 Good day my lovely listeners. You are listening to The Forty Autie Podcast. Tune in every week to explore inspiring stories and insightful information that dive headfirst into the world of autism and mental health. With all those tantalizing tongue twisters out of the way, let's get into the show. Today's podcast episode is proudly sponsored by Timo, the award-winning app designed to support neurodivergent people just like yourself with routine and scheduling. Head to your app store and type T-W-I-M-O to learn more. Hello listeners, Asperger's Legion. Welcome back to The Forty Autie Podcast. How are you doing today? It is a very strange week for me because I've had a little bit of a bad bout of depression and I've also been feeling quite sick lately. Nothing too much to worry about but I'm very glad to be here today to talk to my lovely guest, Lewis Odie, who is a radio presenter. How are you doing Lewis? I'm doing fine man, how are you? Yep as I said like it's definitely been a little bit tough this past week or so but I feel like my productivity and my mood is steadily improving which is good I suppose. So yeah, would you like to give everybody a little bit of an introduction into who you are and the kind of stuff that you do? Yeah I'll be good too. So I'm Lewis Odie and you got my name right. I'm quite happy about that. We're off to a good start there. But yeah, so I was a student at Salford University. I've now graduated. I'm in the real world now. My hobbies, I love media, I love creating stuff, I love finding new things out and love gaming, love exercise. Basically I love many things also going out but I can't do that moment. But yeah, so I'm autistic and I used to hate that really much when I was in high school but now I'm beginning to kind of own it and appreciate it and like a person in my documentary that I just created on autism and said it's kind of like a superpower and I really do believe in that. I think it makes me me. So yeah, I'm happy to be on this podcast to talk about you know, whatever you want to talk about. That's really it. So cool. So we got in contact through my friend Nick Ransom who was actually on the podcast I think a couple of weeks ago and he sort of got us in contact together and we had a little chat and you sent me the projects that you created around your experience with autism diagnosis. You brought in some some people who are autistic to give their views and I think it was mostly it was mostly focused around the diagnosis of you and the experiences that your your mom had as well going through that system. But what I really want to know is what made you want to create that piece? Like was there any moments of inspiration that made you decide to do that? Or is it just something that you wanted to share? I guess the truth is that I was looking to do a final project and basically I for the listeners, I was studying a course I was studying a course called television and radio. And I was more focused on the radio aspects. So we're asked for a final project which is the equivalent to a dissertation to have an idea and to make it into a radio documentary, where we would mimic that of BBC radio for kind of one. My my first idea for that was going to be on the Oh God. Is it it's called something island? Yeah, it'll come back to me. It's basically erasure erasure. No, it's it's where the British government in the 1950s, I think. And yeah, 1950s. They were on 1950s and 60s. They were testing hydrogen bombs and nuclear bombs. And my grandmother got sent to this island with people from New Zealand and Australia and the British and that kind of stuff. And it was his national service. And I heard about the story of how they would drop the hydrogen bombs on, you know, the island. No, it's called Christmas Island. Christmas Island. That's why it's Yeah. So basically, they were just human guinea pigs. And you can research this, because it is quite interesting. And to cut long story short, they didn't have adequate protection from the nuclear radiation blasts. And so, you know, they got counter and they got all kinds of sickness. And since then, they've been trying to get funding and help from the government. I think every government, every country's government to path from the UK's has given help to these people. So it's still a big issue. And it still needs to be resolved in the UK. So I don't know why that's not happened. But oh, well, governments, that's what governments are. What made you want to create the project around autism, instead of that? It was just it was very hard. Alright, so it's very hard to get contributors willing to talk about their experiences, and to actually come on and speak about it. So I had a helper at uni who was a special advisor, she was called Debbie. And she was in the documentary as well, she was speaking. And she's you know, she said, I think you should try and do another one get another idea to go. So I said, I may do my autism. And quickly, she was telling me about the, you know, the advantages and disadvantages of it. But I was dead set, I wanted to create that. So I got to work on it. And well, the first thing I wanted to do was the history of autism. So like, the research and whatnot. But yeah, let me tell you, there is a lot of research out there, which it would be quite hard to fit that into a 30 minute program. Some of it is a bit of dodge as well. Yeah, it is. I don't look at that. I think that's personally, I think that's very stupid. I only go on to them to laugh at them, really. But basically, yeah, so I begin researching the proper history with like, Hans Asperger, Leo Kanna, Lorna Wing, and looking at the reports they did on children of autism in the 40s and 50, you know, 40s and 30s. And then I went to Lorna Wing and she was the person to put on like a proper auto, you know, scheduling kind of thing where diagnosis program called disco, her and Judith Gold, yes. And basically, I wrote kind of a script for that. I record this and I put it in. And I was happy with it. So I carried on found more contributors. And, and yeah, can you hear that in the background, by the way? No. Okay, that's good. Sorry, there's something outside. So I'm just worried. And, but basically, so I found these three four contributors who were also students of Debbie, Debbie, as well, my helper, what you want to call it. And she got in contact with them and they came back and one was Daniel, one was called Daniel, no one was called Aaron, no one was called Zach. Zach was a scientist. Daniel was a is well, is still a student at UCLan doing a master's degree. And Aaron has just finished his degree at Bolton. And no, not Bolton, and Oldham University in drama, I think drama dance or theatre or something. A wide array of topics. Yeah, it was quite interesting to get a good mix people because one of them was working, Zach was working in the science lab. Daniel was doing his masters, but he was also working at the same time for the university and Aaron was kind of in the same position I was. So yeah, I scheduled my interviews I do with them and they all offer something unique. And then it dawned on me, oh, my project has changed now. It's now more about, you know, these people of autism and how they deal with the condition. So I tailored