 Microphone is not on. Okay, apologies for that. Paula? I was just saying yes, I usually do this over on a Friday, do it on Sunday because I've been doing a lot of work trying to prevent my YouTube videos. Much apologies for the sound though. I should have checked that. So yeah, welcome back to another stream. If you haven't been on one of these before this is basically an opportunity to ask me anything about autism, mental health fitness, self-improvement, anything that you could imagine within reason. You're very welcome to ask some some questions about that. Hello, Sarah and Bernard. Welcome to the stream. How are you doing? Yeah, so I am going to be putting out a new like proper YouTube video. It's going to be like a pretty much like an hour long presentation on autistic burnout, the autistic burnout roller coaster, which I'm really excited to, you know, put out like a proper full end video. I haven't done one of those in a while, but like the podcasts and things like that. So it's going to be good. It's going to be cool. Really excited to get my teeth into that. And I'm sure it should be useful to some of you out there. You are currently going through the old burnout. It's not the most fun thing to experience in life. It's from personal experience. And I definitely have had a lot of time to reflect on the reasons why I went into a burnout post the fact. So I've got a little bit more of a personal angle to share, I guess in terms of like, you know, how I dealt with it. Hello, Mr. Austin. How are you doing today? Midnight butterfly iris says any tips on teeth brushing struggles? Good question. So that that comes under the umbrella term of executive functioning. Executive functioning is basically your brain's ability to like switch between tasks, like understand the amount of time that stuff requires. And it's quite difficult, both for people who are ADHD and autistic, because sometimes the transition time between very small tasks can be very, very difficult. On the ADHD side of things, it can be a little bit more hard to focus, whereas on like the autism side. In my case, transitioning between multiple different little things is a lot more stressful than like sending sending time aside during the week to do something. When it comes to things like hygiene, you know, that definitely falls under the umbrella of executive functioning. One of the ways that I kind of consistently stay on top of my teeth brushing is by task stacking. So basically, if you don't know what that is, I have a routine in the night that I do, and it doesn't necessarily have to be the gym, but for me, it's usually started with, you know, I'll finish work, finish some kind of projects that I'm working on, I'll go to the gym, I'll come home, I'll have a shower, and during the shower, I'll try and get myself to brush my teeth. It's a little bit, sometimes a little bit more inconsistent in the mornings, but sometimes if I'm really struggling to stay on top of that, you know, there's nothing wrong with having your toothbrush by the side of your bed. It sounds a bit gross, you know, where you're going to get rid of the excess, but I'm sure you can think of some reasons, you know, like a bottle or something, if you are really struggling in those mornings. On the evenings, like stacking, teeth brushing while I'm in the shower has been quite helpful, and I always see, like, medication stuff comes after that, skincare or all that stuff. So it's stacking things on top of your routine and just making it as easy as possible to go through the process without, you know, having to get a wind down for bed, have to have tea, you know, watch your show, get all snuggled up in bed and remembering to brush your teeth, having to transition out of resting to get into the bathroom. It doesn't sound like a lot of effort, I guess, talking about it, surface level, but definitely, like, you know, a daily thing, I can understand why it's difficult for a lot of people and myself even. I hope that has helped to some degree, that's how I tackle it. Sarah and Banata's, hi Thomas. I discovered you two days ago by the algorithm, music on a real wild being autistic. Me, ADHD diagnosed at 43 years old. Well, very welcome to the stream. Thank you for helping on Sarah and, you know, engaging. Austin says in a bed about about some nap probably, getting some rest and recovery in there. I'm very nice. Hello, Angela. Nice to see you. How are you doing? Abby says, can also be a sensory issue. I don't like mint 100%. I think that's, that's another thing. And you kind of find, if you look online, you can find flavoured toothpaste that aren't minty, if you find that difficult. For me, it's the actual like teeth, like, like the toothbrush bristles, like I find it quite uncomfortable to do. Usually when I'm in the shower, it kind of mitigates that feeling to some degree, because, you know, I've got like a warm water on me, and it's, it's a little bit like nicer. So I can sort of, you know, do that a bit better. Hello, Woodshed. How are you doing? And for gay, nice to see you. Woodshed, I didn't realize that you also did. I think, I think, I think it was you, Woodshed, who has a YouTube channel about autism. Am I right? But yeah, there's stuff about brushing teeth, finding toothpaste. You can find some, some different flavoured ones, definitely, 100%. Hello, John. Welcome to the stream. Cath Kraken asks a very good question. What are your thoughts on how autism is portrayed in the media? I think it's very varied to a lot of degrees. I think