 Hello, and welcome back to another Ortitine livestream. How are you guys doing today? Not doing too bad. If you haven't been to one of these livestreams before, basically it's just an opportunity to jump on, chat a little bit about autism, bit about recent news, things like that. Hi, Elvie. So yeah, questions are very much the key element in here. So if you want to send me a comment or you want to ask me a question using that little question speech bubble thing, then that would be the best thing to do. Hi, Austin. Welcome back. How are you doing, man? I saw your video of you doing your incline press. Very impressive. Hey, Baird Nerd. Hello, Mina. Jumping straight in for a question there, real estatey. What is the meaning of life, eh? Just whatever you make it. Hi, Rania. Thanks for joining the stream. Forest Fairey says that, hi, I'm burnt out. I'm sorry that you are burnt out at the moment. There's been a lot going on at the moment. Hello, MP, MLO. How you doing? Mom's odd child. Very nice name. You're still not strong enough, Austin. I'd say that you're pretty, you're doing pretty well for yourself. What's your bench press like? That's something that gym people ask, isn't it? So, yeah, it's been a bit of a strange week, as usual for me. I've got a really, really cool podcast that's going to be coming out this weekend, no, Monday. I'm actually going to be talking to my mom on the podcast, and we're going to be talking about basically my life from her perspective. We're going to, I think after we finish this livestream, we're going to record, so I'm looking forward to it. It should be really cool. Like, I get a lot of questions from my parents asking, like, at what age did you start speaking? What were your experiences like when you were younger? And I usually don't have a lot to say about that, because I can't really remember. But we're going to do that podcast. It's going to be really great, probably. Very emotional podcast, so if you're looking forward to that, go check it out on Spotify. Give it a follow. You'll be updated when that comes out. Wow, 180 kilos, Austin. That is mad. No, I cannot touch that, mate. Hi, Appten. How are you doing? Hi, Gabrielle. Forest Fairy says, yes, I have my bachelor's presentation on Monday and struggle with executive functioning. How do you handle stressy times? I think it's really important to be easy on yourself. Like, I would really highlight that a really great way of doing well at your presentation is just about managing your mutes, taking breaks, making sure that you're not going so hard into the research and the practicing at a point where you're bent out when it comes to the actual presentation. I know that when I was at uni, I find them not too bad, but I had a lot of experience with them. I think I didn't, to be honest, if I'm honest, I didn't really handle it very well when I was at university. But I'd say that getting some exercising before making sure you get some sleep and not fretting too much about the specifics of remembering every single thing. It's best to put your well-being first. I'm not too bad. Thanks, Rania. It's been a bit of a strange week, as I said. Things are starting to become a little bit more consistent and leveled out. So yeah, that 180 kilo bench is crazy. Hello, Emelio. I'm good, just came out of a meltdown, so recovery is great. Yeah, I'm sorry that you had that experience. She also said that my mom called me in my native language and she did so with endless love. My superpower at age, I've seen 43. Yeah, moms can be amazing. It's really good to have support network and stuff. You were four above all you spoke? I have no idea. Quackfax says, does the autism card allow me to say words I otherwise couldn't? I probably still stick to not using inflammatory language just as a baseline because, I don't know, we're living in a time where it's not. You need to be a bit careful about what language you use. I don't use difficult language. Hi, Ellie. Thank you for joining, Eli. Thank you for joining. Here were some of your heroes. That's a really good question. I actually, to be honest, because growing up autistic, I didn't really identify with anybody, any celebrities or role models in the mainstream. So I've always, I never really had anyone that I could look up to in that sense, though with some Taekwondo fighters that I idolized and I got to meet them and stuff when I was competing. But I didn't really have any in-person heroes. A lot of my heroes tended to be fictional characters, like, would you say, like, anime characters, like Dragon Ball characters. They were a big sort of a condition for me, especially, like, I think there was a narrative character called, like, Rock Lee. It was all about, like, discipline and hard work. And he just had such, like, a good mentality on life. And I found that really inspiring for me. Forest Fairy says, thank you. I'm doing my best. Tuck the afternoon off and I'm gauging my special interest, doing a Taylor Swift song-sorter, but still feeling guilty. Now, I understand the guilt, and I think it's something that, you know, I experience when I try to relax and do something that's not productive, but sometimes rest is productive. It is. Iranian, when I do these streams, I have, like, an Instagram stream going at the same time as me, YouTube. That's why. Yeah, presentations are easier if you can be calm about it, not over-thinking it, totally. Cold showers help you, but not everyone's into that. I went, yeah, cold showers aren't my favorite. I've done them before, but I don't know. I've looked into some of the research behind it. It helps some people, but not in my case. I like a warm shower. Oh, my God. Yeah, your bend press is crazy, Austin. You should be really proud about that. I think the max that I've ever done is, like, 120 for, like, three. Don't feel guilty for us, fairy fey. Breaks are