason. Welcome to the stream. Lovely to see you, man. How are you doing? Freedom Lovers says, hey, Thomas. Autismus says, thank you. You're very welcome. Mike WLM says, I've never been diagnosed as being autistic. I've had people ask me if I am before and I did an autism e-learning course as part of my work and I related to a lot of the things that are on there. And I also feel... I'm assuming there's another little bit of information. I relate to a lot of your posts. I'm 39 now, so it'd be worth trying to see. So, would it be worth trying to see if I can get a diagnosis? I don't see the harm in having a look and seeing if you can go for a diagnosis. I would definitely follow a lot of the creators online. You will find so much resources, help, information on the autistic experience from both a knowledge and experiential angle. And you can do a lot of the stuff yourself and within the community we are accepting of self-diagnosed individuals so it doesn't necessarily mean that you can't be a part of the community and you can't explore it before you get a diagnosis. You can do it now. You can have a look at the stuff. There's a lot of stuff that you can do without having that kind of medical diagnosis. Definitely. I'd say that if you're really struggling in certain environments like work or life or anything to do with what you say not economics like if you have issues with money or supporting yourself and living and your executive function and taking care of yourself then I would definitely go for a medical diagnosis because then you could get some government funded benefits in the workplace. You could also get particular benefits which may help perhaps reducing the workload that you do perhaps you could have reduced your days and use perhaps something like PIP to fill in the gaps there. Rachel C. says I'm on and off depression I definitely find that mine is cyclical it's a lot but being kind is important I agree. It's difficult because the nature of being depressed is that you are going to have a little bit more of a negative outlook on things you're going to find things to be very bleak you're not really going to find much hope or positive silver linings to things which is natural like if you are suffering from depression but I think it's definitely good to to kind of put things into perspective you know perhaps you are feeling bad for and you're feeling like you can't work or you're feeling like you can't function for a few weeks a year perhaps or a month a year you know you've got to think about those other months what you like what have you achieved in those months what have you done and quite often you'll find that once the fog clears you do very well and just kind of reminding yourself of that on a more regular basis when you're in those states can be important doesn't always help due to the nature of it but definitely I agree because that's very good for mental health totally Mike WLM says thank you with a nice little heart there you're very welcome we were just about hitting the quarter past mark we've got about 15 minutes left if you have enjoyed it so far the stream if you're on YouTube likes are great and you can become a member for as little as $19.90 a month if you want to support my work which would be very much appreciated and if you are on Instagram and you find what I'm doing helpful there are some badges which will appear for the rest of the stream but it does kind of help support me doing what I love which is autism stuff PM Ferris says that with the past week it feels makes me question whether I'm a good person but I struggle generally to be a positive person to not think like that so I question myself it's about self-worth I guess it's about not letting people walk all over me to make me miserable to stand up for myself yeah I think it's less about standing up for yourself in every single situation sometimes when standing up for yourself can help you achieve your needs like or support you better then standing up for yourself is important but if it's not and if it's just people on the internet definitely not thank you very much for joining the Auti Legion section of the channel I hope you enjoy your little red infinity but the infinities do change colours the longer that you remember I think Mr Austin has a green one now but thank you very much Angelo it means a lot Jay Todd says if noise is a trigger for you how do you deal with it there's a construction on my street for the past couple of months and I felt like I'm surrounded by noise all the time yeah I heard something about like someone described it I think Undercover Auti described it as auditory claustrophobia which I really like the term of it it's like when you have so much noise around you you feel kind of closed in kind of without sensory mass as much as you can try and drown out the noise whether that's for me I like to use a fan for that I like noise counselling headphones those can be really good you can also get some perhaps ear defenders or if you don't want to wear ear defenders you can get some ear plugs which can reduce the noise that you can get you can find some in my link tree from this company called D-Buds if you want to check those out but it's kind of a difficult one isn't it because you could probably do a lot you could like get everything you could like bolster the walls so that it's soundproof but that's not really helpful for a lot of people I don't think I would have the funds to go and soundproof my entire house so I would definitely