the hard thing about portraying autism in the media is that, you know, we, we, we throw around this statement a lot, and it's definitely true, like autistic people that, you know, vary in their presentations a lot. And their experiences and opinions and things of that nature. So it's always going to, like, not cover everybody in a sense. So most of the representations of autistic people tend to either come in one, like the bad ones tend to come either under like two categories, either like these, they're these hyper-intellectual kind of amazing, incredible, you know, just like God-like, intellects, figures who can just do everything at ease. You've got that aspect. And I think that the issue with that is that it's not really, it's hyper-focusing on a particular type of autistic people too much. Like, most of us are just normal human beings. You know, we're not all hyper-intellectual individuals who have these crazy skills. And so sometimes that can be a little bit of a bad representation. People get in the head. So we've got to be this highly intellectual person. Not so much. A lot of autistic people actually fall under the creative side of things a lot more, that I'm seeing just being a part of the community. And also, you have the other end of the spectrum. So like, not like you were in the spectrum, but you have the other side of the coin where you have individuals who really just need a lot of support. You know, you think of like individuals like Rain Man from that film who need like a lot of support. Some, you know, one could argue that perhaps for his time it was something that, you know, autism wasn't really covered up until that point. But looking back, it definitely has had an impact on how people understand what autism is, think about it, etc. And then you also have like, particularly individuals who tend to be white and male. You know, you can think of things like Will from the Inbetweeners or Sheldon Cooper. You know, some of these are not like canonically confirmed, mind you, who are basically just like the butt of the joke for a lot of like, especially like comedy sketches, etc. And it's sort of played off as this interesting, strange character who it can be useful as. So those are kind of the negative sides to representation. I find that the places that are best like, representative of autism tend to be when autism is not like the focal part of the story. There's just an autistic person who's, who happens to be part of the plotline that happens to, you know, contribute to the situation, just like normal representation, just being part of, you know, life or that particularly a fictional universe. I very much like that. My favorite one is, it's kind of like that, but my favorite one is Hannibal. It's the TV series Hannibal. Really, really good representation. It's a little bit on that side of like having those kind of special abilities and skills, but I think it was very well done considering that it highlighted his skill as being quite empathic. So I really liked that aspect to it. So that's my opinion on that, which has says, yeah, that's me, but I know about me. Well, which I actually, I think, I think I'm, would you be, would you be happy if I did, when I did one of my live streams, you know, when I sort of commentate on videos, would you be happy if you used one of your videos at some point? Because I really liked, so I think it'd be really cool. Just Scott says chocolate, chocolate toothpaste makes it easy for me. Interesting one. I tried the lemon ones. I haven't gone so far as chocolate, but I feel like if I used chocolate toothpaste, then I'd feel like I need to brush my teeth again. It's just in my mind. I'm like, okay, I'm eating chocolate. I've got to, you know, brush my teeth after eating chocolate. I don't know. It might be nice. I don't know. Do you recommend any brands for anybody? How do you feel about electric toothbrushes? I find them a lot easier because you don't need to think as much. I suppose you can just kind of let it go and just move it across your teeth. I think as well, it's, I don't know whether it's 100% confirmed or whether it's just some kind of like hyped advertising or anything like that, but I think they're better in terms of cleaning your teeth as well. I'm not sure which particular one is the best, but I would hazard a guess that they're probably a little bit better than manual toothbrushes. Hello, Mr. Joshua G. Welcome back, our hydration reminder for the day. You have age two strawberry toothpaste. Very nice. Got a hydration reminder from Joshua G. If you are like me and you struggle to remember to hydrate yourself, get some water, get a drink. For me, it's, it's, it's obviously a non-branded can with a very inconspicuous beverage. DDD says hi hi. I've been enjoying your content. I'm 53 and was diagnosed autistic after burning out and aggressing when I was 50. Had to stop being an ICU nurse. I'm so sorry to hear about that, but it's good, good that you managed to find some content about autism. Justin says hi in morning. Hello, Dustin. Ethan Tenial says I'm wiped out from the day. Just thinking about the lack of executive privileges. We also have some, some fans of you in the chat would shed. Very nice to see. Midnight butterfly irises. I find there isn't enough portrayal of the whole spectrum aspect and expressiveness that support needs can be highly varied. It's a pretty, pretty sound take you have there. What about ADHD? You know, ADHD and epilepsy, I don't feel like I have the, you know, obviously I have