important, totally rum-ripple. Rich Collins says, just want to say that your kind of awareness on this is kind of the light. I've been desperately, desperate to find for so long. I reach out to say thank you on Instagram DM and just try and say thank you. Oh, yeah, I'll try and get on that, Rich. I really appreciate that you found my way to be valuable. It's, yeah, I think it's definitely the biggest thing for me when I was younger. It's like finding someone who was talking about the issues that I was going through. So when I was younger, I kind of set a goal for myself that I wanted to be, like, the person that I wanted to have when I was younger. And, you know, thankfully, you know, you've got loads of other advocates within the community who are doing some really awesome stuff for autistic people, talking about different issues that perhaps even I don't talk about. So really great. By the way, Instagrammers, do you like the audio quality? Because I have recently got this, like, budget lapel mic because I noticed that with my Instagram lies, my audio is a bit weird over on the iPhone. So I've got these, like, wireless lapel mics. It's got, like, attaches into the bottom of the phone. Let me know if the quality is better or not. Hey, Joshua. Thanks for coming on. Rellis Katie, another good question. You are my question person for the stream today. How have your feelings about being autistic changed over time? That is a very good question. Because I think for a lot of people who are just getting into understanding more about autism, unmasking, things like that, I think there's a bit of, like, a distance with how they feel about autism, you know, they're surrounded by people telling them that it's a bad thing and they have to correct their behaviors. So, and you also get a lot of bad experiences, particularly in school. So for me, you know, for a long time, I felt like, you know, I hated it. Like, it was something that I, a part of myself that I wished I could remove, you know. I think when I got into my late teens, early 20s, it was kind of a bit of a revelation when I kind of reframed my view on the world and sort of looked into more about what other autistic people have experienced and have thought some different things. So it was, it gradually changed into me learning to, I guess, like myself. It started off with me becoming more neutral. And I think over time, it's become a lot more positive. You know, I see a lot of the positive aspects of being autistic in myself and also in the people around me, especially like going through the podcasting journey of, you know, I'm coming up on about 60 episodes. So it's definitely been really useful to hear people's like different perspectives on life, on how they view autism. And I think that's one thing that I think's hard about new people entering the community because it can sometimes feel like there's a bit of a disconnect. That's when you have people like me talking about all the positive things about it. It's like, you know, sometimes it's good to have a more balanced view on it because it allows other people to, I guess, relate to it a little bit more. I'd say that that was kind of my journey with autism and, you know, as I said, nowadays, I have a lot more of a positive regard for being autistic and I actually think that it's something that society should really take on board. Austin says, I struggle with a lot of self-worth issues and literally beating myself up but I've got better at being more neutral. That's good and that's the thing. It's a very slow process and I think a lot of the really valuable things that I did when I started to learn about autism is that I look back on different experiences that I've had in my life with a bit more of a kind view towards myself and a lot of those situations that kind of have stayed with me since school, those things that I've done, some things that I've said that just didn't really sit right with other people, those situations that weren't perhaps palatable from either side, I kind of, you know, I processed them a lot more and I saw it for what it was, you know, I made a recent reel about autism and confidence and I think that that's really important because I think we can carry with us a lot of negative experiences and kind of unknowingly or consciously just, you know, beating ourselves up for things that have happened and letting that hold us back from forming more positive, good relationships with people. It was only when I started to come out of my shell a bit more and I guess feel more confident in myself and make friends who, you know, liked me for me and loved me for me that I started to say like, hey actually, you know, maybe these standards that I'm setting for myself, these very heartless mentalities towards myself are probably not the best and probably not even true, like in the wider sense. I mean, there's obviously issues that come up with that, you know, you get a lot of issues around like make crime, a lot of autistic people being like manipulated and taking advantage of. So it's definitely worth being aware of that and setting boundaries, but that was a really important step for me, especially like going off to Thailand, being exposed to group situations that I wouldn't have never experienced sort of my day-to-day life. That was a really changing thing for me because I felt part of the group and I felt like, you know, I could be myself and it was really great for me, but it is a long process, definitely. Remember, stay hydrated, totally. Remaise says, raising autistic sons and life's a rollercoaster ride, sending love, good. Oh, you like the audio moonlight, good, I'm glad. I need to get a bit more of a stable, like, stable, what'd you say, tripod. So every time I go to touch the screen, it kind of wobbles. Rani says, recently I saw a post on Facebook group about how some famous autistic