Hello, this is Anna Kennedy. We’re talking all things autism. And yes, we’re just plodding along everybody, taking each day as it comes, one day at a time.

Some days good, and some days all not so good, as I always say. But I have been a busy bee, as always. Lots of stuff online.

And I went on Saturday to the Send Family Support. Now, I’ve been one of the ambassadors for a little while now. And they had the last sort of Christmas Club, if you like.

So our charity donated a hundred selection boxes for the families. And there’s also, they have like an activity club by children of young adults with special educational needs and disabilities are accompanied by their parents or their carers. And they have different activities every week.

So they also have this on a Friday. So if you’re interested, check out and if you live in that area, obviously. So it’s Send Family Support.

It’s an activity club. And on Fridays, it’s between six and seven. And that’s at the Northwood Methodist Church, which is in Northwood.

So if you check that out, they’re on Facebook all the time as well. So I think it’s five pound per child or adult. And you can check out the activity club, but all sorts of things going on like yoga, baking, games, you name it, they’ve got it going on.

So it’s set up by parents. And yeah, now they’ve been going for a little while now. So we’re also talking possibly just in the back burner at the minute about doing a collaboration together.

So I will keep you updated as and when we have something more solid to share with you. And I was sent a lovely gift, which sort of took me, you know, I was just so happy that someone had sent something. And it was by Spectropolis.

And thank you very much. And they sent me a bar of chocolate, some fluffy socks, the sort of things to sort of take care of yourself, really. And then I was also sent a lovely book by Joanna Griffin, who I have spoken to.

And it’s called Day by Day and it’s Emotional Wellbeing in Parents of Disabled Children. So I’ll just give you a little bit of info from the back. Looks quite a good book, actually.

Parenting a disabled child can elicit complex emotional responses. The author’s experience as a disabled child involves this book, which explores what helps and hinders parents’ care as emotional wellbeing. Research suggests that mental health relationships, family life, access to work and leisure activities, as well as finances, can all be affected.

So the person who’s written is called Joanna Griffin. She’s a chartered counselling psychologist. She’s worked in a number of different clinical settings, including the NHS, and provides independent supervision and consultancy work.

She established the website www.affinityhub.uk to sign post to emotional support for parent carers. So just repeat that again. It’s www.affinityhub.uk and it’s called Day by Day Emotional Wellbeing in Parents of Disabled Children.

I just wanted to remind you again about the Autism Passport, which Anna Kennedy online has sponsored through Autism Anglia, another charity that I am ambassador for. So it’s a passport that will help you understand my autism and how to make adjustments for me. So it’s something that where you can put all of the information.

So when you go to an appointment, maybe a dentist or maybe it’s a hospital or whatever appointment, you know, you get kept asking the same thing over and over again. Well, it’s all in this little passport. So it’s about autism.

You’ve got to write your name, your national insurance number, your address, your date of birth. Just add a headshot. And then there’s pages like How Can You Help Me and where you can tick the boxes that are applicable to you.

Things that affect my ability to communicate. Yet again, tick the boxes that are applicable to you and if any extra notes that you might like to write. Characteristics of my autism.

Again, a tick box. Stress and reducing method that may help and support me. So if you’re not able to share what helps you.

So say, for example, give me clear cues and prompts what you want me to do. Allow me to stim which can help me calm down. So you can tick whichever box again is applicable to you.

And then there’s also a nice little exercise here. Take a deep breath. Look at five things that you see around you.

Acknowledge four things that you can feel. Listen for three things you can hear. Say out loud two things that you can smell.

Say one thing you can taste. Example, toothpaste. If you cannot taste anything, say I want things that is your favorite taste.

Take another deep breath to end the exercise and any other personal notes. So you can either download this for free from Autism Anglia or you can buy the passport which is made of like a quite a flexible card and that’s I think it’s something like £1.50. So it’s Autism Anglia. Right, we’ve got lots to talk about today.

So one of my charity ambassadors who’s also a past guest on women’s radio station. I think it was about three years ago if I remember correctly. And when I heard Thomas’s story, I thought he’s somebody who I’d like to have as part of my team.

He’s got he’s so diverse he could do he’s just so talented. So let’s let’s welcome Thomas. And before I do, I’m going to just give you a little bit of background.

I don’t want to steal his thunder. So we’ve got lots to talk about. So Thomas is an autism and mental health advocate creating YouTube videos, podcasts and documentaries with a degree in biomedical sciences from the University of Manchester, a Commonwealth Golden Medal in Taekwondo and a talent for public speaking.

