 Hello, welcome to another Autie Time livestream. Ah, I do want to start off by saying thank you like an incredible amount for all the love and supported messages that have been posted or commented on my stuff, really does mean a lot to me. And yeah, it's kind of overwhelming the reaction that people have had, I didn't realise. I think that I had about over 200 comments which I don't think I've ever had in my life. So I was like, oh my god. I was just kind of expecting to kind of fly off the radar, I guess, a little bit. So you might be wondering like, why am I doing a livestream? Now, when my mental health is pretty bad, I actually do really enjoy doing these. They really do like improve my mental health when I do them. So we're going to go for a live. And today's kind of topic that I would really like to discuss is mostly stuff around mental health. So I would love any questions about mental health. It'd be really, really, really nice to hear from you. You can use the little, you can use the chat or you can use the little question button if you want to ask something. I know we're trying to get on that. Thank you, Jessica. I'm in love. Sit down, design says, glad you're taking time to take care of yourself as a mother of a son of autism. I hope he has the ability one day. Yeah, it's, it's definitely taking me a while. I probably should have tried to take a bit of a break from things earlier. But yeah, you know, you never know, we'll burn out in depression. Hello, Mina. And thank you for that, Jack. I will check that out. Nira Andrews Sikes says, got to take care of yourself. Thank you for being you and so vulnerable. Welcome. Thank you very much. My personality as deflame. How you doing, man? What's up? How you been? Not great at the moment, but we're, we're trucking along. Excited to do a bit of a live stream before going to bed again. Probably. No, I'm going to go to the gym. I think that's probably what I'm going to be doing. Luna be weaver says, what do you do when you're lonely and want to make friends, but you don't know? I hear that usually the best place is social groups. You can use different online things. I know like Bumble has like a friends thing that you can do sometimes, which can be quite useful for some people. I definitely try and go to hobby groups, try and find some groups that you can that you actually enjoy and want to go to. And then just like, try them out, talk to some people, don't put too much pressure on yourself and see if you get on with people. As the flame says, I want to make sure you're done. I'm still thankful for letting me have my first podcast interview. Oh, you're very welcome. It was really, really good to talk all about autism and rap. So two of my interests. Andrew says, I've struggled with depression, anxiety myself. Yeah, it's tough. It's very common for us all please. Sadly. Well, dragon eyes says, yeah, it's Tom's home with his awesome Friday afternoon vibes. Also autistic. Yep. Carilla says, thinking about you and want to provide my two cents. And I think you are quite handsome. Thank you and hanging there. Thank you. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. So BDD is like a weird thing. Like just kind of comes upon you sometimes, I guess. I'm going to try and get some psychotherapy around it, but it's taking quite a while to get it through the internet. So I might have to go private at some point, I think. I appreciate the compliment. The awesome sauce like that name. Have you gone through burnout before? How do you recover? I've gone through a lot of, but it's kind of hard for me to tell. I guess what the difference between depression and burnout is like, I don't think it really matters. But you know, sometimes with depression, the advice that people give you is to kind of get out and do things and see people and would burn out. It's sometimes not the best thing to do. So it's very variable. I would say it's very like you have to adjust it as you go when you just have to be a bit kinder to yourself over the long run recovery for me. It tends to be a lot of kind of reducing of deadlines and things that I have said that I'm going to do. That is usually the way that I go about it. It doesn't mean that I stop doing things like I really enjoy doing my chats, doing my writing. So I'll probably write like a bunch over these past these coming kind of two or three weeks. So I've got some good things to talk about when I come back, I guess. I've got someone with a question. Autistic thought, how are you doing? I like your reel about the types of autistic people. That was quite funny. Are there any sensory things or activities that help you mental health over one more burnout? I think the gym is always going to be something that I go to when I'm feeling bad or well and feeling good. That's usually what I go for. Being sensory-wise, sometimes I go into the movies, getting out, going for a walk. It doesn't tend to happen a lot. I'm more or less just watching videos and watching comfort shows and stuff. Practical Hippie says you are truly a leader and a guide in our community. Thank you. I appreciate that. Hi, Harren. Andrew says how did you get as far as you did? There's a lot of different factors to it, I think. I've always been a bit of a driven, meditative person. I'd say that my family is also a very large part of the reason why I can continue going on with things. Definitely them, I would say. I think as well it's just being motivated but being kind in yourself is really important. Do you feel constable discussing your experience with BDD? Yeah, I think I talked about it a bit in the post. I don't know if many people know about it but it's called body dysmorphic disorder. I haven't been diagnosed with it, I'm not sure if it's going to be something that I will be. But it's a lot about obsessing over your facial features. Basically looking in the mirror and seeing all your flaws. Do you like an extreme degree? Not