people do more harm than good in the autism communities. I don't want to name anyone in particular, but what's your opinion? I think, yeah, I think that the thing is, is that, you know, autism isn't tied to morality. You can be a good person and be autistic or you can be a nasty person and be autistic. It's not necessarily one in the same. And I think that that's something that it initially started out as all autistic people are unempathetic and they don't have good morals and they're these demon-childs. And I think it's more shifted nowadays in terms of online stuff to, like, overly positive. Like, every autistic person is honest. They want to, you know, do all these good things and then they can never be selfish and they, you know, there are these gems of human beings, but it's the same in neurotypicals. And I think it's really important to normalise, I guess, the fact that we're humans and, you know, when you have a mix of different humans, some of them are gonna have good intentions towards others and some of them are not. Yeah, a lot to do with, like, infantilisation, you know, wherever these demons that can't be controlled or these angels, I think it's that the reality likely lies somewhere in the middle. But I think in terms of the empathy front, just from my experience, autistic people that I've met, they tend to be a lot more empathic about perhaps individuals who've been ostracised from groups, individuals that might be a bit different that people might find weird and most people would ignore them. But we kind of, we don't tend in my experience to ostracise them as well. We tend to be more sort of having a neutral regard for pretty much everyone that we meet up until they do something that makes us feel good about them or makes us feel bad. I think it's really important that that aspect of, that human aspect of being autistic because it's not as clear-cut all the time. You know, it's a balance. We gotta view them as not unempathic because that's, you know, wrong science. But we've also gotta realise that, you know, we're humans and it's good and bad humans. Have you ever had to face RSD or rejection-sensitive dysphoria? I'm loving the hydration reminders. It's true though. It's like with a podcast that I do, like, there's so much lip-smacking in the podcast but from my side and other people. So I just have to be, like, really on top of my hydration before those. I should really be more in general, fill up like a really big water bottle or something to drink it for the day. That seems to work. But rejection-sensitive dysphoria, you know, it's definitely something that I think is more likely to happen with autistic people because if you imagine the, if you just look at, like, the negative life statistics that I said both, you know, are present both in stats and also from autistic people's experiences, bullying, isolation, difficulties with work, things of that nature. It's all gonna contribute to mental health and it's also gonna give us sort of a bit more of a darker perception on life because of the experiences that we have. Like, and I think, you know, there's experiences that we've had perhaps during school can sort of sensitize us to relationships in adult life. It definitely did with me. Yeah, like, it's fine, it's frustrating as well, totally. You find a lot of autistic content in fantasizing. What type of content do you mean from, like, autistic people talking about it or do you mean, like, in the, like, from organizations and stuff, like mainstream? Another great question from Joshua. I appreciate this a lot. Have you ever faced a shutdown? Yeah, a lot. It happens. I did a post about, like, trigger stacking. I didn't get as much traction as my other posts but I think it was a really valuable sort of concept. It's kind of talking about, like, the stacking of cortisol throughout the day that kind of, it's not like this stressy stress hormone. It's involved in sort of waking sleep cycles, things like that, but it's also sort of released when you're in a stressful situation. And the weird thing about it is that it doesn't just release and then die down really quickly. It actually takes, like, quite a long time for it to clear out of your system. And so if you experience lots of different stressors throughout the day, there can be some really small thing that happens that just kind of tips you over the edge that usually wouldn't. And you can have a meltdown, you can have a shutdown. I tend to shut down a lot. Sometimes I'll have a meltdown when I feel like it. I'm joking, by the way. No, it does happen. It does happen. It's just one of those things, you know. It's usually a cue for me. It's not incredibly stressful unless I've got someone pressuring me to speak to them or do stuff. But, you know, it happens. There's my first one last year. It was completely out of the blue and it was quite a shock. Yeah, it can be sometimes. I was diagnosed at 10 for a spheri. I had my second diagnosis as in I saw it for more than just social and sensory stuff in my early 20s, late teens. So, yeah, I was diagnosed at 10, but I think a lot of people, when we think about early diagnosis, like, I know that it's important to know that someone's autistic to get, like, the legal, educational things of that nature. But the thing is that depending on where you live, it's not always enforced and it can often be detrimental in a lot of cases to our well-being. So, it's not always a good thing. But, you know, there's pros and cons, I guess, depending on where you are, what kind of supports you have available, who is supporting you. Sometimes both, you're an exception, obviously. Thank you. Yeah, I think sometimes content can be infantilizing from either side. I think it's, you know, the best people that I come across, they always hold humanity to quite high regard with any content that they do. Like, they don't