Thomas seeks to raise awareness and support others on their own personal growth journey. Thomas’ motives come from his long history with autism, depression, anxiety, eating disorders and panic disorder, experienced in special needs teaching, human sciences and how to help others understand their conditions. He brings to a new face to autism and mental health.

Welcome Thomas again once again. Hi Anna. How are you doing? Yeah, I am good.

Was it three years ago? I was trying to think when it was. Was it about three years ago? It just might be. It doesn’t feel like three years ago.

Yeah, because remember we was at Covent Garden, we came into the studio and I remember, wow, listening to your story. And then we went for a walk in Leicester Square. And it was either really cold or wet because I remember having a big thick jacket on and scarf.

Very much like today, where I live. So let’s tell everyone a little bit about yourself. So if I was to say who was Thomas, who are you Thomas? Well, I think to be honest, you’ve given quite a good introduction for who I am.

I’d say that my primary goal in life is to raise autism awareness and acceptance. And one of the key areas that I tend to focus on is the co-morbidities that occur around autism spectrum disorders. So things like depression and anxiety.

A lot of the sort of darker sides to autism, the things that quite often produce the most difficult things for autistic people. Those are the things that I try to talk about as much as possible. So how old were you when you were diagnosed? So let’s just go back a little bit more, because I want to talk a little bit about you don’t mind your childhood.

How was it for you at school? And how did you sort of cope day to day and only talk about things that you feel comfortable about? So how when you were diagnosed and what was school like for you? Yeah, so I was diagnosed around the age of 10 years old. And it was, you know, before that, my parents sort of saw some signs that weren’t typical for the average developing child, like I used to spin around a lot. I really struggled with some of the sensory aspects of food.

And it also had a little bit of difficulty understanding particular emotional stuff and social things. And so I was taken to, to get my my diagnosis. And I was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, which is now due to the changes in the DSM five, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Health.

It’s not Asperger’s anymore, it’s ASD one. How do you think about that, the change? Because I know I spoke to quite a few adults, and they want to still be saying to people, I was diagnosed with Asperger’s, like my son, to be fair, he finds it difficult to say that he’s, as you just said, it’s now autism spectrum. So how do you feel about it? I think it’s a bit of a tricky one, because there’s a lot of you know, one of the issues that that I have, and that many of us have when trying to raise awareness of autism, is helping people to understand.

And, you know, before having that sort of clear cut kind of boundaries, more specific names for, for sort of, you know, varying functioning levels was quite useful for helping people to understand. And I think, I think also it’s, I think I find it quite weird that there’s these, that sort of leveling system where you have ASD one, and, and two and three, and it doesn’t really roll off the tongue very well as well. Doesn’t sit with me well either.

No. So, so you were 10 and had your parents heard of autism before, did they actually know what it was or was it just something that they might have seen in a film or? I’m not, to be honest, I’m not too sure, but I do know that my mother had been a teacher for a large amount of her life that was kind of her career path. So I imagine that she, she’d come across autism a few times during, during her career at that time.

So did they tell you straight away or did they wait or did you want to? Yeah, they actually, they, they told me about a couple of days after, I think they took me to McDonald’s to get a happy meal. Good old McDonald’s. The, the chicken nugget is the, the international sign of autism.

And yes, so they told me and, you know, that was kind of a very standout moment for me in my head. Like I can sort of remember it quite vividly and it was quite emotional. Quite, I remember crying about it, but it was more of a positive thing for me, which something that not necessarily relief.

It was just more, you know, even, even at that age, I did notice some differences in myself compared to the other children. And it was nice to, you know, have something to, to explain what was going on. Hmm.

So did you receive more support if you can remember that far back? I think there was, there was some sort of loose support being put in place. There wasn’t, from what I remember and from what my mum has said, there wasn’t an incredible amount of support because I was performing quite well academically in primary school. I think, you know, the, the real issues sort of started, you know, when I went into the secondary school environment into high school, that was kind of the place where I really started to notice the differences that I had.

You know, I was progressing quite quickly in terms of logic and in terms of intelligence and ability in school academically, but I was lagging quite significantly behind on the social, emotional side of things. Okay. So what did you study when you were in secondary school? What subjects did you take? Well, for the most of it, it was the, you know, the bog standard English lates and language and I, I did PE, I did, I did drama for GCSEs and philosophy.