being able to go in public as much, worrying about people's reactions to you, overthinking things. When really there is objectively no reason for it, it just feels crippling sometimes, I guess. But it's not something that I've ever talked about. I guess the documentary that I watched that brought my attention to it, I think they were talking about the reason why people don't go and seek help or tell people about it. It's because you don't want to be perceived as vain or superficial or anything like that. It made sense to me and that was the point at which I was like, I hadn't talked about it to anybody for my entire life and I watched this and saw this person having similar experiences to me and just felt okay with... You know I'm very open and willing to talk about struggles and things that have been going on. It's probably taken me like a month to talk about it online. It's an interesting experience. SD Flame says that for any autistic looking to start a conversation, go look in the news, go find someone. Some neutral, confrontational topics, sports, celebrities, news, etc. It's a good shout, definitely. Andrew Luptak says I feel burnt out a lot and I barely see people. I don't know if people like me or not. You get very paranoid about people, especially if you've had negative experiences in life. You get those feelings of RSD, like the rejection sensitive, even if people just make minor changes to the way that they interact with you. It's like, oh, this is so much more meaningful than it actually is when they look off into the distance and become a bit dissociated. You might think, oh, they're not interested in talking to me, whereas they could be thinking about the work that they have to do after the gym or something like that. So there's a lot of things. Mia Manche says I've often been told not to overthink things, but I find talking out with someone I feel safe is what helps. Trying to change my thinking only exacerbates the faults. Totally. And I think there is a point at which trying to shift your mind to more positive thinking can help, but not if it completely just invalidates what you're thinking and feeling. I think that that's one of the things that I don't particularly like about mainstream mental health media. It's like, oh, you should think good and you think all of these things. And yeah, it's probably, but if you're having a bad time with mental health, probably not the best, always the best thing. You've got to validate how you're feeling somehow. Also, I feel our faults are there for a reason, even if they aren't wrong. So I try to work out where the faults come from. It's a good way of looking at things, definitely. Selma Scow says you're such an inspiration to us all. Thank you. Make sure you get Audi specific therapy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's the important thing. Leonaby says, what do you say to people when you tell them you're autistic, but they say things like you're too pretty to be autistic and you seem normal. I don't really give people that I don't I don't really get those comments anymore because I guess like, I mean, I tell people that I'm autistic a lot, not because they're just kind of bleat out, but, you know, it's more like, you know, that's what I do or I've been doing today. And I'm like, I'm editing podcasts or podcasts you're editing. I'm editing autism podcast. Oh, why do you do that? If you've got autism, I'm like, yeah, I'm autistic. So it just kind of follows me. I can't really get away from people knowing about it, which I'm cool with, you know, some people were out weirdly to her, but other people, not so much. Daniel Gardner says, I made it. Nice to see you. I hope you find a good therapist. If you need help, don't hesitate. Thank you. How are you going to see the Barbie movie? Yep. Hopefully. Hi. Hi, Thomas says, it's Alyssa Renee. How are you doing? Hi, Joshua J. Williamson, our designated hydration monitor. M. Dice says, hi. I'm sorry that you're not feeling great at the moment. I struggled with BDD in the past two. It's still there, but it doesn't take over anymore. Can I please ask what the film, what the film is about BDD? I think it's like a short documentary that I found on YouTube. I can't remember the exact name of it, but I'm sure you'll be able to find it if you type it in on YouTube. I think it's like this Asian guy who was talking about it. I can't remember anything else in terms of the specifics of what it's called and who they are and stuff, but it was good. It was a real eye-opener for me. Mia Mantra says, I think the problem with mainstream thinking on mental health is that it leaves behind people for whom it doesn't work. I feel people need to be met where they're at. It's also not for people necessarily who have mental illness, like diagnosed depression and anxiety. I think it's very generalized to everybody who has a bad mental health day. You can have bad mental health days and not be mentally ill or have a mental illness. So there's kind of a disconnect there with the way that people refer to it, I guess. I get that on some level, but I haven't gotten into shape like I should. There's always time, there's always, you know, you can work on things. Karen Wright says, did anyone else get close to notice you were close to burnout before you did? Not really, because I tend to become more like into things, like put together when I'm approaching a burnout because I'm trying very hard to kind of keep things on track despite my mental state. So it doesn't always appear until like, you know, of the day I'm like, okay, things are not going well. Hi Zachary, what's up? Joshua J. Williamson. Everybody is staying hydrated with some water. Thank you for that. I've got my water here. It's kind of an electrolyte juicy water because I'm getting very dehydrated at the moment. Chloe says, I'm a really big fan of you. I love how you spring kindness and everything. Thank you very much. I try