overly generalize about people's capabilities or people's traits or, you know, it's obviously hard to not generalize when you're talking about groups. But I think, you know, the people who have kind of a balanced view, they see the negatives, they see the positives. Those tend to be the people that I really value. Because it's realistic, you know, it's not all good, it's not all bad. Any tips on how to unmask? Yeah, first step, go through your life, learn about autism and try and process those negative experiences. I'd say that that's probably the first place to go. Learn a bit more about yourself, identify things that have happened or that happened in your life in the present and look back at experiences where you had a negative regard for yourself and try and reprocess those memories. Those are really good things. Also, if you are enjoying the streams or you've come to one of the live streams before, if you want to support me, I do have badges on Instagram. I also have memberships on YouTube and if you're enjoying it on YouTube, give it a like. It really does help me. I'm trying to grow the old podcast at the moment, so it does help. You've been diagnosed at two weeks? Wow, two weeks ago. Yeah, there's a big imposter syndrome phase in that. It can be sometimes quite tough. Because you already have these, I guess, these stigmas or assumptions about what autism is and you have to kind of challenge those by doing a lot of research. Thank you, Austin. I really appreciate it, man. So it's, what was I saying? Imposter syndrome. It's something that even I experience sometimes. It's not always the easiest thing. I think a lot of it, for some people that I've talked to, some of my family members who have sort of had a diagnosis but not really, I guess, process much of it and learn more about it from the autistic experience angles. I think sometimes they can feel a little bit like they're like stealing the label or stealing the supports from people, which I think is a really sort of negative view to have with yourself because everyone's needs and everyone's traits are so different. I think sometimes it's just worth, it doesn't always have to be this as big of a thing as it appears. Trying to know if you're autistic or not. You just got to read more. You got to think about it. You got to process any stigmas or stereotypical views of autism that you have and really just try to get a good representation, talk to other autistic people, things of that nature. I think it's really important to get that experiential angle of things, not just the medical research papers and stuff because those stuff, they tend to be very far behind like the stuff that the community talk about, which is difficult if you don't have access to social media and you're not involved in the communities like a lot of people are and they don't really have those aspects to understand a bit more about the autistic experience. Thanks for the gifting, by the way. I appreciate it, Alston. Welcome to the membership channel a bit. How was your autism awareness month? I think it was April for us in the UK. It's not always the most fun time. It tends to be a bit annoying sometimes. I'm not going to lie. I don't like to see organizations running campaigns, although it is about autism, it's not always, it kind of drowns out a lot of the autistic people who are speaking on things. Ideally, what they would be doing is consulting with people from the autistic communities and I guess using that as more of a co-produced campaigns and stuff, but I think even then some organizations, they're just so detached from the adult communities that it can just be a really difficult time. Do you think it's better for autistic people to have friends who are also autistic? I think it's good to have a mix. I have neurotypical friends, I have ADHD friends, I have autistic friends. I think sometimes it's good to talk to other autistic people about autism-related things because there tends to be a little bit less need to educate them or help them understand the autistic experience. It's kind of just a bit more easy going when you're communicating with an autistic person. You both understand the things that you don't like in social interaction and also you kind of have a bit more of an understanding of the issues and the struggles of some of the more quicky, strange aspects to the autistic experience. Your name's Jeff, nice to meet you, Jeff. Welcome to the membership. Rich says, I have to pop off, Thomas. Thank you again for helping me come to terms with myself. Hope to connect again soon. Thank you very much, Rich. Appreciate it. You're very honest to the point where some people I know hate it, yeah, sometimes. How's your eye contact? I don't make as much as most neurotypicals, but I do make some now and again. When I'm with people I know very well, I tend not to make hardly any, just because I think for some people if they don't know that I'm autistic or they don't know much about autism, it kind of cuts off conversations quite quickly because they get a bit weird about the fact that you're not making as much eye contact. I don't think it's something that we should be doing. It's such a silly social rule. People draw some really crazy, what would you say, conclusions from interactions where you're not making eye contact. I think I saw some research about the psychology of it. People who don't make as much eye contact, they can be seen as being more shifty or aloof for all of these bad assumptions that mean nothing just based on whether or not you lock eyes with somebody. It's a bit insane. I kind of understand that to a certain degree. RSD has hit you hard recently, yeah, it's tough. I realize that I'm very behind on the chat, so apologies for this, guys. Janey says, hi Tom, sorry I'm late. No worries, I am good. Thank you, thank you. I appreciate your compliment on my