So I had quite a wide variety of subjects that I was interested in. And for A levels, I took biology, chemistry, PE and maths. How did you find exams? Did you find them stressful? Did you get any extra time or anything? Yeah, there was a lot of exam support.

And that’s something that kind of carried over into university. Okay. I think a lot of the support that I needed around that time in my life was the social, emotional support.

And my school didn’t really provide that. And, you know, until I sort of entered into a bit of a crisis during secondary school, to do to do with mental health. Okay.

And how, how did that impact, if you don’t mind, on you? I think it was very lonely. It’s, it was, it’s kind of hard to try and navigate an environment and make friends and, you know, connect with people when you have such a large understanding barrier between yourself and others. And even, even, you know, with the teachers, as far as understanding what my needs were.

And, you know, the most that they could really support me with at that time was just giving me somewhere to go with school life became a bit too difficult for me. Okay. So you talk about being open, about being autistic, and you had between four and five years of an improvement journey.

So you share a little bit about how that progressed for you? Yeah, sure. So I initially decided to, to get into understanding autism, actually, in my second year of university. So a lot of people who are late diagnosed autistic tend to go through this period where they look back on their life, and they analyze it, and they look at different situations that were hard for them, and perhaps where they were misunderstood, and they sort of reanalyze and reframe that.

And that was kind of something that I did, because it’s, it’s quite hard to, to improve yourself when you don’t realize the ways that you are different to other people. And so I went through a long, drawn out journey in many different, researching in many different disciplines, like, obviously, my degree in biomedical sciences, as far as neuroscience, and, you know, into psychology and sociology. And I wrote about my experiences in social situations, and with my emotions, and how I fought, and tried to compare it with my peers, and wrote about that extensively, and tried to analyze it.

And over time, over a long, long period of time, learning all these different things, noticing them, I started to perhaps understand social situations, and be able to navigate them, perhaps better than most people. Most neurotypicals. I think when they read your essays or assignments, did they comment about how you were feeling, and what you were discovering about yourself? Well, there’s, you know, as part of my biomedical sciences degree, it wasn’t to do with my sort of self-improvement journey.

I was studying biomedical sciences, and I was learning about different parts of the body, you know, to do with the immune system, and parasites, and a wide variety of things. The actual work that I did was a personal thing that I did. Okay, I’m with you.

At the side of my degree. Okay. And did you share it with anyone? Yeah, well, you know, that was sort of the ignition for producing my YouTube channel, and my podcast, and my Instagram account, where I do a lot of blogs.

A lot of the stuff that I’ve learned over the years, I’ve tried to communicate that to other autistic people, so that they can follow in my footsteps to sort of get into the realm of self-improvement. And I’ve also, you know, quite recently, doing a bit more research into psychology of, you know, most people, the neurotypicals. It’s been quite good to kind of compare and contrast those experiences and thought patterns and emotions, and find ways to explain what being autistic is like, and the ways that a neurotypical and an autistic person can connect on a deeper level.

Yeah. So if people are interested in checking out your YouTube, or your podcasts, or your website, or your social media, where can they find you? This will be on the charity website as well. But if people are visiting anything, oh, I want to check this out.

Well, a lot of, pretty much all of my social media, specifically YouTube and Instagram, is Asperger’s Growth. So Asperger’s Syndrome and then Growth. You know, I have a website as well, which I’ve recently put up, which is kind of a precursor to me going part self-employed and doing a bit more training for workplaces and speeches at schools, etc.

So that’s a good place to go. And, you know, if you want to listen to my podcast, I’m currently working on a second season, which will be coming out next year. And that’s the 4040 podcast.

It’s very difficult to try and describe the spelling. I haven’t done a authority, T-H-O-U-G-H-T-Y, O-T-A-U-T-I, podcast. So, and you can follow Thomas on Instagram as well, where he shares, which I watch, I think you post something nearly almost every day, do you? So it’s Asperger’s Growth.

Yeah, yeah, because it pops up on my newsfeed. Because obviously, it’s difficult to try and follow everything that everyone does, especially when you’ve got a lot of followers, but there’s a lot of time it just things pop up and I dip in and out to try and see what everybody is doing, especially my ambassadors. So you spoke a little bit about PE and obviously in the past Women’s Radio, All Things Autism, we spoke a little bit about you fighting for the UK Commonwealth Gold European Championships.