have a look into small things that you can do on a daily maybe try and get some time in the day where you just kind of listen to your music and if it's getting too much maybe make some adjustments and just kind of give yourself some time to decompress I hope it's not going on through the night because that would be awful happy to join the club it's awesome, great to have you thank you very much Angela we've got about 13 minutes left so if you've got any burning questions that you want to ask me please go for it I am very much excited to get this latest podcast I think it's going to be a really good one I am hoping as well once my mental health is a bit more stable burnout as subsided I am hoping to do a lot more streaming so if you have tuned into not these streams like over on YouTube I do like proper three and a half hour long streams autism content that people have made online so watch some stuff about recent news and give my autism angle and stuff so yeah, if you're interested in that you can check out my channel obviously there's loads of podcasts and stuff on there but yeah what inspired you to start your career I had a very tough time growing up I didn't have any real role models for myself there wasn't really content out there that I could draw up on to help me I didn't really find any resources online about mental health or autism helpful and I was like maybe I can be one of those people that I needed when I was younger but even in adulthood to be honest because it can be tough living as an autistic person in this world I think the best stuff that I've seen comes from real autistic people, real lives real struggles, real talents, real angles and perceptions on things that can really share their experiences and help other people feel less alone and more able to cope with things in life Jay Todd bought a badge for the stream thank you very very much for that helping support the streams that I do very much appreciated thank you I really hope Instagram allows a feature at some point for keeping the badges throughout different streams because it's not like on youtube where you can just have a badge that stays it's like something just for the stream that you do it I hope they change something or they add something like that that would be a bit more cool but thank you Jay Todd, much appreciated Freedom Lovers says I needed you and I'm glad you're doing your job thank you I'm honored to be one of those people honestly it makes me really happy that I can hear that I am doing some good it's definitely what drives what gets me to muster the energy to get out of these burnout stages when everything feels a little bit too much much appreciated PM Ferris says I was wondering whether you provided developmental help for autistic people by email making a nudge to places that can help develop people what do you mean, like a nudge to help places I would love to do that that would be great not sure if I would be able to manage it on a long term basis at the moment I am producing a lot of content on instagram I'm working on like a resource book I'm actually a little bit of a behind the scenes on what's been going on but I'm actually making a workbook that people can use after they have found out that they're autistic it's going to be like a post diagnosis handbook that's informed by my experience my knowledge of autism around things like on masking sensory things all of that kind of stuff just to give people a bit of a basis navigating the community a bit of a basis to navigating themselves perhaps making some improvements perhaps explaining some of the feelings that you may have when you find out that you're autistic and the kind of journey that you go on with that I'm hoping that that would be a really good resource I'm working with a lady called Zora and she's working on an autism and sleep workbook which is going to be really cool so I'm hoping to get something produced this year so I'll definitely let you all know about it but really excited to actually get something out there advice like links yeah I understand what you mean like looking for resources and things like that it's definitely something that I would explore perhaps when I'm a little bit more established than perhaps I have a bit of a team around me I might be able to do some stuff like that does it register as high most of your stream hope you're well really enjoy your content and recently discovered I and half of my immediate family are all undiagnosed autistic some of us are the HD lol great question any advice on how to approach an autistic man who I'm interested in but it's fearful of it failing slash me running away after I get to truly know him very very very individual very complex scenario I'd say that a lot of direct reassurance is important like for me and a lot of the people I've talked to um they don't tend to really like assume how people feel about them even if they're like talk to them a lot like could have situations where you have a friend that you meet up with a lot and you're gonna do stuff with but if they never really like say how much they mean to you it can sometimes feel like you're not really that good friends I guess so being direct about how you feel and also you know having the outlook I think it's definitely something that they would have to work on if they're kind of fearful of it failing and you running away um that's not the best way to be um approaching life in terms of relationships I would say it's kind of that whole anxiously attached kind of