it more to that end. What was the experience side rather than the factual educational side? Yeah. And then it went to its final stage, the education. So I had a bit bit planned from the start, where I was going to sit down and go through my education and things with that. And when I did that, I realised, Oh, I could get another person I know who's got a son on the autism spectrum is an anti my my no not my anti yeah my anti I think. No, not my anti. Yeah. My uncle, my uncle's son just put that way. He has autism and he's a young young child. It's called Toby. And basically, from there, it's it, it just became more about education process and the good things and the bad things. And yeah, I want then the history got scrapped a little, you know, got mostly scrapped got rid of that still have the script for that. But end up getting rid of it because it was too long winded tonight in my opinion boring, kept the the the part with Emma she was speaking about Toby my mom, then I had other educational people on it like Debbie. And then I I still wanted to have the part in with Daniel and Zach and Aaron. So I did keep that in in the end. And I put that in the end and basically to say it doesn't matter what happens to your son in education. It doesn't matter that he has autism or she has autism. Look at these people here. And you will see that they have not been beaten by their condition, they've owned their condition. And autism and they are basically they're them first and autism that and their autism is second that kind of thing. So yeah, okay. And I think it just came out like that. So I guess for some it's more of an educational factual, you know, it's focusing more on educational and diagnosis issues of autism. But yeah, in my opinion, I would like, I've gotten a lot of feedback on people's favorite bits. And the one keeps cropping up is the ending with saying about their autism and talking about their autism. And I'd have to agree because that is part of the most special parts of me. And I'm quite thankful for them to come on and tell me about that. I think I'm looking looking at your your project as a whole pieces. It's not like a it's not like a podcast. It's not like it's very structured. But you've also got like quite, I feel like you, you've crafted the the storyline very well. And you sort of narrated it as you know, the evidence was being put out and stuff. But it's interesting to think that that you sort of went when you were trying to put together your projects, you were going through basically the same sort of things that I was trying to do when I produced my documentary, in terms of getting in contact with somebody who has a lot of autistic students and asking them to sort of go out and try and pick people up who could do it. And I agree with you, like it's it's so hard to find autistic people. It's not unless they're like openly about open about it. And they parade it across social media and stuff. It's quite hard to nail down interviews and stuff. I think definitely having someone there for me, it's sort of guide me and put me in contact with people made it a lot better as well. I think having that sort of personal experiential angle to any sort of media thing is quite important because it adds a side of humanity to it, you know, a relatability and Yeah, I think you're right. It was very hard finding those people and I would not have found them if it was not for Debbie because I went on Facebook groups. Yeah, only Facebook groups. I could have gone on message boards. I don't think that would have been a bigger difference. But honestly, one getting into these groups hard to some of these groups, and I'll call them out on this, are ridiculous. So I came across a group with people of autism in it. And they wanted, they wanted money to be able to advertise a read for research for interviews and that kind of thing. And I just thought to myself, how dare you monetize this? Like this is just ridiculous. So that really put me off. And, you know, half the groups out there is from mums and parents with children of autism. And I'm in one at the moment. And it's not, it's not what I was looking for on the other half, you know, not that active. So it is hard to get that. So it's, I think you have to target it, like you say, you have to find people who have connections. It's almost like anything, you know, if any interview or any person you want to interview, you have to go through us, you know, different people to get that. I found that the Facebook groups tend to be the other tend to be incredibly toxic and horrible. So, you know, I'd see a lot of posts to deal with. It's sort of discrimination against non autistic people. That seems to be quite a large rhetoric in the, in the groups that I've looked in. But there's also this really strange group that I was talking to my girlfriend about whether there are groups out there or pages that talk about being in a relationship of an autistic person. And she found this group and she, as soon as she got in, she read the description and says, please do not let your autistic partner know that you are part of this group. Honestly, like, it's literally just a hate board. Like it's people saying that complaining can't be. Yeah, it's just people can't be empathetic. They're rude. They're, you know, they upset me a lot. And Oh, yeah. Oh, you well, I guess to those groups and to those people in the group, one, if you have anything to say, be be brave and say it to the person's face. Yeah. And if you're in a relationship, I guess the worst thing you can do is go behind someone's back and start back chatting them to a P to random group of people on the internet and start complaining. It's ridiculous. I do find that ridiculous. It's just very disheartening. It's like, it's not even a case of autism versus neurotypicals. It's just a case of people just being horrible to each other and talking behind the backs of a lot long standing partners. It's if I found I had a partner in that group, I would be very, very, I guess it would really ruin the relationship for me. It was long term. It was long term. I would kind of be like, I kind of ask questions. But this is me. I'm very kind of not cold. But I don't just I just don't take it. You know, if I see a bad person, because I've had people I was bullied in the past in high school, and I know about human behavior, and I think this is probably to do my autism are very perceptive of people. And even though I do think I am good nature and what not, I do get suspicious of people if they start asking weird questions or being a bit toxic or whatnot. Well, yes, it's it's a mechanism that you that you formed to cope with your early life experiences. I think I think we struggle innately knowing what a person's intentions are based on nonverbal communication as well. I think we have to have that sort of suspicion around people to some degree just to sort of weedle out the nasty people. Yeah, in terms of those groups, I think relationships I have seen all the time it's like, God, if you're that concerned about dating a person of autism, then don't date a person of autism. You know, it's it's it's ridiculous. Like it would probably save them more of a hassle, you know, because they have to deal with, you