stuff. I'm going to bring back the pointing videos that I do because I've realized that I've actually the pointing videos tend to do a bit better than the ones of me speaking, which I think it's mostly because of the quality of the stuff that I do on there. I try to do more casual reels about things like that, but I think the pointing ones are definitely a bit better because I can kind of think a little bit more and put a lot more information into a shorter amount of video. I'm not the best with short-form content. I've made some new pointing reels, so I've got my fresh face. I spent a little bit of time this week chopping up the videos and getting them ready to put some text on. Raila Skater says I'm 39, and I like people thinking I'm much younger. I also have a bunch of plushies, and I'm very cute, to be honest. Very cool. I love plushies. Actually, to be honest, my favorite plushie, well, I've got a few. I've got like three, but one of my favorite plushies is my tardigrad. It's a water bear. It's like these microscopic creatures. I got it, like, I think I got it at like a Dutch museum, microbiology museum. But it's, um, it's really cool. It's called Felicia. I don't know why you named it that, but... Yeah, it's from the beer, beer, deer, tige, water... Artists' Micropia Museum. It's a really cool place. I've also got some, like, satanic plushies because I'm into Mike Goffey stuff, but I don't tend to pull them out as much because I know sometimes people can be a bit weird about that. Taking things away from actually autistic people totally. Nothing about us, without us, totally. Autism awareness is also ableist and, like, pinkwashing. Yeah. Headwig, how are you doing? Just being your friends. Eye contact is not always needed to keep communication more honest and open. Totally, you know. I'd agree with that. Do the shirtless ones do best. Yo, um, maybe. I don't know. It depends. I don't think so, actually. You know, I think the pointy ones are definitely ones that work. I think it's mostly because, you know, I like doing my, showing my, like, every reel that I make each week, which are, like, the shirtless ones, it's basically like an update on, like, my progress with, like, bodybuilding and stuff. And I just tried to make it a bit more autism-y. Talk about autistic things. I think, um, I think this is unbeatable because I don't really know anyone within the autistic community who does that kind of thing. Like, um, sort of, you know, some of the creators on Instagram. So I think it's, sometimes we can perhaps think it's something else, like it's just, like, a gym, one of those fitness gym videos, but who knows. You turn 34 tomorrow. Congratulations. Wait, are you doing anything fun? Perhaps going for an extra long gym session. Uh, Jeff asks, do the videos have to be in short format? If you miss any other words, you can't rewind it, and you have to re-watch the whole thing over and over again. Yeah, that's true. Um, I don't know. I think shorts are being phased out a lot on Instagram, particularly. I know that YouTube shorts is quite popular, like, for growing channels. That's why I've been doing them quite a lot. Um, I think, but I think for Instagram, they're trying to push posts a lot more because the advertisements that they can put on, um, Instagram reels, they don't do as well as, like, post-based advertisements, like, and you feed. I think that's one of the reasons why. Yeah, it's a girl. Yeah, yeah, the museum. I can't remember. I think it was, um, I think it was around Amsterdam, to be honest. Uh, prep school hippie, love the name. Shaking hands makes me feel physically ill and nauseous. I had to go to a birthday party the other day, two people just came at me and said, can we sit here extending their hands? And that immediately left. I think, you know, I don't mind shaking hands with people. It doesn't cause me any stress, but I just find it funny sometimes with guys, like when they stab, like a really firm handshake in the light. Yeah. So I, I, when people do that, I just tend to go like really floppy with my hand cause I just, and I just laugh it off cause it's just, I just find it really funny. Just like see it sucks. Oh, you're doing some gym. Nice. If you've got like a, which, which, what are you doing at the gym? Could only have you cats hiding from people. Angela says, I'm dating an autistic man and I'm very happy with him. I feel so safe with him. And we can talk for hours. I noticed he makes more eye contact than me. I get very shy when I make eye contact. Yeah. Well, to be honest, I don't think it's something that, I think a lot, most people they have some level of issue with eye contact, especially if they have like anxiety. So I don't think it's something that, I think it's something that autistic people tend to find harder, but I don't, you know, the same, the same vein as that, you know, some autistic people, they have very, very intense eye contact. You know, especially like, perhaps more of like the older generation, like I'm just thinking of my granddad, constant prolonged eye contact. I think that's something. Jaws and arms. Nice. Ooh. Yeah. I've started a new program too. Going to be doing five days a week instead of six, which I'm not too happy about, but you know, I'm struggling to manage like, organization of going to the gym. It's less about like the fatigue that I feel it's just, it's not always the easiest to fit stuff in. It just gives me a bit more, bit more, I don't know, bit more leeway, you know, I, you know, if I need to take a, take a day off, I don't have to have it as like my day off as of the week. It can be like one of two. So it just, it just reduces the pressure on me a little bit, but I have been replacing it with like a giant workout that I do on the weekend. And I'm not going to lie. I pretty enjoy it. I enjoy it. It's like two hours and a half