to. It's awesome says, I relate so much to what you say. I've honestly cried because of it. It's a relief knowing I'm not the only person in my experience. I'm glad that I can do that for you because I know that when I was growing up, having difficulties with life and mental health and things like that, that I really needed something like that too. And I just couldn't find anything that really kind of resonated with me. I'm glad that, you know, my attempt to kind of fill in that gap has been noticed and it's helping you. Zachary says, something I've noticed a lot lately is finding myself being a therapy person to my other friends. Yeah, it's one of the ways that I show that I care about people I think because I've done a lot of research and stuff into mental health. So it's like my, I don't know, like, I don't necessarily like take it on and feel worse about it. Quite often when people confide in me about difficulties that they have in life, it actually makes me feel a little bit more connected and like, it's nice that people can open up and be vulnerable with you. I know there's some people that can be a lot, but for me, definitely it's a good thing. Me and Mantry says, have you or anyone headed the social model of disability mental health? I found that it works much better than medical model. Big, big fan of the social model, totally. Very, very important. We're not alone in this. That is true, Chloe. The smile made my day. Thank you. No worries. There's another one for you. Jordan Pickering says that, hey dude, I'm sorry to hear you're not feeling good. At the moment, you got this buddy. Thank you very much. Trucking along as we do. You dropped a new track today, Steve Lane. What's your track called? Zachary says, it's weird. It's like I don't express myself outwardly with emotion a lot or in publics, but I still feel kind of empathic. Still not sure what empaths are actually real or not. You can definitely be very attuned to people. If you've been through things yourself, you might be a bit more attuned to the signs that someone's not doing so good. But yeah, that's something else that I think has definitely been a part of me because it sounds very much like you're experiencing. It likes to find me or perhaps not expressing things on your face and your tonality and your body language like neurotypicals would, which is quite common. Definitely. It's something that I have as well. Are you excited for the Vriolo day tomorrow? I know a lot of things you've mentioned. Pokemon Girl. Yeah, that should be really cool. I love Vriolo and Lucario. Triple God says, haha, yes, there's a Californian. I'm obsessed with the way you say water. I think the Barbie movie should cut us fairer for you. It could be. ChromaticoGraphy says, you're so strong, but I know it very well too because I'm autistic and makes me tired sometimes. Thank you. Yeah, life can be tiring. Planet Aspie, how are you doing? Take care. We do look up to you. Thank you. That means a lot to me. Yeah. Drawby says, I support you. Thank you. You're awesome and you helped me and many others. Good. I'm glad. Hi, Hina. How are you doing? Sending love. Sending love your way as well. Jordan, see how you doing, man. Neem Hadeline. You're such a beautiful person. Beautiful human. Thank you. I get lots of positive affirmation from this. That's from this live stream. Oh my God. Thank you. Drawby says, I've been in this place in respect. You need space, totally. How are you doing, man? Jordan. Mia says, Hina, I really liked your interview with Thomas. Yeah, it was really good. It was really apt for, I guess, my mental state at the moment. If you could say that. It is a really good podcast. You're struggling a little bit as well, Hina. I wonder what it is. Seems like something, like, synchronicity or something. Maybe. We love you, Tom. Love you too, Jordan. Sending solidarity. I'm transferring the solidarity from the YouTube stream to the Instagram for you, Hina. I'm, like, going to be, like, communicating between two live streams, yeah, okay. Mia, Hina says, oh, thank you so much. I'm not sure how you spell your name, Mia. Yes, that is right, Hina. Andrew says, I never know how to deal with emotional breakdowns. I don't make people impatient with me when that happens. How do you deal with it? I think there's definitely a fine line, because people often say that, you know, if you need support from someone that, you know, they're there. I think when you have, when you're really, really struggling, sometimes you take that as, like, you can just empty out everything onto them all the time, and that's definitely something that I used to do when I was younger. I think now in adulthood, I'm kind of a bit more aware that, you know, sometimes it, you know, it is definitely good to talk to people about it, but perhaps not, like, constantly, I guess. It kind of is a bit awful, because, you know, it would be nice to afloat all of your mental anguish and emotional issues onto someone, but you got to think of them as well, I guess, even when you are at a low. Daniel says, I don't know the full story, but I know one of our biggest faults is to expect things of ourselves that we would never expect of others. So go easy on yourself. Yeah, totally. I appreciate that, I think. We also have a lot of neurotypical expectations to battle. Some kind of internalised ableism type things that we have to ever come. Zachary says, oh, I actually kind of, I'm actually kind of myself being very sensory-seeking with my autism, but sometimes I can't tell the difference with being excited to something on nervous. Yeah, yeah, that's the common elixir-fine-year thing. Oh my god, yeah, definitely. I experienced that too. Yeah, how do you know? Joshua says, Joshua Fortress says, for a narcissistic person, it was always hard to, is it? For a narcissistic person, is it always hard to grow up and be mature? Depends what you mean by mature, because everyone's got their own