know, I think I've heard the word neurotypical as well. This is kind of coming to my vocabulary now. And it's such a good word. I love it. And even though I don't use it to say it's us versus them, I do think neurotypical people are, you know, they can be a bit weird. When you say, Oh, I'm autistic, they can get a better read kind of like, Oh, you know, like, okay. How do I deal with this? But it's a subject that has a lot of tension behind it, isn't it? It's just anything to do with disabilities or differences, people are generally seem to become quite hyper vigilant when you start talking about it. When you meet someone new and you trust them, do you share that you're autistic with them or does it take time because for me, I tend to tell people who I like. I don't tell everybody about tell people I like and sometimes that can bite me back. But other times it can be the best thing ever. I think because a lot of my work and my media stuff is centered around autism, it's quite hard for it not to come up in conversation. So that means that I do have a lot of situations where I'll tell people that I'm autistic if it comes out. Not necessarily going out with this express intention to, you know, but like a little sticky note on my head and make sure that everybody knows that I'm autistic. It's, I think it's because when I meet someone, I try to make sure that they get a good impression of me first. And then once I tell them that I'm autistic, they already have this view of me as, you know, quite a socially competent person. And then I sort of challenge that with something that goes completely against it. So it's, it's more like a curiosity for other people. Not say there haven't been difficulties when you tell people some people just don't care. Some people don't think it exists. Some people try to tell you what autism is. But in general, it's it's being quite positive for me. But I guess it's just I've learnt to, as he said, sort of discard people that are not nice. I'm not open minded. Sorry, do you think that your knowledge of being autistic in adulthood has sort of adjusted how you process things that have happened in secondary school? Yeah, I would say it's funny because I remember brother always saying to me, you may be in a year, like year 11 or year 10, but you probably like year meant mentally, you're probably a year younger than these people or two years younger. And I would agree in that kind of regard because socially, socially. Yeah, socially. And that kind of stuff. Because I think it's weird, because I don't know if this if this happens to you or anybody you've spoken to. But I feel like I've grown up like I've just realized one day I've grown up a little bit there. I could do this now. You know, when I was in year 10, I used to ask my mate, Harry, you know, how do I be witty? Like that kind of stuff. And now I am witty. And you know, it's that kind of, I guess, not innocence, but cluelessness in a good way. I've not been not learning stuff at the pace where my peers were and catching up at them, which I think I have done now to a certain respect. I think I am at this point, a full functioning adult society, whatever that is. But I think that the strange thing about autism and some of the studies that I've read, it suggests that actually autistic people communicating with each other, it tends to work very well. It's just when an erosypical tries to communicate of an autistic person where the the difficulties come in. There was this study that I'm talking, I think I've mentioned it before in another podcast, but this sort of split group people into groups, autistic people in one, neurotypical in one, and then a mixed one. And this was all about sort of like social cohesion and social communication. And the neurotypical group did really well. But the funny thing was that the autistic group did equally well in these social communication tasks. So it's kind of like the only the problem came in where when it was the mixed group. Yeah. And I think I don't think it's that we don't have social skills because we do tend to be quite hiring hiring IQ and intelligence and a little bit sort of mentally sort of intellectually mature. I guess dealing with groups of people, I if I'm if I know how to deal with a certain type of person, then I'm okay. And I've met people who are neurotypical who are just as quiet and even more quiet than me and don't know how to communicate better than me. Like communication to me, I can do that quite well. That's my strength. I'm very good at that. But at the same time, I've spoken to people on who are neurotypical who find it very challenging to speak. I've had to and this is you know, this is quite ironic. A person with autism has had to, you know, pry the words out with them and and you know, and it's like a stone. Yeah, yeah, that kind of stuff. So we've talked to we've talked a lot about actually the the intricacies of autism and shall we get into the topic? Yeah, about 40 minutes. Yeah, definitely. This happens a lot. Probably one of the reasons why the podcasts are a bit too long. So yeah, we're talking about early diagnosis and trying to figure out what are the benefits and disadvantages of it. I believe that in the UK, you can I think you can get diagnosed at around 18 months, something like that is very early that you can be diagnosed. But for ease, let's say, you know, anything below the age of 13 is an early diagnosis. So prior to teenage hood. Do you think that having an early autism diagnosis was beneficial to you just as a standalone person processing the environment and socializing? Yeah, it definitely helps with understanding your limitations and and what you find difficult. And, you know, in terms of calculating the problems that you have and maybe linking it back to that, but just, you know, sometimes that's not even the case. But yeah, I definitely and so a person out there who is listening or whatnot, and they think they have autism, you know, get a check always get a check, you think you have anything get a check? Because what's the harm in not knowing, you know, in knowing I mean, you know, it, if you have a condition, you have a condition and that's it. And with parents, I think it's more difficult because some parents, they may see it and go, Oh, you know, my son's not different. And especially if it's a newborn, if it's a young child, and new parents, they don't want to be told that their son's different. They don't want to be told that their daughter or whatnot is got something that will affect them and, you know, put certain things on them. So from a parents point of view, and this is the thing that came from my documentary, I understand how they feel. And it's hard to deal with a child of autism at young age. But do you think that going back to sort of your primary school and secondary school days, do you think that do you think that it helped at all with the the common things that autistic people struggle with, like socializing and sensory difficulties and differences? No, because when I was a child, I just ran around and played around. And a lot of a lot of people did that. So I think in that regard, probably not. It's funny, but I think kids, just children are just children when they're younger. And they just want, you