that I go. It's crazy, but I love it. Recovery might be better. That's true. I do, I have released my reps down from like 10 to 15 to like five to eight. So I just find it works better. I can, I can recover a lot better between doing sets. I think it's because of my like athletic stuff that I used to do. You know, I'm very fast twitch muscle fibers. So perhaps doing the more endurancey stuff is not, not, not the best. Rather skatey asks, how does bodybuilding influence what you eat? It definitely discourages me from over eating. Like I, I, I, I put a lot of weight during COVID and I, I take a medication called metazapine, which is a set. It's like a sedative and it helps me with sleep helps with my anxiety. And also the reason, well, the reason why I kept in sort of my medication is because it really, it really helps me offset some of the high anxiety that I feel on SSRIs. But one of the downsides of it is that, it's an appetite stimulant. And if, if you guys know, know me, I used to have having to have an ED, you know, as bulimic. So it was, you know, as I got older, kind of morphed a little bit into binging and then the metazapine just kind of kicked it in overdrive. So I, I tried very much as much as I can to get a lot of protein in just because it's more satiating. But it, you know, it's, I think as well, you know, I tried to find options where I can get a lot of protein in just from, just from like snacks and stuff that I choose, where it's like protein flapjacks or these like yogurt, chocolate yogurt pots. Those work really well. I'm definitely not 100% with a diet, but I have found some things that, that I can make that aren't too taxing for my executive function, like protein pancakes. I can just eat up or I'm really big fan of overnight oats at the moment, put in a bit of protein powder. It's good. Thank you very much. I'm trying. I have lost, I've lost a good amount. I think I'm into a good healthy, healthy rain, healthy weight now at the moment. So my cardio is pretty good. I don't get tired from walking. It's really funny because I used to be like, well, it's not funny, but I used to be very severely underweight, especially when I was competing. So I think that's something that I think some people experience sort of going into adult life, you know, you get a bit more comfortable, you know, as bothered about what people think of you as much. So you just, you know, you die. It kind of goes off the rails sometimes. But also I think, I think as well, you know, for me, it's not about looking good. It's about progressing in a sport in my eyes. I mean, I don't know. Would you consider bodybuilding a sport? I suppose it is. But now I've always, throughout my life, always had like a few elements to what I did. It is. It is. Yeah, there's always been like a few elements. There's been like my online work, social media, whatever, podcast, YouTube. So that's kind of like the speaking element of stuff that I like to do. And then I have the more academic side of things, which I was really into when I was younger. You know, I went to uni and I did Biomed. So that was another part and then the sport side. So it used to be Taekwondo. It was first it was swimming and it was Taekwondo. Now I had a bit of an injury kind of phased out of it a little bit. So I'm just sticking to something that I can just do on the regular and, you know, I don't have to worry about being at practice for a certain amount of time. At a certain time, I can just kind of go whenever I need to. And it mostly just maintains my mental health, to be honest. That's a really big thing. It's so good like for light longevity and mental health and all of that. There's been research that actually indicates recovery can be better with lower reps. Yeah, I've definitely felt that, especially with like compound exercises. John says, hello, my name's John. I was diagnosed with ASD, 35 years old. You don't know me, but I'm very proud of you. Oh, thank you very much, John. I'm glad that you popped in to say hello. It's really lovely to say. It's going well. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I know that I've been producing content for like a long time. A long time. Like there's some videos of me. If you want to have a laugh, go and watch my channel introduction video. Like my, I think it was the one of the first videos that I made on YouTube. My like demeanor, my speaking voice, all of that stuff. It's so much different to how I am now. It's just, it's really, really quite strange to look back on some of the content that I used to make. I was quite surprised about how well I spoke, but it was very sort of robotic with how I delivered stuff. It's quite interesting. Hedwig says, I am taught the hard way to make eye contact and the timing was off too. So people feel felt very intimidating, intimidated, because I didn't get to the right, get the right timing. So no, I don't bother anymore. It's probably a good thing. You don't want to be like socializing is hard enough, like thinking about what to say to like people that you've just met. You don't need to think about, oh, I'm making the right ratio of eye contact. It can be something that if you want to work on it, you can. I wouldn't say that, you know, if it's not too hard for you and you feel like it would benefit you perhaps in an employment setting. Or just just when you first meet people, it could be something that you could try. But, you know, I'd always say that, you know, it's important to be who you are first, first thing, you know, things. Some people can make some judgments about as if we don't. And I think that's wrong. But, you know, it's that kind of thing that, you know, ideally society would be understanding of that and not see it as a negative thing. But at the same time, if you're in situations where you need to perform, do well at work, sometimes some people can