So could you talk just a little bit about your sporting history in Taekwondo and also how you tackled competitions and how did you sort of stay focused and dedicated to this? Well, I initially started Taekwondo because I was going through quite a difficult time in secondary school, trying to deal with a lot of bullies from all different angles at all times of the day. And, you know, I was feeling quite low on myself that it was around the time when my mental health was pretty bad. And I kind of wanted an outlet, I wanted to be able to try and prove myself.

So around the age of 14, I joined Taekwondo club, where I went through all the gradings and the belts and learnt a little bit about the sport of Taekwondo. And then, you know, after that, I sort of made the leap and I went to a competitive Taekwondo club. And over that, maybe two to four year period, I steadily made myself, made my way up the ranks.

I started competing abroad. I got a national gold medal, and eventually got picked up by Team GB. And they invited me to compete at a couple of notable events like the Commonwealth Championships and also the Under 21 European Championships.

Nervous. You know, actually, I was nervous, because, you know, obviously, this was a big event for me. And at the level as well.

To be a part of. But, you know, in comparison to my peers, the other athletes who were competing, I think, you know, I probably had my nerves more under control than I thought. OK.

Did you tell me a story, if I remember correctly, that you were actually going to leave and then you won a medal and so you have to go back again? Is that right? Yeah, well, it’s I haven’t always had the best relationship with Team GB. They haven’t always been the most accepting of autism. They kind of put my meltdowns and my difficulty in new environments down to me being lazy.

So I there’s been a bit of back and forth, and they’ve asked me to come to a couple of events and then ghosted me and, you know, put other athletes in who were not as good at fighting as me. But I think you need to do a bit of training there, don’t you? Yeah, well, it’s it wasn’t an issue of performance, it was more. They just I don’t think they’re like me, to be honest, they don’t understand.

I don’t say why not. Oh, dear, that’s that’s OK, moving on. Sorry, I do have I do have a way of.

I just don’t like people being sidelined. And, you know, if you’ve got a talent, as you know, because I do, autism’s got talent. It’s just like we need to share this with people.

You know, it’s like about what you can do and it’s about embracing and people talk about inclusion. It’s not just a word, it’s actually an action. So but OK, so this is I know this is a bit of talk.

So the grieving process you went through, because I know you were close to your granddad and he had lung cancer. So how did his support and his final words, obviously very, very sad, inspire you to overcome your desire? Because obviously you were tough, like tap time, and you spoke to me about ending your own life. So what was it that your granddad said to you that made you think, right, I need to change my mindset here? You know, I. You know, obviously it was it was quite an emotional time because it I haven’t really lost anybody that I was close to up until that point.

Just to give it a bit of context, I was. Around the time that he was progressing. You know, as the lung cancer was progressing, I was abroad in Thailand doing my research placement.

And so, you know, obviously I stayed in a lot of contact. I called any time that my mum went to go visit him. And he’s always been.

He had always been an extremely supportive, caring man. You know, he gave everything that he could to help support me with my Taekwondo University. And the last.

Was he into sport? Is that why he or was it just he just wanted to support whatever you wanted to do? Yeah, I think he just he just wanted to see me flourish because, you know, I don’t think, you know, there tends to be a a bit of stigma around autism. And I think particularly for sort of the more older generations, it’s. You know, it can be hard.

It can be a hard thing to to conceptualize. Yeah. You know, your grandson having a disability in his his eyes.

And so he was just absolutely ecstatic to see me progressing in the sport and progressing in life. And one of the last conversations that I had with him before he passed away, he told me to stay in Thailand. He didn’t want me to come home, even though that was something that I really wanted to do.

Yeah. He told me to learn, learn as much as I can, which I still try to do. And he told me to help people.

And it was it was just something about his passing and the effects that it had on my family that that sort of made me reevaluate, you know, what am I doing? Why am I idolizing, you know, the end to my suffering, in a sense, due to the mental health. And so I I I took that very much to heart. And, you know, it’s I’ve got his ring that he used to wear since he was about 20.

Oh, that I wear. And I look at him, you know, in times where I’m struggling. Yeah, I’m struggling to find a way out or a way through.

Yeah. I just look at the ring and I I remember him and I I get up, pick myself up and I keep going. So we’re going through obviously uncertain times at the minute.