looked into ADHD quite a bit, but I always hesitate to try and make content around that because I feel somewhat like I should leave like ADHD related comments or like information to people who are ADHD. I don't know if I am or not. I might be somewhat on the ADD side of things, but I'm not too sure. So I just hesitate to, to give any suggestions on that front. You can get a flavor to it first. Yeah. Find them online. You can, you can find quite a few of them online, definitely 100 percent, which I'd like the Power Rangers movie that characters at the Green Power Ranger. You have permission, but may fall asleep while you watch, so you've been warned. No worries. I'm sure it's good. I think I've had a look at your channel. I give you, I think I've given you a sub as well. For guys that use baby wipes and Colgate 360, good idea. Baby wipes can be useful, especially if you want to keep on top of your skincare. You know, you could just like have a whole, you know, if you have infinite money, perhaps like install a sink into your room that you can just like lean over and like brush your teeth or like, you know. Missy Davis says, I'm so confused. Wasn't there a video saying you died? No, I don't think so. I haven't, I don't recall passing away. Could you point me to that, to that video, Missy? Yes, I am drinking diet coke. You are right, Joshua. Can you try to do some personal ADHD and maybe epilepsy if possible, please? I will try. I will put it on my list if that is what you would like to see. I do have some, some posts in the making, which are like comparisons of autism and ADHD, some degree, but I don't know. I feel definitely like I need to at least like consult with an ADHD person to like put a post together. It just feels right for me, you know. Yeah, I can, I can do that, but I feel like it's, it's a lot more kind of respectful to consult someone who has a lot more like in-depth knowledge about ADHD as opposed to myself. Justin says, I've recently been diagnosed ADHD and self-diagnosed autistic on the waiting list. I find I can only focus if the environment is right for me, so zero distractions. Yes, environment definitely is key. And hello Rita, I'm not too bad, thank you. Are you Fimal is my go-to? What is you Fimal? Yeah, I'm not, I'm not too sure about the ADD side of things. The thing is, I have talked about this before and I realized that, you know, I sometimes I do go over stuff that I have like talked about before, it's just part and part of listening to me, I suppose. But I'm on a medication called metazapine, which is like quite highly sedative. And it's something that I take quite a bit, it helps me with my anxiety a fair bit and also kind of evens out the anxiety aspects of me taking SSRIs. One of the things about it is that I literally, I can't remember what I'm like when I'm not on them. So there is a possibility that I am somewhat sedated, well I am sedated most of the time to some degree. And so I don't really have 100% accuracy in my understanding what my focus is like, what my attentiveness is like, and also whether I am actually quite a hyperactive person. I can sort of think back to my childhood and I was quite highly wired. I wasn't sure, not sure if I would be considered to be hyperactive. So that's the reason why I'm sort of thinking more about like the ADD side of things, you know. Baby wipes 100% from midnight, indeedy. Abby says, Dan has ADHD, maybe speak to him 100% that that could be a good kind of cross out thing to do. Yeah, I don't know Missy, like has someone produced something about me passing away? That's very weird. No, I'm still alive, do not worry. Can you please do some first on dyspraxia? That is something that I might be a bit more open to doing, because it's very strange actually with dyspraxia because as hard as I try, I don't seem to be able to find anybody who is just dyspraxic and doesn't have like some autism tendencies or doesn't have a co-occurring autism diagnosis. It's really hard for me to find someone like that. So I was kind of thinking about it quite a bit. And you obviously, when I talk about, you know, things like when walking, I think I did a few posts on that before, where it's like the kind of the wobbling back and forth due to like vestibular differences. I don't know whether that thing that I've noticed in terms of my balance and my proprioception is considered to be dyspraxia, whether it is that that's just like a manifestation of my altered sensory system, or whether it's like a different thing. I have no idea. I don't very much know like what, because I've heard that, you know, just looking at like the diagnosis for it, that sometimes children with dyspraxia tend to have some difficulties in terms of social interaction. So it's a bit of a strange subject that I really want to understand a little bit more actually. He said maybe get in touch with the dyspraxia foundation or something like that, see what they have to say about it. Indeed. So very, very strange. Hello, the stock explorer. Welcome to the stream. I haven't seen you around. Nice to have you on. Paula says green beaver sells multiple flavors of toothpaste that might work for folks with different needs. That's okay. That's one. Indeedy. If you're looking for some different flavored toothpaste, get your hands on. If you don't like the minty sensation of having brushing your teeth, might be a good shout to have a look at green beaver. I didn't, I haven't looked at it before. So don't hold me to that. But is that a 90 depression? No, it's, it's