ideas of what an adult is or what maturity is, you know. Some people think the fact that you still play with Pokémon is immature, which is not really like, it's an interest, it's a hobby, it's not really got much to do with your emotional, intellectual maturity, social abilities, you know. So there's lots of different things. I think one of the important things for me in terms of growing up is just being more aware of what life can be like for other people. I think that was something that was very, very important for me. You know, I love being on the podcast, meeting you was even more awesome. Yeah, we saw each other at the EDA event, I think, when I did my public speaking. That was really cool. Oh my god, Ankh says, Hi Thomas, you're a fantastic and kind teacher. Take a good cat. Cool, thank you. I'm mincing my words now. I think it's insane, I love all my special interests. Dinosaur emojis, definitely. Very cool. Zachary says, I also hate it when my sermon peaks and depletes, like I don't know what to do with something after that. Yeah, that's an interesting thing, like about experiencing positive emotion, you know. Usually when you experience those rush of dolphins and serotonins, after it's finished, you might feel a bit like, I get that with movies sometimes, like I watch something that's really inspiring and happy and it has really good ending and afterwards I'm like, like all my neurotransmitters have been emptied out. Zachary says I'm slightly paranoid about a lot of stuff, which isn't fun. Paranoid is a difficult one. Okay, I've become very paranoid in adulthood because of childhood experiences, definitely, like in school. Late diagnosis for me, so a lot of internalized ableism, because it's hard to feel like I can't go back to how I was even though it was harmful for me and how exhausting it was. You mean like in terms of unmasking, things like that? I think a spin check would be fun if people want to shout out their special interests. Yeah, go for it. If you want to tell me special interests, please go for it. I'd be interested to hear. I've got a mind. I'm really liking Pokemon at the moment. Obviously autism is a big special interest of mine. Dottydojojo says, hey, I'm sorry for later. I've just seen the post on Instagram and wanted to... It's gone up. Send you some love for Struggle Stimuli and I truly hope you will be okay. Thank you for everything. I appreciate that. I'm sure things will pick up and I'll feel a bit better in time, but you've got to take things as they come. You heavily masked and had some unhealthy coping mechanisms. Yeah, me too. Especially around people. I've developed a lot of defense mechanisms for interacting with people that get triggered very easily. That's something that I've had to work for a lot. It's still kind of... Especially with the RSD stuff, it still definitely impacts me. It's interesting. I was talking as well recently. I did a podcast with Paul Olivia's World and we were talking about... I'm not a socially anxious person. I'm quite a confident person. But I think a lot of the ways that I present to neurotypicals in the world, my reduced eye contact, my processing speed, things like that, they kind of interpret that as me being shy or not being able to speak well, which is really interesting. I'm still wondering how I can get around that, but I guess people will interpret what they do. We have some special interests. Crochet, dinosaurs, Batman, Carousel art and history, genetics, histology, climbing, oil painting, house plants, watercolours, stamps. What else? Carousels, Catwoman. You love to cosplay as Catwoman. That's cool. I'm actually going to a cosplay convention in Manchester, I think, in a week or so, which is going to be fun. I don't have a costume. I need to get one. If anyone has any suggestions for, like, anime people that I could just pull off really easily, just let me know. Cinema history. Doctor Who, that's a big one, I think. I very much like that. Doctor Who is your 16-year-old daughter's obsession. We painted her door blue for that reason. That's cool. That's a really nice thing to do. I think when I was a young girl, I was obsessed with Harry Potter, so my parents painted my room purple and had sparkles and wands everywhere and stuff. It was incredibly exciting for me. Zachary says, there are situations where I do get bad vibes about something, but I'm dead wrong, and then I'm excited for something, but it turns out to be awful. It's hard for me to trust people and stuff sometimes. Yeah, it's almost like the world just wants you to be taking things badly just so that you can feel okay when it does go bad and you're like, okay, I expected that. If it goes well, then you're like, oh, this is a nice surprise. Obsessed with Loki. That's a good one. Photography, although I'm not great at it, and didn't really start focusing on it until my mid-20s. That's awesome. I've still got a Game Boy, I'm playing Pokemon Generations 1 in 2, my favourites. That and I'm old school. That sounds really fun. My first Pokemon game was Pokemon Fire Red. I didn't go before that one. Hello Winnie the Flu, how are you doing? Conway Music says, growing up with my parents always called me such a shy kid and wrote off everything and such. What do you mean? Toxic Force says, deeply relatable. People don't perceive my mannerisms as intended. As you intend them. Light from Death Note is super awesome. Oh, I could do, I could do, can I? I really like Death Note, so that could be a good one. I need a suit though. And I need to look like... Yeah, I don't know, maybe. Minerals, yeah, that's another one. I think that and I think sometimes like crystals and stuff, some autistic people. I also haven't posted a cylinder pretty bad as a creative type. So sometimes I hate getting compliments for my work as I don't feel like I get 150% on it and feel like a fraud. I know what you mean. I think once you get really good at something, even