And I’m speaking to a lot of families where there’s parents that are worrying about their sons, their daughters, loved ones. They’re always saying, oh, you know, how can we help them? How can we not? You know, because obviously some of them might have suicidal thoughts. Can you give any tips and advice of what either someone listening in who’s an adult like yourself who has gone through a tough time or parent, you know, any advice that you can give? Mm hmm.

Picked up along the way throughout your how old are you now? 28. I’m 24. Sorry.

Yes, it must be the birds. You actually quite mature for your age, even the way you speak. Yes.

Well, I was. I was always heralded as a little professor when I was at school. But yes.

But either parents or loved ones are struggling at the minute. What tips and advice can you share from your own personal perspective? Well, I think, you know, it’s a very individual thing because there’s there’s a lot of sort of root causes of depression. You know, it can be something that is situational or psychological or existential.

You know, there’s a lot of different reasons for why someone might be depressed. But I would say that if if someone’s, you know, having a long term battle with mental health, and it’s really, really sort of tearing them apart. You know, one of one of the most useful things that I did, but the thing that really changed my life was that I stopped looking to myself as, you know, looking to my own happiness as the outcome that I’m that I’m reaching for.

You know, obviously, that’s something that everybody wants. And it’s not it’s not nice to, you know, live with pain and live with suffering. And, you know, in some ways, mental health is that especially when when it when it’s, you know, that severe when, you know, you want to end your life.

And, you know, I think that there can be a lot of utility and sort of setting out some core values and creating your own meaning for life that that’s outside yourself. For me, that was trying to help other people through through my my media work or, you know, through my job. And I think, you know, once you know what really drives your motivation, that’s that’s not based on just that reward of getting rid of the pain and getting happiness, you start to move more in a positive direction.

Okay. And you’ll find that times when things are not things are hard, and everything feels dark and glum and horrible, that you still have your your meaning, your your objective, your your values that you need to try and focus on. And often that can be a really strong anchor for getting through the tough times.

Did you ever have counseling? Because I’ve spoken to some adults that have counseling. I’ve spoken to some adults who can’t think of anything worse than counseling. I know one particular person that they just think, no, no, I’m not going to counseling.

I’m not talking about feelings and all that rubbish. This is all the talk. It’s just like, no, no, no.

So did you find counseling beneficial for you? Or did you have counseling? I had counseling since the age of about 14 to 20. And, you know, maybe a year in between that and now. And I have to say, not really.

I think there’s a really big gap in in terms of mental health support for, particularly for autistic people. It’s quite hard to counsel someone when you don’t intimately understand what what the differences are, what makes an autistic person autistic. And so I think there’s a there’s a really big gap for support in that area.

Okay, right. See where you’re coming from there. So you also had experiences with alcoholism, exercise and sugar addiction.

Yes. So if you don’t mind sharing a little bit about so you were because I can see by some of the photographs that you sent me, I’m sure you didn’t have so many muscles. So is that something that you find that helps you de-stress as well? Yeah, I, you know, the whole addictive tendencies is kind of something that’s very, you know, it’s genetic in its environments.

And, you know, quite often, there’s a lot of correlation between being autistic and having mental health. And then there’s a correlation between mental health and addictive tendencies. And that was something that, you know, that, that, that I utilized to try and cope with things that I was struggling with, you know, the only issue with the big issue with that is that it’s not good for you.

And it affects your mental health more and your physical health. And, you know, I, it’s quite hard to have that, that level of self care when, you know, you’ve, you’ve had depression for upwards of 10 years, especially, you know, being, being quite severe. And so, you know, as I said, going back to that, that message of, of meaning and values, I can’t help people if I am, you know, addicted, or if I am in a, in a bad place.

I need to make sure that I’m okay and functional so that I can help other people. And yeah, about the, the gym stuff, it’s, it’s actually been, it’s something that I picked up during lockdown actually when, when the gyms first started opening. Yeah.

And it’s, you know, it’s, it’s the first time that I’ve actually gone to the gym with the intention of building muscle. Yeah. Which I hadn’t done before is mostly kind of sport benefits and stuff.

Yeah. And I realized that from doing my gym work that, you know, in order for me to get the most out of it, I need to meet my protein intake. And, you know, over time, sticking to that, to that good diet has actually, you know, it’s helped a lot with my eating disorders, particularly with binging, which is something that I struggled a lot when lockdown started with some very much like Ben, who was one of my ambassadors and he binged it and then was diagnosed later in life than you.

And he’s been one of my past guests and he talked about how he’s very focused on losing weight. And then he lost something, I think it was something like 20 stone. And yes, he’s following me.