know, they don't really care. And I firmly believe that and that kind of stuff. And yeah, children can be mean sometimes. But I never experienced that in my primary school. I love my primary school life. It was it was a blast. It was fun. It was only until probably later on in high in primary school, like when I was in year six, no, year four, year four, year four, that I got my diagnosis. And I don't remember much change. I just got to help her with school funded and that kind of stuff. And at the same time, I think an early diagnosis is important, because it can help your son advance or daughter advance on to, you know, just through the support. Yeah, a person's intelligence is a person's intelligence. A person with autism or any other condition could have a certain level of intelligence. And if they cannot reach that because of their autism or condition, then they need extra support. That would be my number one argument for why people should get an early diagnosis, because it may be hard to start and it may be difficult. But when years to come, it could set the child up for a good, you know, a good education and good growth. It's interesting that you say you said that you personally or individually, you didn't really, I get what you mean, because I was diagnosed when I was 10, which I think is a little bit later than yourself. But I was sort of told the difficulties and the sort of sensory stuff and was given a little bit more support on the social side from my parents and from my teachers and stuff. But it wasn't it wasn't a case that I could really distinguish what the differences between myself and other people were, which I think is one of the sort of the weird aspects of being diagnosed early, because you confronted with things that you'll find hard rather than things that you'll find easy. And so I guess that sort of leads us into, you know, the next question, which I know your mother made a appearance on the audio documentary that you produced. Do you think that your diagnosis helped your parents understand you more and sort of offer you more tailored support? It's a difficult one. My parents and my mum, especially my mum, my mum and my grandma, they knew they knew my grandma knew something was not it was in my development. All right, I need to go back to the first part of the story. So all right. So when I was born, I was a healthy He's starting from the start. I don't know. I won't I won't go into every little major detail, tell you about my birthday. Basically, when I was born, I was all right. And then I got meningitis. I had spets meningitis was quite ill. That's quite poorly. So I went into the hospital, came out, you know, you could imagine I was developing a steady pace. And then I had this and I came out and I started to in my mum's eyes, you know, I was not developing right then. It kind of just stunted. So I started hitting my head against the wall. I started showing behavior, behavioral problems, which were alarming to my parents. And it was my grandma who said to my mum, you know, something's not right to her. So she took me to a pediatrician and this pediatrician pull it. Can I pull it bluntly or is there, you know, what kind of language can I use? Basically, he he was not very forthcoming to my parent, my mum, and he lambasted her for having the audacity to bring me in. He said to her, Oh, he's only used to just a late developer, you know, there's nothing wrong with this child. When there wasn't anything wrong with me. But I had a condition. And it's kind of worrying how a pediatrician didn't realise that. Oh, well. But it was some time later, when I was in year six, no, year four, I keep getting those mixed up. And that my teacher in my class noticed I had same kind of behavioral patterns as a student in the year before, who was also autistic, but he had a diagnosis. So she thought, Okay, all right, I think he's got autism. I'm going to tell his parents. But at the school at the time, and this is it's, it's not, I guess you can call it a conspiracy. It's not the best conspiracy, but it's still a conspiracy. Well, it's not a conspiracy. Basically, our head teacher didn't want to sacrifice the funding that he got into help, you know, basically the fun, the cost of having getting a tutor for me and the personal helper would come out of his funding. So he didn't want to do that. So he would want to do it all to be very hush hush. Yeah, because what you want, yeah, make what you want that. But I, my opinion on it is it's not good. And I think it's to do more with the government and how they kind of distribute the pay and whatnot. I think it's getting better. But then I've get I've heard that it's hard to get statements in now. So it's difficult with the place that I work with now. Yeah, they're trying to scratch some funding to basically just get me into to be that one to one support for an autistic kid. And they're finding it really, really difficult to fund it. Why? Is it has it got has it gotten worse the process? Or is it? I think like it's not necessarily the process. It's just it's difficult. Because obviously, if they're not a special needs school, and they've got someone in there who needs that support, they do have to, you know, they have to pay someone a salary in order to, you know, teach them on top of the teachers salary and all the kind of other financial things. And there's not that much support for that. There's not that much government funding. Even now, I thought it was but it probably possibly could have changed. But yeah, that's the problem. I think you just hit nail on the head and you've got experience of that. So yeah, clarify. So that's clarifies it then. But I mean, yeah, so when when my teacher sat down with my mom and dad on parents evening, she kind of said to them, listen, I can't say this to you out loud. So when this head teacher comes past, we need to keep it hush hush and just talk about, you know, Lewis's progress, normal stuff. But when he's gone, we'll talk about what I think needs to be done to help Lewis. And my parents can look to each other and lie. All right. And then she basically just went on went on. Then the head teacher went past and she went. Yeah, I think Lewis has autism. Because and then she and my mom and dad were like, what? And she basically went, yeah, I think he does because I had a student in my year before and he had the same. He was kind of the same and exhibit the same behaviors and and what not. And then quite short, she basically said, go and get him, you know, go and get him diagnosed so you can get the funding there because you need it. Yeah. So when I got myself diagnosed and, you know, will behold, I had autism. I didn't know because I was just too busy being a child. But yeah, my parents knew and things. And I think probably more relieved them because they wanted to know and they wanted to now they kind of understand that's why Lewis is probably not progressing as well and that thing wanted a name to it. Yeah. So I got the help I needed. I began reading my reading aid to improve the little bits and things and and yeah. And the thing is what my mum and will always say is that she didn't expect me to get to the level I am now where I've just graduated, well, not graduated, but I've