something that perhaps you don't really approve of is something like your best work. I think to a lot of people, sometimes you just kind of take it for granted just how good you are at that stuff so that might be a situation. For me, it's maps, direction, politics. Wow. Politics, eh? Winnie the Pooh says I can be better you. Same, I'm going to say same. Light would suit me. Thanks, Daniel. It's totally cool to be a psychopath. Maybe. I'm joking, I'm joking, joking. Autism coach Rajne says hey, I want to collaborate with you. Cool. Send me an email. DMs are probably not the best place to go. Autistic thought says what do you need most from the autistic community during this time? I don't think there's anything that I could really draw upon as something that I would want to ask of people. I mean, I'd probably just say like, I don't know. If anyone wants to share my stuff, I always have an open policy, like if you want to re-share, you want to repost any of the work that I've done or any of the videos or podcasts in your own things, you're very welcome to as long as you give credit. And that would also help me while I'm not making stuff. That would be great. Joshua J. Williamson says hope everyone is staying hydrated. Some more, you're on it. I'm feeling my lips getting a bit dry. Lifestream hydration manager. Anyway, that's care and all. I suppose so. Mine has been filmmaking for over a decade. I just let the resources to realize my ideas in any way I'd want to. I just hope I don't torment people like Kubrick did if I ever make movies. Well, I mean, the documentary that I made, I mean, it wasn't like the best quality. Definitely not. You could definitely do it if you had just kind of a decent phone. I'm sure you could. Winnie the Fleer says how did you find dating any tips? That's a whole... I was going to say bag of eggs. That doesn't really make sense. What's a witty? No. The whole of a kind of worms that I'm probably not going to open today. But it's up and down, really. Depends on the person, I guess. You're an autistic parenting coach. That's cool. Behold it, MX says, I just read your post about taking a break. I just want to say I appreciate all the work you've done and want the best for you, so please take care of yourself. Thank you very much. I very much appreciate it. I'm doing some editing for a guy making a Power Rangers fan film, but my internet is kind of poor and downloading the shots off OneDrive is taking forever. I relate to that. My Wi-Fi is not the best either. Do you like going to parties? What kind of parties are better or worse than you? What do you think of the best party you've ever been to? I like house parties as long as I can know some people. You know, I wouldn't go to a house party if I didn't know people. Parties can be cool, though. I enjoy them. If I'm in the right headspace, of course. And, yeah, I mean, definitely like social interaction. It's nice. I enjoy it. Rob Patton says, Did you say that you once spoke in front of a crowd? How did it feel? I'm also an autistic public speaker as well. Yeah, I've done quite a few events. I've spoken on TV once, spoken radio shows, do a lot of, I've done like a public speaking to like a special needs school that was like 500 people. I actually really enjoy public speaking. It's not something that gives me a lot of anxiety. And it's basically a platform for me to kind of just like splurge my autism knowledge on everybody and my experiences. So I quite enjoy it. I think the only times that it goes bad, is when I try to read off a script. I need to do it ad-lib all the time. Or else it doesn't work. Thank you, Joshua J. Williamson for the badge today. Much appreciate it. That is a good, if you guys want to support the live streams that I do, please, you know, or not please, but they do have badges on Instagram. If you want to become a member on YouTube, it's like 99p. Always does support. Winning flu says parties are so overwhelming for me. Totally. I find that parties and gatherings, I like parties and gatherings depending on the sort of party. Mhm. Social, socials are hopeless for me, but I keep trying. I don't know if it's a good thing or completely insane. Yeah, it depends on the the club that you go to, you know, on the people that are there. Sometimes there's just not anyone that you really vibe with, I guess. Someone that would be amazing for you to interview if ever possible would be Darrell Hanna. Who is Darrell Hanna? And not very good with people. Hanna the ballerina says I'm sorry they're going to have to leave the live as I am in Devon for the weekend. Well, do not apologize for that. Go enjoy yourself. It's been nice to have you on the stream, Hanna. Behold it, MX says Wi-Fi is the name of our lives I'm trying to upload several years of photos to Google Drive and waiting. And it's a waiting challenge, yeah. Totally. The person blade runner and the chick with the eye patch and kill Bill. Oh, she's off on the spectrum. Well, um, I can try. That would be pretty cool. That would be awesome. I think my dad would like to have an aneurysm. Splage autism knowledge, yeah. Okay, monologue. Monologues, that's probably not the best descriptive term. We'll go monologue. Ah. It's probably one of the only streams that I haven't had my music on. I'm feeling kind of a bit. I've been listening to music all day, so maybe that makes sense, but it's nice to, um, I'm feeling okay with experiencing silence at the moment, which is something that's not usually the case. Austin Henshaw, how are you doing? I'm liking the green neurodiversity badge. How are you doing, man? You're welcome, Hina. It's nice to see you again. Yeah, so, um, I've got a couple of podcasts that I could probably update you guys on, on what's gonna, what we're going to talk about. Got a really interesting one with all things private practice. We're going to be talking about autism and addiction, um, which is definitely something important, um, that