not. It's usually, metaspin is usually prescribed for sleep. Sometimes a little bit for anxiety as well. I think Missy, you're thinking of another person, not the same person. Are you thinking perhaps of, I don't, I don't really want to mention that in this stream, but I know, I think I imagine who you're talking about Missy, but no, I'm still here. Indeedy. All kind of morbidities. Joshua says, as I have dyspraxia with ADHD epilepsy and urethakrea, I've not heard of that. I can imagine somewhat what it might be like. Midnight butterfly says, I shuffle my feet and slide across the floor to avoid noise of footsteps and to not miss a step and trip myself over. I find that it's really interesting that you say that, because there is an experience that I have. Because you might notice that coming on and watching me do streams that I always have some form of light headphones on, even if I'm just doing like these Q and A's. And that's because I find the volume of my voice when I'm speaking too much. Like it's, it's very overstimulating for me to hear my own voice. So I always have to try like, have some kind of headphones on when I'm, when I'm, when I'm talking, it's very, very strange thing. Outside of streaming, if I don't have my headphones on, I'm quite a quiet speaker. If it's just like full noise canceling, I'm sure I could just increase my volume to like a ridiculous degree, but hey, hell. TF says, hey, hey, welcome to stream TF. And Jackie says, I'm here. I'm here. You're here. Happy Thanksgiving from Canada. Is it Thanksgiving? I did not know. We don't celebrate Thanksgiving in the UK. So interesting. Blunt Force Tani says, I think the Sparx Tree is more of an expression of the altered sensory experiences, to be honest. Yeah, I agree. I think I agree with you that just from what I've read and stuff and sort of making, making lateral connections as we neurodivergence like to do. You are right. My way has got crossed a lot, dysfunctional memory. Don't worry about it, Missy. I was a bit surprised, but that's all. Vanilla vaccine helps slow me down. I'm more hyper when I don't take it. Not going to answer that, Jackie, but good question. Edits by Aisha says, Hi, my name is Aisha. I really struggle with autism and I have anxiety. Do you know any ways to help? I do. It would be a very long, long time of me trying to express all the ways that things that would help, but I would highly recommend having a look through my channel, maybe checking out the podcast, having a look on my Instagram. I have a lot of posts over there on autism and anxiety that you can have a look at. But if you got a more specific question, you are very welcome to ask that as well. Okay, I see. Hello, Jordan. How you doing, man? Midnight says, I was on metazepine for gastroparesis, helped with anti-nausea and because it stimulates appetite. That is one of the things that I hate about it. Yeah, it's really bad if you have a binge disorder, metazepine, but sadly it's one of the only options that I have in terms of moving out the effects of the SSRIs. This is something that I've got to deal with. Lois says, hello, wonderful kindred, Aspie from Alexandria, Ontario, Canada. Welcome, Laura. East Sanctile says, I've seen some linkage of dyspraxia with motor planning and with executive issues. That was from the UK site and the US idea of dyspraxia is much more restrictive. Interesting. I wouldn't say that I'm 100% aware of everything to do with dyspraxia. I do have an idea of that and I have looked into it, but it's definitely something that I need to look into a bit more. Just out of interest actually, because it would be really interesting to see if it is two separate things. However, it's just something that autistic people experience, very, very strange or ADHD perhaps. Red spots over your legs, that sounds really bad. Two ducking cute says, but you sound nice and fine. I don't like my voice, interesting. It's not necessarily like a, not particularly liking how I sound. It's literally just like the volume, you know, producing noise quite close to my ears. So it's, you know, increasing the volume quite a bit. Is it quite, am I quite quiet? I would like to know, because I don't, I don't always know. Oh, and my computer is saying that my disc is almost full. That's very nice of my disc. How can I remedy that disc? Show me how to remedy that. Let's try removing some stuff from my computer, that might help. I have wavering belts of clumsiness. Yeah, it's sometimes quite related to like how tired I am as well to some degree. Thanks very much for answering, no worries at all, Aisha. You're very welcome to ask any specific questions, 100%. We have bonfire night instead. Indeed we do. I love bonfire night. I love the fireworks. I like looking at the fireworks. Don't necessarily like listening to them. It is, it is very much like all I do that I do, that I do enjoy, although like excessive use of things that produce a lot of CO2, you know, it's debatable about whether that's worth it or not, but thank goodness you know about Disprax Thomas as most people have heard, talked to about it, I haven't really heard of it. Yeah, it's, I think it's a little bit less known, that less known. There is someone who does a podcast, I think they're called Life, Life with Disprax here or something like that. Lovely, lovely woman. I think from the UK as well actually, try and check her out on Instagram if you can, I think they have a podcast talking about their experiences. I reached out to them asking about Disprax here. Turns