thing I understand it and it's kind of a feeling that I get in both relationships and friendships any kind of interactional relationships that I have with people perhaps they may not really like me as much after getting to know me which is I think something that all of us can relate to to some degree you know there's always that honeymoon period of time that you have like when a relationship starts and when that kind of um dies off to some degree that honeymoon period some people can just really not like that and just want to move on with things but if you have someone who is wanting to you know be committed and wanting to invest in you and you're wanting to invest in them then I don't see any reason why not that happening um perhaps just be a bit softer around it it doesn't necessarily like if it's important to you obviously like defining the relationship would be important but um maybe just trialing things out going on dates you know things like that and not necessarily having too much pressure on it to be called a thing to be where things go getting to know each other in a more kind of one-to-one setting I think it's very important Leigh Day says do you have any food restriction growing up and if so how did you overcome it I didn't have as much as um like I definitely didn't have ARFID I didn't have a lot of restriction behaviors I did find particular textures and foods difficult like particularly when food was mixed together with others or there's lots of different textures involved um within foods or textures like tomatoes that have like the crunchy kind of outer shell and the squishy inside ugh um that was hard but overall I wasn't too bad I did have a lot of safe foods a lot of blends things like chips and chicken nuggets and things like that um but it wasn't really it hasn't really ever been an issue um I think maybe an unoverangle to that might be things around ED which I definitely did have when I was a teen um but I'm not sure if that's what you were getting at uh Ferri says um hello Zachary I don't know if I said hi um I'm sure there was a woman that was interested in me in the past but I missed my chance because I didn't notice in time uh relate to that yeah heavy heavy heavy relate yeah I just don't pick up on even now very much don't pick up on signs of interest has to be very very apparent uh as Zachary says uh I noticed a thing lately where I'm not having the same real intense emotional reaction stuff like I used to and in some ways it's nice but in others it kind of bothers me of experiencing intense emotions it's like a it's exciting or terrifying but it kind of gives you a sense of life like going on the ups and downs of life which I think once things kind of turn to something a bit more calmer and you feel a bit more on top of things you don't necessarily have those highs and lows as much um I think that I have experienced a lot of medication definitely that experience um so yeah uh does it say thank you yes I agree it's difficult with that kind of mindset or good tips I'm really good I hope I'm just like weird vomited at you Zachary says I just don't feel super enthusiastic about stuff like I used to and I kind of miss it yeah no I I get that uh Jay Todd says gotta go thank you for all the wisdom and all you do see next Friday see you next Friday thank you Todd uh Jay Todd very much appreciate the badge um so we have about a minute left of the stream and it has been lovely um as usual I really enjoy doing these kind of things um if you guys are interested in checking out my podcast I would definitely encourage you to either check out on Spotify or Apple or Google or YouTube if you want if you want to watch the shorter clips um I do have a lot of those up there that are you know on a lot of the different topics that we've we've brought up or things that I've talked to so um yeah go go check that out um Rob Patton says thanks again for sharing your perspective on routine tasks uh it's great to hear different viewpoints from people um on the host's spectrum on that topic totally yeah I think it's a very variable thing you know Andrew says thank you for another lovely stream you're very welcome and thank you for coming a member it really does you know the more the more that I can get the things rolling with um you to you and my online stuff for the more that I can um put more energy and time into it and um I ultimately my my goal is to kind of make this my full career so um you're helping me get to that point so thank you uh p.m. first is it okay to chat with you Thomas about some advice for myself on Instagram or my email um I don't think at the moment maybe in the future I think because I'm in a burnout at the moment it's it's a bit hard for me to offer um support to others um but maybe maybe in the future or if you want to ask some questions during the stream um you're very welcome to as well so yeah um I'm gonna try and wrap things up now but um been lovely and um I hope to see you next week same time 530 BST to 630 BST um really looking forward to seeing guys chatting to you um and if you want to be updated when I do my streams make sure to subscribe on YouTube you can join in there will be some clips and stuff that will be going out um little sections of different videos that I watched but uh if you want to get involved in the actual live stream that would be be lovely uh good question Joshy but might have to be for the next stream um thank you Lady thank you everyone who joins and I will see you later guys