He’s called Ben Pearson. He’s an entrepreneur at a clothing company, but he goes to the gym and you can clearly see he goes to the gym now, but he lost 20 stone. That’s like serious, but it was helped him.

And obviously still goes to the gym. And yeah, so I wanted to chat to you because I find last week I was speaking to another guest who was talking about dating. And obviously this can be a very tough for a lot of adults who are on the spectrum.

So you told me that you’d become extroverted, skilled in dating and social events. Now, last week made me laugh. Richie, he was desperate to get himself a girlfriend.

He was working in a restaurant, which he really loved. So what he started doing was putting his telephone number on the receipts and giving them back to the women. He ended up having six dates on the same day in the restaurant and he sat them all at different places.

I just can’t even imagine how he dealt with that. But hey, yeah, exactly. So can you talk to me a little bit about what skills you discovered that and how did you get through dating and social events? Was it tough for you? Have you got, you know, are you, are you got the knack of it now or is it just something that you’ve learned as you’ve gone along? You know, initially I have always been quite an introverted, perhaps, you know, quiet and shy and low self esteem.

And, you know, as I said before about my personal journey, I learnt a lot about myself and how I worked and I learnt a lot about how other people worked. And, you know, that became a point where I had to kind of try and put things into practice. I had to go out and try and make friends.

I wanted to to date and I wanted to, you know, have a relationship. And, you know, with anything that you’re trying to make changes on, it’s a very slow process. And there’s, you know, there’s points in that road where you get things wrong and, you know, things look very bleak.

And you just, you know, for me, it was it was just kind of more of a trial and error thing. Quite often, I think a lot of autistic people can mistake social anxiety with a desire to be on your own. And, you know, that I have I have a lot of autistic friends who they really want to connect with people.

You know, they deeply want to connect with people, but they struggle feeling understood and feeling confident to express their personality in their social setting. And we also talk a lot about masking in the autistic community, which is kind of the act of acting less autistic. Yeah.

In a sense. And, you know, I kind of coined the term sort of adaptive masking now because most people don’t really understand the the autistic way of behaving and thinking. And so you kind of have to learn to speak the neurotypical language a little bit, you know, especially on initial meetings with people, because if you don’t make our contacts, they’re going to think you shady, they’re going to think you’re not interested, a bit aloof, maybe mistrustful, you know, just from the psychological studies that have been done.

Especially now with like some of the scary stories that you hear, you know, and especially, you know, this woman being attacked or killed or what have you. It’s so wary of everybody. And it’s because, again, of the uncertain times that we’re in, a lot of people with mental health issues.

So do you think it also it could be to do with unpredictability because you’re not sure what the other person is going to say what they’re going to do? You’re not in control? Do you think that’s part of the difficulty as well? Yeah, and I think a lot of a lot of us put a lot of pressure on ourselves to, as it be, perform, yeah, rather than to just put yourself out there as you are, you know, perhaps putting more effort to to to converse and, you know, share more about yourself and ask questions. But, you know, yeah, I feel like most people put a lot of pressure on themselves and they kind of put this person that they’re dating that they’ve gone out for a date with on on a pedal stool or, you know, a friend that even that first step to to make the date because they’re just too nervous about doing so. So it’s sort of they go round and round in a circle and they don’t actually make the first step or they don’t recognize the signs, you know, that somebody might be interested in them.

I think there’s still what there should be something because I haven’t seen that much around on in the media or, you know, with reference to somebody having a workshop or role play or whatever it is that might work best with adults. And just, you know, these are the things that you you could possibly do. I’d only try this type of thing.

But coming from other autistic adults that they’ve been successful with it, you know, I mean, rather than a neurotypical person. Can you see where you’re coming from? Yeah, I know. I do see where you’re coming from because it can be quite, as you said, quite an unpredictable environment.

And I think that scares off a lot of autistic people because, you know, the unpredictability kind of breeds a lot of anxiety. But again, it’s kind of it’s it’s the amount of weight that you put on this person’s opinion of you. And, you know, quite often if you if you if you do even if you don’t modify your behavior, being on a date and or being with friends, it’s you know, it’s if you are comfortable and you talk to them like another human being and you converse and you show your interests and you put yourself out there and you, you know, you get get to you converse with the other person on the same level.

Yeah. And listen as well to what they’ve got to say, because sometimes very one sided. Yeah, maybe.