out I think they're all so autistic as well, so I'm trying to like hunt for someone who is like dyspraxic but just not autistic because I just can't seem to find anybody. It's crazy. You'll sort it. No, you'll find Thomas, I was just laughing at what you said about it. Abby says, I had broken a toe due to a meltdown but also causing us, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, it's about, meltdown's for me 100%, that is, you know, I get a lot of like motor ticks and stuff when I have meltdowns, so I can understand why. I am somewhat blessed I think from the amount of sport and like weight training that I've done to have quite resistant bones, so I've never, I've never broken a bone. I have hurt my tendons in my leg, but that was from like, like a high speed motorcycle crash, so it's understandable that. Joshua says, how's your week and being Thomas so far? What have you done so far? I hope you are having a good weekend. So this week, as I said, I've been recording and learning a lot about video and audio to kind of refresh my memory of producing videos. I think you guys are going to be really, really happy with the videos that I'm going to put out. I've got one that's going to just check on my computer. So I have a video, this will be like over the coming months, I'll try and post one of these a week. We've got one on the autistic burnout roller coaster, autistic masking, explain a little bit of a smaller one there, autistic rejection dysphoria, rejection sensors for RSD, and I've also got an interesting video, which I feel is either going to flop or it's going to be a good one, addressing R slash fake disorder cringe, which I think is something that a lot of creators within the autistic community and also a lot of the disabled communities have somewhat awareness of because they tend to repost a lot of reels, particularly from TikTok and Instagram and YouTube shorts from disabled creators sharing their experiences. So I think it'd be really good to address that and I'm going to talk a little bit about self diagnosis as well during that as well. So it's going to be a good one. Put a lot of effort into recording these. So I'm hoping that they pay off and you guys like them. Jackie says, turns out last 30 years, university or is a waste of cash. Is it warming weather there? It's not too bad actually. It's, we did have like a really long period of extremely warm weather, like a couple of weeks or a week, a while ago. Today, yesterday, it was fairly temperate actually. It was quite nice. Went with some dinner last night, which was really nice. And we got to kind of sit on the balcony outside. Very good weather, very nice weather. It was cool. Missy says, do you have meltdowns? If so, what does it look like? I am still trying to understand if that's what's happening or if I'm just needing better self control. Good question. I'm very happy to talk about metals. I feel like I'm a very open person. I'm happy to share perhaps what may be considered by the rest of the world fairly intimate things. But for me, meltdowns, they tend to follow on from shutdown. So a lot of the time, my kind of immediate reaction is not something that I can control. It's to go into shutdown, which is kind of like this dissociated state where I can't really speak. Sometimes I get mute. I find it very, very difficult to process things. I kind of sort of retreat internally. But if I'm feeling very, very overstimulated in quite a compromising position, meltdowns tend to come up. And from my experience, I cannot think properly. Properly. I can sometimes understand people speaking, but I can't reply. I get a lot of physical verbal tics, very, very high anxieties, kind of like my brain is just going into overdrive. It's a very painful experience. It's very hard to cope with it. And sometimes one of the interesting things about it is with meltdowns and shutdowns, sometimes I feel like I could stop that. But I never can, really. It's just kind of this internal thing where it's like, oh, I can stop this at any time if I need to. But a lot of the time I can't. And so I usually need, it usually lasts for probably about an hour, anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple of hours, depending on how bad it is. And a lot of stimming sometimes can be somewhat a danger to myself. But that's very, very rare. That's kind of the experience. I do have a lot more in-depth content on it, on Instagram and on YouTube, if you want to go check that out. But yeah, that's kind of like my experience. I hope that's helpful to you, Missy. Broken toe again, it's never going to be the same. You love watching my Joe Rogan vaccine video, interesting. For any of you who don't know, I do go live on YouTube. Usually I'm trying to get into a schedule at least going live. Other than this OT time, a couple of times where I'll kind of give some commentary on videos within the mainstream, within the autistic community. And one of those ones was, I looked at like a Joe Rogan vaccine video that was talking about, you know, obviously autism and vaccines, which is a very like, very big misconception stigma that is kind of just trying to put my charger in. It's still going around, surprisingly, particularly for parents. It seems to be a myth that's been stuck around for quite a while. It's been propagated quite a bit, which is very worrying. Laura says, hello. Welcome to the stream, Laura. Rita says, do you by any chance get a therapy dog in the UK for an aspect of anxiety? I think it's something that you can apply