just finished uni and that kind of stuff. She thought that I wouldn't be in a good shouts in terms of my education and I would struggle. I'm glad that I defied it and I'm sure she is as well. But yeah, I think that is the reality of these parents who have children on the spectrum who are diagnosed young. They think God, you know, what's going to happen? And that's completely understandable. Do you think that your parents knowing that your your autistic helped help them sort of change their behaviour and approaches towards you at your age? I honestly don't remember it. My parents have always been loving. Don't think it would have mattered anyway. They hit my mum, especially she helped me out with everything. My grandma helped me out with my education and things and my brother's been supportive of me, very supportive. I'm quite lucky in that regard that I have a great family and I know a lot of people don't have that. So I see it, you know, I am blessed in that way. Do you think that it was less sort of on the tailored side and more just? It would think it was just natural. Yeah, it was very natural. They didn't have to adjust their behaviour for it. It just kind of came naturally to them. Yeah, I'll tell you something now, because if you want to know a bit more how my autism was and I knew about it and the processes that I talk about my high school, because that's where I would say my education properly, my autism, my education properly collide. And maybe the trouble started from there. So when I got to high school, at first I was, you know, I was in years, my brother was there, he was in year 11 and I was all right, you know, it was hard to it was hard to fit in. And it was only until like the second week or the first week that was in like, you know, the four days that I was there that I got, I got invited down to this thing called the impact zone, where children with disabilities or conditions or learning difficulties, that kind of stuff hung out. And I felt at home. I felt at home that I could get along with like minor people, I could do my own things, I could play my games and I was happy. I was quite content. But I still, but I was becoming more and more aware that I was a bit different to everybody else. Yeah. So one minute, I was really, I was like, what do you want to call it? I was, I was still innocent. I still thought, you know, I'll be able to play around, I'll be able to do this. But as you get older, people started to develop more intricate personalities and become different people and different groups. And it's just natural. So high school is bad enough for everybody. But imagine if you're autistic or if you're, if you've got something that people think is wrong with you, then it even, it gets even harder. But it's sort of like comparable to moving from somewhere in like Southeast Asia into the UK and not really understanding the culture and stuff. Yeah. My close mates didn't come to the same high school as me. I was the only one. So that was hard in itself. So I had to literally make new mates off the bat. And I did speak to my close mates for about three years in high school. Like I've been three years about speaking to Harry, Will and Adam, who are my close mates now. And it was only until actually I've known, I think I spoke to Harry in year nine and eight. And I think that's when I got back in touch with him. But with Adam and Will, it was mostly in year 10 and 11 that I started to speak to them. And basically ever since then, we speak to each other all the time. But back then it was hard. But in high school, there is a lot, I guess to sum it up, it was a lot of challenge. It was a challenging, difficult. It's trying to find yourself. It's trying to understand yourself. But it's also trying to just make sense of what's happening. We just get on with it, I think. I think I just got on with it like I got on with my studies and whatnot. And I tried to just keep my head down and not going to any much trouble and whatnot. And yeah, I got bullied in my first couple of years there. But that stopped after a while because I just ignored them and they got bullied, you know, and in year 10 and 11, it was all fine. I was like, that's good to hear. Yeah. So yeah, it's just it's one of those. It's very difficult to put into words, but I guess that says, you know, best as I can do. Did your autism diagnosis give you much support when you were in secondary school, like with the teachers? And oh, yeah, definitely. It was great. It was it was great. I we had TAs in every single class I was in. I mean, it's probably the best. Truly some wonderful teachers I had who really helped me understand my condition and really catered to my needs and that kind of stuff. So yeah, but I know further schools is hard. And that was that was probably it is the realities of where you are. If you're out of school where they don't have many children who are on who have that condition or, you know, they don't have that support network in God, I could I couldn't I couldn't imagine how difficult it must be. Yeah. You can you can imagine being, you know, like 40 years ago, going to a public school, like yeah, exactly. Exactly. And that's it, isn't it? It really is like forget four years ago, 20 years ago. Yeah. But you know, like probably early nineties even, like, yeah, God, is that lost generation of people with autism? And that's something that's always intrigued me when I when I started my projects in autism, I was going to do a bit about those people. But I wonder how they feel. God, they've had to get through life without a diagnosis, without the support. And yeah, it's very difficult for them. I've had I know a lot of people from doing me tubing and stuff who are sort of in their 50s, 60s, only only starting to learn about autism and then and then going for like a diagnosis. And it's it's it's a weird one because they're not in the best place. They don't have a lot of friends. They're quite isolated. They didn't have very good experiences at school and with the parents. They do have that sort of, I guess, more of that stoic attitude that you develop just from having to deal with stuff. You know, I can't imagine what it would be like for them. Like, I reckon that it would just be absolutely terrible. Like you wouldn't have you wouldn't have any friends in the teachers. You wouldn't have any friends around you. Your parents won't be completely clued up on what's going on. It must be absolutely hell. You would have to have a special person like Lorna Wink. Yeah. I don't know. Do you know about Lorna Wink? Yeah. Yeah. In my doc, I mentioned there in my documentary, the yeah. I had different parents. Yeah. Yeah. You would have to have someone like her. He managed to be a caring, understanding and, you know, thoughtful parents in the time when that was not the norm. So but I think now we're getting to a place where everyone's becoming a bit more accepting and want to understand more about different conditions and how we can cater to those people because we can't just show in these people like people like you and me and other people like you've had in the podcast and and what not. A disability or a condition doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to achieve what you want to