be really critical of very tiny minute details. Not saying that that means that we have to pick up the slack, but I think for some people it, you know, it can, you know, impact success in life. You know, you have a lot, you have a lot of people who just get by through the workplace just by being charismatic and, you know, talky and perhaps a bit more assertive. And that's not right. And they get to positions where, you know, they appear to be good at their job, but also just don't really have the knowledge that perhaps other people who, you know, like autistic people who really know their stuff and can do a really good job. So that's kind of the negative side of it. I wish it would be something that organizations would be a bit more aware of that kind of bias that they have about very small, minute social things. But it's going to take time. And now to make changes to that. You gave it a quick look. You're speaking in confidence and to increase a lot. Yeah. It also took me like two hours to make that video. Took me ages. I scripted it as well. I don't script any of my stuff anymore. It's definitely been something that I've worked on that speaking side of things. I used to be very shy. Hardly used to talk at all. And, you know, it's something that I wanted to do. It's not something that I say everyone should do, but, you know, it's helped me out a bit in life. Just do, I guess, work with what I've got a bit more. Possibly. I always look down and people think I'm eyeing their bodies. It's so embarrassing. Yeah. Yeah, that's happened to me sometimes, like a couple of times. John says that I joined the military and did that for 12 years. And you would be surprised on how many are on the spectrum. That's really interesting. Because I have a friend who tried to join the military, but they couldn't do it because they had an autism diagnosis. Are they like undiagnosed individuals? So I imagine that the noise and people shouting at you and the social, the hard sort of social. Yeah, the hard sort of social arena is going to be quite hard. Well, thank you for joining Austin. I hope you have a good day too. I appreciate the gifted sub and all that. Really appreciate it. AGDNN77 says, I noticed when I have certain foods with traces of ingredients on that I don't like, I get very picky and don't know if it's the autism sensory thing. It could be. I think you didn't know until you got out. That's interesting. This sensory stuff. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, most of my difficulties with food tended to come from textures, like not necessarily about the flavours. Some flavours I just couldn't get into it. I think that that could be a thing. I think some people, very small changes to food can be very difficult to manage on the long term. Could be a thing. The interesting thing about food and textures and flavours and stuff is that I used to have a very limited palette. I used to be very used to go for the same foods over and over again. It's never been something that I've been forced to do by parents or teachers or anything like that to expand my palette and my taste. But when I went to uni, I had this idea because I was thinking about how the mechanisms of disgust work. Disgust is a feeling that you get to avoid illness, to avoid things. When you're exposed to things that you find disgusting, sometimes your brain realises that it's not as harmful to you as you think it is. So I used to hate mushrooms, couldn't stand them. I'd gag if I ate them. But then I tried eating them now and again, kept trying them. Now it's one of my favourite foods. But equally, tomatoes absolutely hate them. Try them now and again, still hate them. I think it was the texture of it, especially cherry tomatoes. I can do cooked tomatoes, but not the cherry ones. Hello XD Jammy64, how are you doing? Angela says, my son, my autistic son is always very loud with talking and can talk forever, but he hates when I make loud noises. Yeah, that's more akin to sensory defensiveness. Have you heard of that before? Tomato. Tomato. I don't know, is there like a dialect difference between countries? I imagine it will be, like America to the UK. Tomato, tomato, all that kind of thing. Rania says, when I can't look at people's eyes, they think I don't respect them, especially my teachers at university. That's another thing, yeah, with parents and stuff, that can be something that happens. I find that very depressing sometimes. Because for us, it's better, well for me, if I'm really intensely listening to someone, like I'm really wanting to understand, the first thing that I do is look away into the distance, trying to really focus in on what that person is saying. The last thing that I do is want to make more eye contact, because it just distracts me. If I'm trying to understand what someone is saying, I look to the side, which as you said, sometimes people can say that you're not listening or you're trying to ignore them. So it's interesting that. Hedwig says, of course, the military gives straight answers and short assignments, short to point communication hierarchies clear. Didn't think about that. That's interesting. Have you experienced that, John? That's sort of more routine based stuff, yeah, it's interesting. But I was talking about sensory defensiveness, Angela. Well, sensory defensiveness is an element of someone's sensory system. I've just broken my fidget, my finger, rolly thing. God damn it. Yeah, sensory defensiveness, it's a lot about control. So like the best way I can describe it is we'll probably be OK if we are listening to music that we can turn up and control and put to a right volume. But as soon as there's music in places that we don't want it, and it's too loud or it's, you know, there's lots of different noises that we can't control. That can be a lot harder for us. And you can even see it with autistic