for. I don't know the exact process. If you are looking to learn a bit more about that, I definitely point you towards Purple Ella. I think they have a few videos on autism support dogs. I do also have a podcast on my own channel, which talks about that with Purple Ella, and they talk about their experiences. Yeah. Missy says, thank you. Odd that I can be tight and be answered, and I used to this. Thank you. No problem, Missy. No problem. Your ideas are very good. Thank you very much, Joshua. Midnight says, I had a total mild down the morning of my wedding from stress and like asleep and schedule changes. Overwhelmed took four hours to get back on my feet. Yeah. And that is another aspect of it. Sometimes if you have quite an intense meltdown, there is this sort of period of time afterwards that I call the meltdown hangover, which is basically just a very kind of hypersensitive state where it's kind of sometimes it can be quite relaxed because you're going from like 100% anxiety to like zero. So usually it kind of feels a little bit chill to me, but I find it very, very difficult to process things. And I usually have like a little bit of a reboot time that I need to go through. And that's anywhere between like an hour and like a day. Usually again, depending on how intense the meltdown was, but that is something that can happen as well. So yeah, I can imagine. Justine says, okay, yeah, I'm still looking for the right person. Laura says, my big Maine Coon cat Noah is great, big, sweetie. I'll talk about cats in the chat. We love animals here, 100%. So we have about just over 15 minutes left. So if you've got any burning questions that you want to ask me about my video stuff, Instagram posts, anything like that, you want a bit more, because I tend to not be the best in terms of like comments and DMs. So this definitely is like the place to go to, like if you want to ask any questions and stuff. So please, please go for it. May night says, thank you for sharing your experiences with us all. My algorithm in the start seems to mostly feature UK accounts sharing about autism. I'm grateful to see that UK people are able to share more readily. That's very interesting. I haven't, I haven't heard anyone talk about that before. I wonder if that is something that it's like a trend maybe. I know that we, we do tend to be a bit more, I would say probably a bit more socially progressive in the UK, because it's not a very big place. Like UK is probably pretty similar to like some of the sizes of like the states in the US. So it's, you know, it's a, you know, it's, UK is an interesting place. I think that there are some good things about it and some bad things. You know, you have to look at like the, I'm not going to talk about that actually. I very much am okay with talking about difficult things, but I'm also aware that I don't want to like put it on people. So I would cover that too much. USA don't seem to share so much about their adult autistic experiences. Yeah. Well, I'm definitely one of those types. I'm happy with, you know, sharing parts of my life. If you, if you're wondering like exactly why I came, came to this point where I'm like sharing my experiences online. I had a very, very difficult life, particularly in a teenage hood. And, you know, I would say that I have a lot of privileges in a sense, you know, I've got, I come from a good family. My family is really supportive and great, but I really, really struggled with school and I developed quite a lot of like mental health difficulties from that. I was diagnosed when I was 10 and I got into the autistic community to share my experiences, probably my second year of uni, just like my early twenties, late teens. And I don't know, I'd gone through a lot of difficult situations where I didn't think I was going to make it, I guess. And I kind of had a bit of a realization, I think when I was, once when I was on my way to Taekwondo in the car, because I used to be an athlete, and also once when I was in Thailand, where I was kind of trying to, again, you know, in quite a severe dip has happened quite often when I was younger. I got to a point where I was, I kind of, I wanted to do something good with the negative experiences that I had. I didn't want to just, I guess, just have them and roll over and just give up. You know, I thought to myself that, you know, instead of having that attitude that I would try and make something good out of it and try and stop it from happening for other people, or at least offering some level of support that I didn't particularly have when I was growing up and in terms of like online information and people's experiences and such. So that's what I wanted to be. I wanted to be that person that I needed when I was younger. So that's basically the story of how I came to be so open about my experiences. I have no shortage of people reacting negatively. I understand it. It's not for everybody, you know, being open about like meltdowns and stuff online, but you know, I feel like people should be happy and feel comfortable talking about their experiences. So I try to model that as much as I can. You know, there's nothing to be ashamed of. It's just a part of life and etc. So, you know, you've got to feel comfortable with yourself and, you know, there's no shame around it. It's not something that you can control, not something that you do. Laura says, hello. Fugay says, I think it's healthy to share and speak about problems. It stops them from being internalized. 