achieve. It's just something that you deal with and something that's a part of your life and which dictates how you may work or have a routine and that kind of thing. But that's it. You can still have relationships. You can still be with people. No, you're not this alien. So it's time for a quick mention from our sponsors, Timo. If you love visual support in your scheduling, Timo is for you. The app was designed for people with ADHD and autism and helps empower users to schedule visual routines that work. Users say that Timo can help reduce stress and support executive function, which are both two things that I struggle with myself. Learn more at www.timoapp.com or just type in tdubliemo into your search bar. Thanks so much to my Patreon supporters, Patrick Vedy, Malmokati and Julian Marks, of course. All of this support means so much to a little podcasting dreamer like myself. Anyway, let's get back into the show. So you did get quite a bit of support in schools and stuff. In terms of, like, the workplace environment, you know, when you did your stints at the radio, did they put any sort of reasonable adjustments in place? Oh, no. No. And did you need them? I told them that was autistic. They just didn't care. And that's true. That's a sad truth. But it wasn't a big company. It was more of a small company. And I think they thought they probably could get away with that. If it was that big a company, then there would be those adjustments there. And I would say that is probably the danger of working for small companies when you have autism and whatnot. You know, it can be quite challenging to get the support that you need. Yeah. And I found that. So, yeah, I will say that it was challenging. But then I've been to other companies where other places where, you know, you put down your autistic and they have reasonable adjustments and, you know, they cater for you and they help you and you can go to your manager and be like, and they'll be understanding. I think it's accountability at the end of the day. And I think you need that in a company or else people won't care and they'll just kind of forget about it and they'll forget about you. And so I guess in that way, just try and choose wisely or if you can't just you have to kind of just deal with it and just take it on the chin and find something better. And that's what I did, I think. You definitely need that experience. I think it really does depend on who is around you, like having a good workforce or good team or a good manager. Any one of those things is always going to trump, you know, being able to waste noise cancelling headphones or something. If someone is genuinely kind and wants to listen to you and will try and help you out as much as possible, it doesn't matter that whether you're autistic or not. If you just tell them that you struggle in this area, in this area, and then you go to them with your thoughts and try to work things out and then they're a nice person, then it's it goes swimmingly. It can be the opposite for other people as well. Yeah, of course. I think some people, it depends how you are really. That's the same, you know, just because you have autism doesn't mean like me or you. You know, you could be a person who wants to work on their own and wants to do things on their own. I think my mum said this to me a couple of times about how people on the spectrum normally work by themselves and have their own business. And I couldn't understand that because, hey, you know yourself, you know, your work might as well just, you know, go out there, out there on your own and make some money, you know, not work for the man and that kind of stuff. But I guess it's hard if you're doing like what me and you are probably doing like me and you and it goes against the grain like of what people are seeing mortisms about. Nobody expects expects an autistic person to be very social and to enjoy speaking to people and enjoy being on camera. Oh, yeah, it's it's quite funny that it's just expect us to be like best jockeys that are really good at coding. Yeah, yeah, like, even though I wouldn't mind that. If I'm with a good group of people I can have a laugh, I don't care. Like it's the people you work with and some people I can get along with really well, really fine, but others I can't. And you can have the best job in the world. But if you're with rubbish people, then you're with rubbish people and that always puts damper on it. But hey, I guess in the workplace, try and go to a place. I guess my advice would be tell me you're autistic and this is a good thing. Tell me you're autistic and see how they react to it and they react bad to it, meaning that they don't acknowledge it or they can brush it aside. Then you know, you know how you're going to be treated. You know what's in store for you. But if they start asking you questions about it and they start saying, oh, what would you need then? Then you know then. Yeah, it's been smart with these things. You have to play a game, people. You do playing the game doesn't mean that you have to settle. God, no. If you don't like somewhere, you know, love somewhere else, just yeah, go somewhere else. So one of the difficulties with raising autistic children is figuring out how much you need to protect them from things they'll find difficult, like social atmospheres, like different sensory experiences. But you've also got to give them enough room to grow and get used to those difficult things because or else they'll just be a bit sheltered and not really have the life skills. And then again, I suppose some people are traumatized by that sort of constant exposure if parents don't take into account the difficulties. And then on the flip side, people can become dependent on people pulling up their negatives and stuff like that. But whether it's your own personal account or the experiences of over autistic people, do you think there are any negatives to being diagnosed early? Personally, no. From a practical sense, if you need support, you need support. So there's no point hampering yourself or, and this goes, I think this for the parents obviously, this is probably more to the parents. There's no point hampering your child or trying to protect your child because you think that they may have a condition. It's like this, if your child had an infection, would you just leave it there because you're worried that it could ruin their life if they get treated for it. It could make them poorly or whatnot. It's that that's probably not the best example, but you get what I mean. Yeah, I do. But basically you need, if you suspect something, then you need to get that nipped in the bud, definitely. So I guess on that topic, yeah, I think if you are a parent and you want to shelter your child who may have autism because you're worried about what the outside world is, then the only thing I can say, and this is from a person with autism, the world's a scary place and your child's going to see a lot of stuff. And it's going to be upsetting at times, but it's also going to be wonderful at times. And everybody has their own personality. Having that child grow into someone unique and responsible and take care of themselves is the best thing. And you're not going to get that if you shelter your child