kids. They perhaps might want the lights turned off most of the time, but they really enjoy being able to control whether light's on or off. That's something that some people experience. And I think in adulthood, for me, it's more akin to like hugs. Hugs is a great example of sensory defensiveness. I love hugs. What I don't love is if people come up to me and touch me without asking or just out of the blue, you know, people put their hand on my shoulder. Not too great. Doesn't make me feel very good. And also with hugs, if people just run at me and give me a hug, it's a bit harder. But if they say, do you want a hug? And I'll be like, yeah, sure. But there's an element of control in that and being able to prepare yourself for it. If you imagine strong stimulation like an ice bath or something, or a cold shower, jump in the cold shower. You have control over that. You can slowly put yourself into it and slowly turn down the heat as opposed to if someone will like push you into an icy bath. It's different. You're not prepared for it. You don't have the control over it. It might be a strong stimulation. You might even enjoy it. But because you don't have that, you're not prepared for it. It can be another element that can make it really difficult without those sensory things. Love in all the hearts. Thank you. Mark says, I have a disgust reaction to my mother. Now she's spending so long misunderstanding, criticizing and rejecting. I can get that. It's hard when you kind of, you're trying to become more like positive and stuff. And you notice that some people around you are a lot more negative than you realized, especially when you've like been away from people for a while. And you come back and talk to them. And they're just so negative. It's like, it's a lot. You're welcome, Angela. But Jeff said, no, it's not Jeff. Is it Jeff? Oh my God. Jeff says, yes, when I remember what someone's saying, I look away from them. This is upset people in the past. Yeah. John says, yes, you know the 24 to 48 hour ahead. If anything changes, they will tell you to expect change so you're not in the dark. That's interesting. I've been married for 15 years and my wife can't touch. It's so depressing. What do you mean? Jeff says, how about the person who shakes your hand and puts the other hand on your elbow? Yeah, screw those people. I ate those people. Once he tried to do some kind of weird dominance display with handshake. Oh my God. It makes me laugh though. I find that stuff really funny. What do you tell people when they ask why you struggled by contact? I've been confronted on this topic. I just tell them I'm autistic and I just find it painful. Just try to not. I don't try to be very serious when I talk to people about it. I just kind of talk about it plainly. I'm like, you know, I just don't like it as much. It doesn't mean that I don't. I'm not interested or I'm not paying attention. It's just, it actually stops me from being able to concentrate on what you're telling me as much. I think it's a lot about the way that you say it. So I think some people can be quite like aggressive and like assume that the person has a bad intention, even if they don't understand. So I just try to come from that angle of like, they don't really know much about it. It's a bit annoying, but you know, here you go. Here's a bit of tidbit on me as a person. Thank you for applying. You know, no worries. No worries. I'm going to try and wrap up soon. I'm going to answer some of the last questions. Angela says, I find it hard that my son gets bullied because he's autistic. It breaks my heart. It breaks my heart too. It's something that really needs to be changed. Amit Nita says, I never encountered any sensory overload. Maybe I don't like a lot of brightness on my laptop at night. So I just have to just stay a little bit because it gives me a headache. Yeah, that could be another thing. No, I have, I like to use the, what do you say, the brightness settings on things. Make the light more warm. That's good. Yeah. Sunrise in Galaxy Light. Oh, I love those. Would you ever go skydiving? Totally. I really want to. I actually was thinking of doing like a charity thing around it, but I realized that it probably might not be a good idea because I had my surgery. So I've put it off for a while, but we're going to do it at some point. I'm going to, I'll do like a little vlog, me jumping out of a plane, be grand. Russ says, yes, monotone doesn't help with explaining the autistic tics. No, sometimes. I don't think it's more about monotone. I think it's more about like owning it, you know, not being too like trying to convince them, you know, you just tell them. It's like, I just find eye contact hard. It's not, not a big deal kind of thing. You have over 200 jumps. Oh my God. Got a veteran skydiver in the chat. Crazy. Well, guys, I've really appreciated you look coming on to support my live stream. I hope you've enjoyed it. If you have, make sure to check out some of my stuff, my podcast. If you're on YouTube, go check out my Instagram. And also, if you, if you want to talk to me about anything you want to ask me questions, I do have a like a one to one consultancy service that I do. It's, it's, it's kind of like coaching, but it's just, it's not coaching in it officially. I do like one hour chats with, with people. So if you want to do that, you can find it in my link tree. Whether you're on YouTube or not, it's, it's all in my links. But yeah, I hope you've enjoyed the stream. I'm going to wrap up now if I can just remove my ring light. Got a new ring light. Been really helpful. I've been buying some different tech and stuff. So it's been good. Anyway, see you later guys on Insta. I will see you later. And you guys on YouTube. Thank you so much for coming and chatting to me. It's always really lovely and hope you guys have a good day. See you later.