I think we should be talking about a bit more. Um, it's definitely linked to autism, ADHD in, in, in ways, and also linked to mental health, and autism is linked to mental health, so there's a lot of different crossovers there. We also had a podcast. What did I do that podcast? Oh, yes, I did it with, um, Autistically Bee, um, which I would definitely head over and follow if you are, if you like the gym, if you like autism, uh, use the man to follow. Um, just started making up his own Instagram stuff. Um, very, very cool guy. Um, invited me to, to go to America to, um, do some, some gym with him. Um, Austin says, I'm all right, sir. I hope you're managing. I am trying my best. Feeling a bit more bright, brighter now that I'm on a stream. Not gonna lie. I quite, I quite like it. Fills me with, fills me with positive emotions. Zachary says, I'm still trying to come up with ideas for my movie about autistic adults, but as a dark comedy. I basically want to make the exact opposite of Rayman in the Temple Grandin movie. Interesting. I'd be, I'd be interested to see what that turns out like. It'd be cool. Looking forward to that, yeah. That should be cool. Addy says, Hello. How about Anthony Hopkins? I also think Darryl Hannah played the mermaid in Splash. Never, never seen Splash. I mean, it'd be good to talk to all of these people. I suppose it's just I kind of, I'm at the point with my pod where people kind of get in touch when they want to speak with me and I don't really need to do as much like going out and finding people. I probably should do and it's definitely going to be something that I'm looking to do once I'm in a bad space trying to get on top of communications a bit more. You know, reach out to people, get some people who are not really in their spaces on Instagram to come in and chat. That could be good. I mean, suppose I interviewed Steve Silberman in Temple Grandin so I'm sure that I could I could get one of these people in. Just depends on whether they're good at technology or not. I had that issue with Temple. Jayla says hi. Hello. Joshua Jay says hope you've been drinking quite a bit of water to date on this. I have been gulging myself on H2O. Absolutely. I'm doing well. Although your hydration reminders are definitely useful for me. I don't know if it's for anybody else. Rob Barton says speaking of Rainman has started off my public speaking being called I am not Rainman. That's definitely cool. Andrew says you should write that mediocre short story about autism and maybe make a short film about it. I'm sure it would be mediocre but I would try. Totally. You got to start somewhere and when you go across and you try and make something, you're always going to have some learning processes and some things that you can't do and you have to learn it. There's a lot of resources on YouTube for that kind of thing. You don't even have to go to school about it. You could just research how do I do this thing. How do I do that thing? You know. Mia Mantry says I'd be interested in speaking with you and sharing my story sometimes when you're in a better headspace. Definitely. It's on your email. Mia. We can talk about that and then we'll try and get back to you once I'm in a good place. Autistic thought says what movement exercise or stimming brings you joy. Definitely the gym that proprioceptive input very good for me. I like chewing things so I've got this chewing gum that I chew on. It's like 15 times stronger than normal chewing gum. That's good for my jaws. I have to be careful a little bit with it sometimes. Bench press. Well, I really enjoy being spanned around so I really like roller coasters round about say playground equipment. It's not always something that I can do or feel comfortable with but that definitely reduces anxiety by massive amount. You might have seen that video of me doing the paragliding that is like unfiltered sensory joy. Brennan says how do you deal with keeping up with the gym when you don't have the energy? We're in a down period like a burnout. I think it's important for me to keep up some things in my life like to some degree something that I can focus on and put my energy into because if I kind of go for a burnout and I'm not really doing anything then I get a bit like restless and I get a bit sort of put off life I guess. I always need some kind of way to move forward if that makes sense. It's probably just a bad way of approaching life but it definitely like it's definitely good for me and it helps me feel calm helps my mental health. There's just not many bad things about it other than the time commitment which is not necessarily a bad thing at the moment. It's important to stay hydrated but is it possible to drink too much? My father was in hospital two years when his sodium levels dropped. Apparently different people need different amounts. Yeah I think so to some degree and it's also different depending on where you live. Some countries have very very high amounts of sodium in their food so obviously drinking a ton of water is great. If you have quite a clean diet and you don't eat a lot of processed things sometimes you don't even get enough salt in your diet. So it's always important to kind of remember little nuances like that I guess. Zachary says do you ever get jealous really easy? Ever really dumb things? I hate that because I feel really immature but I don't know how to stop it sometimes. Definitely when I was younger I used to get like if I was in like a relationship with someone and they'd had a relationship before I would get like retrospective jealousy about that. But the funny thing is about being in adulthood that I don't really experience it that much I think it's because I know who I am. I have somewhat a positive regard for who I am I guess sometimes. So I guess other people's actions don't necessarily like feel like much of an ego attack towards me as they would do when I was younger. If you can phrase it like