 As an autistic person, sort of being so different, we carry with us a lot of negative experiences with life that definitely do affect our perception of other people, but also of ourselves that we kind of hold on to in the back of our heads that can often be really damaging, I guess. It's one of the things that I tell a lot of people when they first get diagnosed is not necessarily like unmasking or learning how to stem or understanding your sensory things, but actually kind of going through these thoughts that you have of yourself and trying to find where the root of it is, and quite often it's the root of it's not necessarily to do with who you are or your personality, but as you do to miscommunication or the environment that you're in, and so even if you have done bad things to people or said bad things to people, it's looking at it for a different lens for what it is, it really does help you process things even if it is something that you don't want to do. I really clicked on something you said there on the saying or doing things, saying or doing bad things to people, that really clicked in my head a lot because I'm stemming like crazy at this whole time, but to people out there and like with me too, growing up, I was a difficult kid. I have level two autism, very bad ADHD, and I had a lot of outbursts and meltdowns and I was very difficult and I would get violent. I don't anymore because I'm older and I know a lot more, but I would get violent. I had no control over it. I want to bring that up because I want people to not feel bad because you can't help it at some point. Everyone who has autism, it is a disability for a reason because you become disabled sometimes where you're unable to act and behave the way that you want to. No matter how much inside, you're like no, no, no. What's actually happening and what you're doing does not match with what you're telling yourself, don't feel bad. You can't help it and it's okay. Anyone that makes you feel bad about it isn't really that good of a person. Especially in school, it's very much a defensive thing because the environment is so complex and everyone's moving forward socially at a speed that you're not able to keep up with. You get into a lot of situations where you are taking advantage of all those differences. You can think of direct communication and picking up non-verbal cues. For me, it was very much that my defence mechanism was to go inside myself and not react or not do anything like that. I remember a certain situation at school where there was someone who, I don't know, for some reason, they punched me in the balls and I just didn't react. I just like, I like stone-faced them and usually that would have worked to some degree, but it didn't because their friends came and they were like, hey, look, Tom can get punched in the balls and he can be okay. And so of course, they all gathered around and started punching me in the balls. So it wasn't necessarily the best in every social place. If I was there, I would not have taken them down for you. That was part of what I did when I was in school too. That was always my thing. I'd always get in the way of those things because it's not okay and I've just always been able to kind of handle those things and I've wanted to, not to be the violent person, but to stand up for you, like people like you and me because you're me. I just for some reason have this fight in me since the day I was born and I've got to do something with it so I would do good things. I would beat people up for you because that would not be okay. Not if I was there. And then we'd sit at the same lunch table. I did get to a point where I was kind of feeling like confident, like I very much felt like a ton of anger, even though I was so sort of, to the point where I would placid, non-confrontational at school. I very much like held on to a lot of anger. So most of my nights that I spent at school, I would go to the gym on my own. I had like this, this scholarship because of doing my taekwondo and I would like work out in the morning and the night and I would literally like rid myself of all this energy. I never actually got into any confrontations at school like that I like fully, fully went into but I did have some situations where I'd talk to people who were like picking on my friends. Yes, it's usually other people. It's not me. I'm like, I just, yeah, there was like these two bullies that used to come like and steal our football and kick it over the roof and like twang our ears with like elastic bands and one of them was like a really big guy. And he was absolutely ginormous. You know, bear in mind that was like the age of 15, 16, he was he looked like he was like built like a fully grown man who did strong man. But I went up to him one time and was like, can you stop doing that? And he was like looking at me like, like, because nobody ever like said that to him before that you could, you know, it was like, he's tried to do it again. I was like, no, please don't. It's not comfortable. And I was talking to him and I was like, do you not have anything better to do than come and like harass us at lunchtime? Like, I'm not saying it in an aggressive way or like a conversation. Yeah. Yeah. And so that that was kind of like the first time that I'd really, I guess, confronted someone verbally. It's and it's very much something that has come in handy, I guess, in adulthood. Like if someone's just in a very confrontational aggressive mood, just for no reason, really, they just don't like the look of me. I just have a chat with them. And it usually seems to blow over. Okay. I think that knowing how to do martial arts helps as well, because you just don't like feel a sense of danger, I guess around most people.