Yeah, that’s it’s either it always seems to be one way or the other from from what I’ve heard from people. Yeah. It’s it’s kind of it is that whole 50 50 thing.

And it’s it’s you know, it’s it’s quite important to do that. And it’s important to have a laugh and, you know, just to share some humor and share some, you know, happy emotions. Yeah.

And growing your self confidence, which I think is quite tough for a lot of autistic adults having self confidence. Yeah. And that comes with a lot of personal development.

And, you know, once you tend to kind of work on yourself and in terms of the friendship domain, yeah, and you feel comfortable with other people, you you notice your own self worth the ways that you’re different and you accept that and you just approach a date like you would another person with nothing extra attached to it, then it tends to to work quite well. It’s just getting to that point requires a lot of sort of personal development and experience. So we’ve got a mutual connection.

So Kelly Barker from Born Anxious, who I’m an ambassador for. Sorry, I’m in an office, so you might hear people laughing behind me. I’d like to go.

No worries at all. But hey, this is how are you working at the moment? So, yeah, Kelly, who has Born Anxious, it’s a clothing line for children and adults that might have sensory difficulties and they’ve got some fantastic strap lines and I’m proud to be an ambassador. So you now have your own little line going on and the possibility might be doing some modeling.

So do you want to tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, well, you know, one of one of the drivers in motivation to to go to the gym outside of sort of general mental health upkeep was so that I could do some modeling and I worked with a model and not model, I worked with the photographer in Harrogate. Okay. It’s kind of put together some photographs that sort of show the more mature sort of adult, not in a, you know, x-ray.

Kind of masculine kind of feel to it. It was like suits and all that kind of thing. And I was like, you know what, I don’t actually recollect an autistic model in my time.

And so maybe that might be another avenue to go down to bring some more awareness to autism. It’s always been something that I’ve been interested in very loosely. But yeah, I’ve been talking to Kelly, you know, for a while about things that we could do to kind of you know, raise her brand and obviously share my messages.

And so she invited me to to do like a catwalk show. And maybe at some point get together and do something, do like a professional photo shoot. Yeah.

So I’ve been, you know, I’ve got my fingers crossed for the next year, I think it’s going to be around in March. Yeah, that’s going to be on my birthday, so I’ll have to be there to watch it. I don’t know how it’s going to be.

I’m a little bit sensitive around the idea of doing like a catwalk for you. Well, I’ve been to the last one she did, it was really well put together. It’s not a huge place.

So you probably, I think it’s not very echoey because I’ve been to some of these places where they’re quite echoey, not very sensory friendly, something like this, I think we might probably work well for you. Although behind the catwalk stage, maybe you might not need to have a separate room for yourself, because you can imagine kids and adults all together behind the stage. Yeah.

So I also wanted to chat to you about your talk that you, I’m not sure if you’ve done it yet, or you’re going to be doing it, because I’m trying to get through as many of these points that I can with reference to the department work and pensions, because obviously there’s only 15% of adults who are autistic that have full-time employment, far too less. And I know there’s more and more awareness raising and acceptance with reference to employment, but we’ve still got a long way to go. So how’s that come about? So have you already done the talk or are you preparing for the talk? Well, I’m preparing for the talk and it’s going to be, I think, sometime in February.

Okay. And it’s actually come about due to my recent employment status. I worked for an inclusion sort of national development team at the moment.

It’s a really great charity. And one of the people there who was sort of supporting me with access to work, put me in contact with a team of people. I sort of did a little bit of a 10, 15 minute talk at a meeting.

And one of the individuals was one of the higher ups in DWP. And he asked me to put something together and do some autism awareness stuff and suggest some things to help combat that problem that you were saying. Yeah.

So for people listening in, that because I know a lot of people, I’ve got a clue what access to work is. Because I remember when Patrick started on his journey, and I discovered access to work, and I shared a lot of people didn’t know about anything about it, apparently to quite protected pot of funding that they don’t really tell a lot of people about. So do you want to tell everybody about what access to work meant to you a little bit about what’s it about? How do you think that, you know, the company that you work for, applies for, you ask them to do it, and then they try and put it in place for you.

And it’s basically like a pot of money to fund some supports. And that could be anything from a job coach who sort of teaches you how to do the role. Or it could be sort of a more supporting role for mental health and stress and organization, which is the kind of thing that I have.