from the outside. I completely agree with you. You can protect them, you know, obviously as a parent, every parent, every good parent, sorry, wants to protect their child and wants to have the best for them. So I always say it like, if I had a child, I would do funny things like, you know, when the younger teaching them how to get the bus, that kind of stuff. You know, it's doing stuff like that, like teaching, being there as a guide, teach your children what to expect and then letting them do it by themselves. And, you know, it won't destroy them. It will be scary for them, but they'll get used to it. It's like anything, they'll just get used to it. Got a taste for it. Yeah, exactly. I've always, I think of all, in myself I've always been quite adventurous. So I always walk everywhere. I love going to new places. So I'll go to anywhere basically. When I used to go to Salford Uni, I used to go from my, I used to walk from my house to the station, which is about 20 minutes away, 30 minutes away. Then used to get the train to Manchester, which is 40 minutes. Used to walk from Manchester all the way to Salford, which is another 40 minutes. You know, and then from doing this, though, I know Salford, like the back of my hand, I know where to get to Media City. You know, it's that kind of stuff. Learning how to, what's the word? Learning how, yeah, yeah, that. Learning how to do that is the best thing. For a person with autism, you want to be comfortable. Then why not be comfortable in your surroundings? I think if, you know, for any parents who are listening to this out there, the best thing to do is to let them experience things that everybody else does other kids do. Let them get an experience of socialising with bad and good kids and just being able to just be there on the sideline for if they need some help. Yeah, is always the best. And, you know, giving them the encouragement. And, you know, if they are having panic attacks about certain things, try and ease them into it rather than just not doing it. It's very much a slow, growing kind of process, but I think it's quite important to have those aspects. I think that's one of the difficulties when comparing the positive and negatives of mainstream and SEN schools, you know, SEN schools. The more tailored to the autistic experience, there's more people who are autistic. And then again, when they leave that school, they're going to be the big wild world and they may not have the experiences that are needed to live independently from it. And so, finding that balance, isn't it? Yeah. From what you've saying, it sounds like, you know, your parents did have that kind of supportive, encouraging kind of role in your life. Yeah, and I would also say as well, what kept me going, even when I was going through bad time, just having a good group of mates that I could speak to that I could go home from school, maybe a bad day school and just get on the Xbox and just chat to them. Yeah. You know, having that was really good for me. And this part of going on to the next things I would say is if your parent and your child has autism, get them involved in clubs from a young age, get them involved in social clubs, sports clubs, anything, they'll form friendships. And that's the thing, if you form friendships with people, it doesn't matter if you're autistic or you're dyslexic or you know, you've got a disability. People, people like each other. People, there are good people in this world. So if you go, let's say you're in primary school, you've got a child involved in karate and football and every other sport going. They'll get to high school and they'll be quite popular and because they've learned how to socialize, they've learned those skills and that kind of thing. You know, it may not happen like that. You know, it may not be like that, but that could be a possibility, but you don't know until you've tried. So I guess in that regard, don't be hesitant as a parent to protect your child from the outside world. Get them involved in clubs, get them involved in social groups. That way they'll become more, you know, sociable. Graded exposure. You have to do it in a way, you know, you have to do it in a way that the child responds well to it because they don't respond well to it, then it's not for them. So you have to find something else. Yeah. One of, I think one of the difficulties that, you know, we were talking about sort of the negatives of early diagnosis. And I think for me, I would agree with you. I think it's overall been a positive thing. The thing is I didn't really get much support in secondary school from what I can remember. It was more just the ability to go out of class and sit in a quiet place if I needed to. And I think because, you know, when you're a teenager, you're stuck in your own head. You're in this weird social world and everything's new and exciting and different and interesting. So you don't really have enough time to sit back and think about autism. And it was only until I started going to uni that I really started learning more about it and improving myself. So I guess, although it has been helpful, I think most of the help was just my parents understanding me a little bit more. I remember Nick saying about, and quite a few other people saying that, you know, sometimes being diagnosed later on, you know, you don't know what to expect. You don't know what's going to be difficult and you just go about life and get through things. And then you sort of get diagnosed later on and you look into it a little bit more. You know, that could be good. I think the difficulty with early diagnosis can be that sort of sheltered perspective that overly nurturing kind of side to it. I think that could be one of the difficulties with it, especially for parents who don't really understand autism too much or have a negative view of it. But yeah, I completely agree with you. I think it's a good idea to get diagnosed early, if you can. And even if you are past that and you're past all the secondary school, knowing that your autistic allows you to look back on your past and process things in a different way and sort of grow in that sense and get a more rounded picture of who you are. So I think, yeah, definitely get diagnosed early. It's a good idea. Yeah. Do you think that with an autism diagnosis at a young age, do you think that it had much of an effect on how you process the sort of social and sensory stuff? Did you find any of the sensory stuff difficult? And... It's a weird one with them, sensory, because I'm starting to understand what sensory, you know, the word sensory means and how it relates to autism. Because sometimes things can get a bit overwhelming when too many people are nearby or, you know, there's something going on and you don't feel comfortable about it. Like, today I was going to get in some fish. And because I've never done it before, it was quite a stressful situation to get that fish because, you know, I had to queue up, I had to choose the fish. I don't know anything about fish. I don't even eat fish, I was eating for my parents. So it was quite difficult. And in that regard, that was a lot of sensory overload and I couldn't get out of that situation. Yeah. But when I was younger, I probably had a sense of overload. I probably couldn't cope with some, you know, too many things going on at once. And I didn't like being in massive groups of people that would always stress me out and it kind of still does in a way. I don't know how to deal with large groups of people. So in that regard, when I'm at parties and whatnot, I can get a bit, or when I'm out clubbing, it can get a bit stressful sometimes. So yeah, I would say in that regard, with autism, there comes a certain thing with having that sensory overload. And yeah, I think it's just the best way, how you deal with it. Yeah. I think knowing that you're autistic and being able to pick apart situations that are too overbearingly difficult and type situations that cause you meltdowns, having knowledge of those situations and a reason for why you find it difficult can be extremely helpful. But brilliant. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and stuff. Yeah. Could I ask you to give me three main things that you want people to take away from the podcast? Okay, yeah. So I guess the first one is if you're a parent listening to this, get your child an early diagnosis of autism, you know, if you have suspicions, get your child diagnosed. It is the best earliest, if you can do it as early as possible, then it sets up the different things in place, the help in place to help your child progress in school and education, and that is the most important thing in my opinion. Socially as well. I guess number two socially is don't shout to your child because they have a condition. Get your child involved in the world, get them out there into different clubs, meeting different people. That will help and progress socially and it will make the world a bit more bearable. And I think that's the key word because the world is unbearable. And you just need to make it a bit more bearable. And thirdly, I guess, well, just keep listening to this podcast because yeah, it's very good. And if you have autism, and I'm gonna be certain doing this, I probably will share this podcast around because it does offer quite a good insight into different people on the spectrum and how they feel about the condition, their own unique experience. So yeah, thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it. No worries. Thank you very much for coming on. And now I've got the last question which I ask all of the autistic people that come onto the podcast. And it's a very open question. What does autism mean to you, Lewis? Oof, we've asked this before but it's difficult to answer. Autism to me means confidence and confidence in being yourself and taking on the world, going about it in an autistic way which is funny to be, it's funny to be to do it and it's amusing but it's also very good for yourself and not being afraid to have autism because it is something that I'm proud to have and I love it, it makes me me. And yeah, that's it. So yeah, I guess it would be autism is that person and it makes that person who they are. And yeah, that's it really. Brilliant, thank you very much for that. It's always interesting to see what people have to say about it. And I think it's hard to really pin down what autism is. And I think it differs very differently for people maybe just based on their personalities and their experience but it's always interesting to hear other people's views on it. So thank you for that. No, thank you very much. So yeah, are there any links or social media links or project links that you want people to see or hear about or watch? I guess my documentary on autism that'll be, I guess this relates to this. So if I could send you that over and whatnot, then yeah, social media-wise I'm not really that big on social media so probably not. So it's called Autism Meets Autism by Lewis Audie. So yeah, go and listen to that and tell me what you think about it and I hope it is quite insightful and pleasure just listening to and teach us some people about certain things. And is there any way that if someone wants to contact you and ask you a question and do you have any way that they could do that? Yeah, my email address. So if you ever want to get in contact with me then send me a line or something at Lewis Audie. So that's L-U-I-S-O-W-I-1998 at gmail.com. And if you ever, if you just want to talk about anything autism related or ask me a question about it, then yeah, I'll be happy to. I'd love to chat about anything, but yeah, I guess that's the way you could get in contact with me. Brilliant. Thank you very much for that. I will put those down in the description. Thank you very much. So of course, you can find the 4080 podcast as always on Apple podcasts and Spotify podcasts. And if you want to check out some of the videos that I've done, got a whole series of behind the scenes content for the documentary that are released, Aspergers and Society. And that's over on the Aspergers growth YouTube channel if you wanna go check that out. But you can also find it on the aspergersandsociety.com website. As I said, I'm sort of in a little bit of a low mood period. So it's, I'm being the most productive on social media, but I do generally make a lot of updates on how things are going over on my social medias, which are all at Aspergers growth, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Very easy to find. But yeah, this is, I think this is probably about the 24th episode that I've done. And I've only released the 15th one. So I've got quite a few to edit and get through and stuff. But thank you very much for listening to me and Lewis talk about early diagnosis. Being very great to chat to Lewis and I'm excited to see, you know, what kind of stuff you do in the future around sort of radio and media and stuff. Yeah, should be interesting. Yeah, well, mess me and let me know how that goes and what kind of progress you're making on that stuff. I will do that. And I'll probably watch your documentary as well, because that seems quite interesting. And yeah, yeah, maybe get together on RuneScape. Yeah, definitely. That's that's it. That's no thing as well, people. If you want to have if you want your son or daughter who's autistic to have a good time, get more RuneScape. It's very relaxing. And there's a lot of us on it. I can tell you that for now. We were a set of joking prior to the podcast about doing a documentary on the link between autism and RuneScape. Hey, I think it's a good idea that. But it's been it's been great actually, because I'm not the most avid reader, but I've actually found that if I play a little bit of RuneScape and do a little bit of mindless tasks on there and listen to an audiobook, it seems to seems to work for me. So if you're finding that you're finding it hard to read, try doing something like that. Try play a mindless game and listen to a listen to a podcast or a book or anything like that. It can be a good way to expand your knowledge, but also keep your keep yourself motivated to continue reading. But yeah, thank you very much to everybody who's tuned in for this episode. And thank you very much, Lewis. Stay safe, everybody. Have a great day or a night or asleep or whatever. And hydrate yourself, of course. Hashtag hydrate the aspies. And I'll see you in another episode in about two weeks, hopefully. See you later, folks.