100%. Yeah. I mean, one could argue that perhaps the internet is probably not the best place to be speaking about problems. I get that. I don't talk about everything online, of course. But yeah, 100% like with a therapist, with friends, you know, some help lines and stuff, I think those can be a really good place to go for or to go to. It's definitely not good to kind of internalize it. And I think a lot of the stuff that I recommend when it comes to unmasking, they tend to be things which, to some degree, allow people to process some of the negative experiences that they've had throughout their life of being autistic, because we tend to have a lot of them. And sadly, it's just a fact of being different in this world. It tends to be that we do attract a lot of difficult scenarios. So I think the processing is definitely a really large part of it, 100%. Ollie says, thank you for the stuff you talk about. I know you did a video on relationships and partners, but I wonder how you look at what you know about connecting with people in general. It often remains superficial. I can talk with many people about many topics, but always feel as if there is an arms length between us, even people I've known for a long time. I only learnt, I have ASD this year, 37 years old. Really, really good question. And thank you for sharing your experiences. I'd say that for me, I felt similarly for a lot of my life up until the point where I started learning a little bit more about autism. For me, in terms of connecting with people, there were two big barriers for that. The elixifying your element is not to be undermined, the difficulty, notice, noticing, identifying, categorising your emotions. It's quite a large part of social connection, having that emotional kind of validation from the other person and etc. and sharing things and knowing how you feel about things. I would say in further, like putting in boundaries etc. in the moment. So the elixifying me stuff, definitely something to look into. I do have a lot of resources on YouTube and on my Instagram, if you want to look at that. Another aspect is a lot of autistic people, especially if you've been late diagnosed, if you've been undiagnosed for a large portion of your life, you tend to somewhat have a mask that you've learnt to put on in order to have a better time interacting with people in order to avoid difficult situations, stopping yourself from standing out and being manipulated etc. When you build up this mask, it can be useful for making friends, maintaining friends, possibly even within the workplace, but it always comes with a sense of not exactly being who you are. There's always this, any relationship that you start, any connection that you make when you put this mask on of someone who isn't you, it always feels like they don't necessarily really like you for who you are and they're not interacting with you, they're interacting with this kind of masked individual. So it's not always the best and it can lead you to feeling quite lonely even though you're around people and not authentic and not yourself and you're not feeling the happiest. So those two things, the Alex Fimer and the Masking components, I think are really big factors that I recommend having a look into. I do have a lot of stuff about that if you want to look it, but you can just type it on Google and have a search and look at some other stuff from other creators and you can probably find some good resources on that. I hope that's helpful for you Ollie. I have a lot of trauma started in school, 100% has got down to school. They need to have some mandatory orders of education in schools, 100%. It's not really acceptable like the level of things that they put in place for autistic kids, students, teens, really needs to be improved quite a bit. Even in the workplace, I would say. Used to get called the intention seeker due to past mental health issues. Yeah, I think that's, yeah, that's definitely something I've experienced as well. Rosa says, I never thought about Taekwondo or Kung Fu, I thought that Taekwondo and Kung Fu helped me as a teenager and you're an adult to avoid mountains and shutdowns, but it always helped me regulate strong feelings. Thank you for that point of view. No worries at all. I think it's definitely a good outlet, 100%. It was a good outlet for me as well because I didn't tend to stand up for myself very much at school so I didn't have quite a lot of bullies and so like having an outlet in Taekwondo was really useful for me, you know, sort of venting those feelings into something that's a bit more productive was helpful for me, 100%. I agree life is odd, that's true about the friends. Thanks Thomas, no worries Ollie. I hope that's somewhat helpful for you. Exactly that about masking. Yeah, it's an underrated part of the effects of masking, you know, we do talk a lot about, you know, the impact on mental health, but man, the feeling connected to other people part of it is so, like, it's incredibly impactful, especially in the long term, it can make you feel like very disillusioned with people, you know, connections that you make, it's very underrated. Abby says totally agree, red flags all over my school reports all mentioned was, all they mentioned was shyness. Hmm. Rob Patton says, I must notice it traits when I'm out and about in public, because it comes down to empathy, because I don't want to be judged on the outside, neither do I want to others to feel uncomfortable. I think it's, you know, I think what when I talk about masking and unmasking people think