that I hope you've been exercising quite a bit recently I have indeed. I'm not that person that makes me nauseous really. I know this it's different for each person but I'm really hyposensitive to like vestibular proprioceptive stuff so getting in something that gives me that input is really really really regulating for me. It's quite hard like it used to when I was younger I used to kind of spin we had like a wood floor so I used to put my socks on and like spin around in a circle around. It's not really something that I can do in adulthood because I'm like 6'3 and away 100 kilos so it's if I fall I'm going to damage myself you know. Also I think I just had an ungodly like level of coordination back then I'm kind of out of the habit of doing it I feel like I might injure myself an expression shouldn't be a privilege of those you can do it well if you have something to say say it it doesn't matter if you don't win any prizes prizes say it for you do you mean airwaves I think I might have the right name for it no it's like this specialist like like exercise chewing gum it's rock hard it's like you gotta work on that you gotta like warm it up and everything because it's just so tough Spillow says Thomas with hearts hello Spillow GLS says Autism and financial problems good question I mean the employment rates are not the best for us makes sense probably have a few more expenses than the original typical makes sense not really something that I want to get into too much though Zachary says I feel like I know who I am but I'm always questioning stuff about myself because I used to be really stubborn same I didn't like being like that getting embarrassed thinking that used to be me well I mean we all grow as people in developing our personalities changes we get older you know it's nothing shameful about it Brennan said we could get some bubble wrap to wrap yourself in so you don't hurt yourself while spinning plus of being able to pot them while you're at it interesting that might make for a very interesting video Thomas gets wrapped up by autistic people and spins around in circles that'd be interesting are there certain things you know you need to intentionally avoid for your mental health deadlines is a big one time commitments that really drives up my anxiety and stops me from being able to relax properly hence why I'm taking a break from instagram posts and reels and stuff it's great you're practicing self care I am trying my best it's definitely not the easiest love.is.a said I've started dating again some time ago after a long relationship in the middle of which I realised I'm autistic I've struggled a bit at which point and how to drop that I'm autistic any depths you know I'm just kind of a fan of trying let people know as soon as possible it could like cut your numbers in terms of like chances to go on dates but the people who are curious about it and you know you're able to tell them about your needs and the things that might be different about you that's always going to go much better than if they don't know obviously it very much depends on the person that you're going with whether they're open minded whether they're caring which you know sometimes that can be a good how do you say filter maybe but that's just me but you know I feel like I can kind of accurately describe what I need and also feel okay with doing that I'm not feeling you know if people react negatively it's less about the fact that I'm autistic and just the fact that they just don't really understand it so it doesn't really bother me in that sense Zachary says I always get excited by fantasy or something but when I'm getting it for real it doesn't live up to it especially with us situations interesting conversation that you guys are having that do you often have imposter syndrome not so much recently I did have it for a while because I'm used to feeling like a different person and I feel like you know sometimes I'm a little bit different to the rest of the community in some respects and so sometimes I get imposter syndrome around that I get it at work sometimes it's hard I think it's just something that we all experience now and again we don't want to feel like we're taking people's voices away and taking up resources that people need it's always kind of a back in your head kind of worry that people who are empathic sorry someone's trying to call me is it okay now it looks to be still jittery goddammit that's irritating you understand yet hope everyone's staying hydrated that's our hydration manager on task you're in an open relationship that's interesting if it works for you then as long as it's something that both parties agree to two adults how do you relax that's an interesting one my brain decides whether I'm relaxed or not it's a lot of things it's like a cumulative stack of different self-care things which is why I need a bit more time to myself I think because it does take energy to do those self-care things like the gym, like meditating little small things that I can do throughout the day usually add up and help me feel a bit more chill it's funny I try to communicate but people don't care what do you mean Daniel says is there a link between autism, ADD and a certain level of dissociation totally well there's a link between autism, ADD and mental health and dissociation can often come with mental health you can also get shut downs and stuff which kind of feel like very heavily communicating totally Sergio Rosendo hello I really resonated with your story about moving in together me and my neurotypical partner I've been living together for a year the lack of recovery and alone time has been killing me ever since Jesus yeah you need to communicate with them about it I mean everyone's not so understanding and there can be a sense of rejection that you need more time to yourself because they're like why are you saying that it's just something that we experience with everybody not necessarily