some, I'm not saying that you particularly do Rob, but some people think that I'm talking very much in like black and white terms that you should just always be amassed. You should just be your artistic self all the time, because that is the ideal. I would love for that to be the case, but there are circumstances just due to the fact that the world is not right, quite often safe for us, or right for us and geared for us to succeed and be happy. Sometimes, you know, masking, depending on your circumstances, is helpful to some degree. And it's one of those things where you've got to, you've got to think about it, you've got to weigh up in your brain, like are you, I would say if you're masking 24 seven, even with people that are very, very close to you, and that you're within your life, I would say that is probably a bad way to go about things in that sort of black and white term. But in other circumstances, you know, sometimes you do it, like to stay safe and sometimes you do it, you know, just kind of get on with things and go under the radar and just, you know, have some time to yourself in isolation, which I understand. So it's not it's not kind of this black and white approach, it's just being like, you know, it is important in some, in a lot of scenarios to be yourself and feel happy being yourself and find connections with your true self, if that makes sense. Fugue says, I hate school. There was one assembly, this kid just started to, oh, I'm sorry to hear about that, because you had techs, yeah. Has anyone else seen videos on Autism and Gangstalking? I have not seen that. It might be something to need to look into. I have delved into the world of like, unintentional gaslighting around autism and make crime, particularly sort of in those areas. Definitely some things to look up if you are interested in like the social side of autism, perhaps. Some things to be aware of, definitely. I think it's underrated, like the importance of like, people understanding what like make crime is, especially when we're younger. I feel like we could deal with a lot of information about that stuff earlier in life. Alistair says, my GP referred me for a diagnosis of autism about 15 years ago. They were unsure, but it felt like I'd wasted their time. My GP still pushes to try again. How have the diagnosis criteria changed? My GP says they have changed. It's a lot now. I don't know how much has changed in the last 15 years, but I would say that it's not a bad shout to know if you're autistic or not. It's not like, I feel like there's a lot of stigma around it. And one of the things about it is it can have some negatives to it. Like you can't move to certain countries. It can sometimes be bad in terms of like the court system being autistic just because there's stigma around it. But you don't have to disclose that you're autistic in every single job environment. Some environments you do have to be like a health check and stuff, but for a lot of them you don't. You are in control of whether you want to disclose that stuff or not in a lot of job roles. So really, I guess it's really up to you, but I would definitely explore it, look online, look at some resources from other autistic creators, etc. I'm asked my autistic traits. I've read that already, sorry. Like I would probably prefer that people would actually ask which type of epilepsy rather than just assuming it's fertile sensitive. Yeah, it's something that I have learned about a little bit because I did a course, a degree in biomedical sciences. Epilepsy was part of one of the modules that I did on the brain. So I do have some awareness of that. It's something that I feel like I could do that. Again, I would prefer to talk to someone who was epileptic about it. I do have a podcast actually, I think, that went into epilepsy, if you want to try and find that. Type in gang stalking and awesome. Maybe not today, Laura, but I will do in private and perhaps have a little bit more look into that might be a good thing to address. Make people aware of 100%. So guys, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you on. I apologise again for not being around for the regular Friday live streams. I hope you have enjoyed it, found some use in it. If you have, please go check out my YouTube channel, subscribe. You can become a member for as little as 99p a month really encourages me to do more of this stuff. And of course, if you can, go check out my Instagram account if you're on YouTube. I will look at that stuff, give me a follow, would be much appreciated. And look forward next week because there's going to be a lot of content coming out over on YouTube. So if you can, make sure that you have that notification ping on because there's going to be a lot of stuff coming out. Okay, guys, it's been a pleasure. I hope you guys are doing well. And I will see you again in another episode. This is the 30th one, by the way. Crazy. We're going to be number 31 next time for the stream. So thank you again, everybody. See you later. See you guys. I'm just going to leave it a little bit because sometimes like with YouTube, some reason why because I'm doing it via my streaming software. It seems to be a little bit irritating when it comes to doing a live signal. I like cut it off before I'm finished. Let me just check on my page that it's captured the end of it. Is that actually a wake up? I can't even find my own live stream. Channel. Oh, there I am. Hello, Thomas. Okay. Thanks again, Noah, for his distance. See you later. Return for gay. Take care.