a certain person Austin says I feel like I don't fit in with neurotypicals but I also don't relate completely with all autistic experience either 100% definitely Brennan says can I ask how do you feel different from the autistic community if it's something you want to get into I guess it's just that I've always been kind of a bit of a lone wolf in life I very much have my own opinions way of presenting myself that kind of goes different to perhaps rest of the autistic community in some ways not really sure I haven't like properly thought about it I guess it's just more of a feeling but it could be like my sense of isolation or loneliness just inherent to being depressed kind of confirm was dissociated for a decade yep it's not a fun thing depersonalization, derealization very very kind of reality breaking experiences I found it's just be yoga says hi mate hello Zachary says that reminds me I find myself depersonalizing a lot when I'm stressed out or bothered by something or arguing with someone or trying to confront someone else it's just be yoga says man I'm having the worst day ever got diagnosed ASD a few months ago and I'm having a hard time with it I'm sorry we're going for a difficult time Zachary says wish I could be more present in those situations even though they have just be yoga says do you have any recommendations for medications for ASD? No there aren't anything that you can really have like it's not something that you medicate it's a lot of the things that you can do to make your life a bit better once you know that you're autistic is the adjustments that you make to your life the things that you do to adjust to find different ways of thinking about things or approaching things differently through understanding yourself a bit more medications that can help autistic people but not because they're autistic things around depression and anxiety because you know it tends to be something a lot of us experience definitely I feel like right now is the best and worst time to be able to just take more awareness around it but people's overall seems so paranoid about each other in quick to anger it's hard to socialize in general what it seems like I think it's just a result of social media you know you'd say there's good things about it and there's bad things about it you know it's just the way that things go when you have an open discussion area where anyone can talk and comment and have the same kind of level of voice in that I guess just be you I guess as thanks no worries at all very low energy burnout and meltdowns yeah I definitely like trying find some ways to support yourself that could be understanding your sensory profile needs perhaps some adjustments you can make in your home some different things that you can use out and about like ear defenders headphones even sunglasses little things like that just to reduce the overall stress that you experience and perhaps even just make a mental note of just dipping out of conversations and social things when you feel like you need to self-advocacy is important as well so I'm just going to read a few more from from Instagram and then we're probably going to wrap things up because I've got a little bit over my designated time it's a good point Zachary definitely okay so I've got a couple of comments or questions LA Bayer says sending you love from Columbia very cool you're a very strong brave person thank you for sharing your journey much appreciate that Hicken Daniels says take care of yourself on your break your videos helped me learn more about myself I'm doing better because you're willing to share means a lot yeah thank you yeah I'm not going to get teary-eyed on stream again like I did last time but that makes me really happy to 100% JLS says I stopped drinking caffeine 3 years ago because I had bad anxiety and trying to heal myself mentally that's good I mostly have caffeine because I'm on a sedative med that makes me very sleepy all the time no crying I'll cry okay you can cry for the two of us Austin not that I don't like a little bit of a cry it just doesn't come upon me at the most favorable times I suppose sending love from Northern Ireland thank you Joshua remember to stay hydrated once I get my business set up and stuff and start livestreaming a lot on YouTube I'll have to get you in Joshua as the moderator you can remind everybody to stay hydrated it's really needed for me like definitely like I need that have you ever thought about quitting caffeine yeah I have thought about it you know I have done it's not like I'm addicted or dependent on it it's just you know whenever I have situations where I've been off my sedative meds I haven't needed it I haven't used it it's more of like a counteracting thing so that I can actually function and do work during the day if that makes sense Eve Wales says that you were the first person I saw being open about your diagnosis after I was diagnosed reading your post helps me to understand and not feel so alone look after yourself will be here always you really you guys are really like baiting the feels out of me thank you for that Namjoon Samo says you helped me so much from my journey thank you good good right to probably try and wrap up and do other things possibly go to the gym I appreciate the the questions Doshua and thank you everybody for kind of yeah quick leave quick leave the flood is coming upon me thank you for the heart Austin thanks for the stream now where is Daniel hope to see you again soon thank you Rob thank you for everybody for your positive comments and messages and everything like that it really does make an impact on me and I feel very loved and understood which means a lot to me alrighty well thank you very much YouTube I will see you next week possibly on Friday I will let you know I will put it in the schedule thing and it will usually happen but if not just remember I will post and I will let you know alrighty take care guys and you guys