I think you can get things like laptops as well, can’t you? I did not know that. But I will definitely bring that up. Sure, you can get some sort of equipment as well, especially especially as well, when you’re planning, if you’re going to university, is a bit of a lot of process and a daunting process, but you’ve got to stick with it.

But you can get, you know, equipment as well to help you get through your degree and that. So there’s all these little things that people don’t tell you about that they tend to keep quiet about, because I think they don’t want to spend their money. But yeah, there’s this thing that I’ve been given at the moment, it’s called Brain in Hand, which is kind of like a stress mental health management kind of app or service.

And that’s recently gone through, so that’s relating to the access to work. It’s something that the access to work has paid for. So I’ll update you on how well it works.

Yeah, anything like that I’ll share across social media, because people are always looking for information, especially with reference to employment. You’re getting into graphics, design and animation. And one of my ambassadors, I don’t know if you know, that Danny from America, she set up her own Danny Mason company, she’s doing really well.

So that might be someone else that you could tap into. Oh, yes, please. Give me a message later, and I’ll send you her information.

That would be grand. Danny Mason. And also, if you look on our charity website under ambassadors, she’s one of our overseas ambassadors, because she’s given a couple of scholarships every year for the only last for a week during the summer for teenagers.

Yeah, she’s she’s got a lot of contacts. So I’m doing really well. So yeah, check her out.

She’s called Danny Mason. And it’s on the charity website under our overseas ambassadors. So you’ll see there’ll be a little link on there as well.

So is there anything else that you’ve got? Can you say yourself in five, 10 years? I have a lot of aspirations, obviously always got very high expectations on myself to do things. But I’m hoping to, as I said before, I’m hoping to sort of grow my own sort of training business, sort of do talks to workplaces to help improve inclusion of autistic people in workplaces. Now I’m wanting to get involved more with schools to try and try and combat some of the bullying and mental health in schools.

And I’m also wanting to try and grow my platforms more. And I’m definitely going to be putting a lot more effort into my podcast. I’ve noticed and I’ve talked about this before on social media about how toxic it can be.

What’s your experiences of being on social media? It’s, you know, to be honest, the majority of it has been exceptionally positive. And it’s been lovely. I do think that there is a select group of people who are very, very vocal about their opinions and can be quite toxic, as you say.

One of the things that I’m kind of battling with at the moment is due to my use of Asperger’s growth. And people are kind of conflating my use of Asperger’s with the horrible events of World War II in terms of Hans Asperger and such. So, you know, there’s a lot of topics that, you know, there’s a lot of toxicity and, you know, language policing going on.

And I think, you know, what I’m trying to do on, what I’m trying to do on social media is to bring people’s attention back to the critical issues that really have an impact on the lives of autistic people. Yeah. And it’s also like, it can be to and fro in with parents and, you know, autistic adults and they think that they are speaking or sharing.

And it’s just, for me, it’s about raising awareness, that acceptance. It’s about working together. And what I worry about as well is that, say, for example, on Twitter, and I’ve had a few parents that have approached me and say, what do I do? What do I do? And I said, the best thing to do is just not engage.

It’s just getting tit for tat. And then the best thing to do is just like either block the person depending on what it is that they’re saying to you. And because we’ve obviously got the keyboard warriors there as well.

But the thing is, you know, they’ve got set up a profile that’s not them. And you know what I’m trying to say. And it’s just like you just got to it’s I just don’t understand why people do that sort of thing.

But hey, that’s not what they bought. But it just really affects some people sometimes. And I have spoken to some autistic adults that just really got them down and quite depressed.

So I think the best thing to do is just to ignore them, depending on what they’re saying, block them, mute them, whatever it is that you’re doing. So we’ve got a couple of minutes left. And because this programme is about wellbeing, and we have touched on it, what do you do? That’s not autism related, that helps you with your wellbeing.

So you don’t have to think about anything. And you just get to you in the right place in a in a couple of minutes. I, you know, I, the main couple of things that I do to relax is either redirecting my focus or exercise.

And I know a lot of people talk about exercise being, you know, the bog standard doctor’s approval kind of stamp on things, but there’s a lot of mechanisms in your brain that, and in your body, that exercise regulates quite well. And, you know, that I find that, you know, quite often I have a lot of tension and anxiety and, you know, being able to have regular exercise really helps me control my panic attacks and my my anxiety doesn’t always work. But quite consistently, it does work.

And also having an outlet creatively, in order to to try and express some some inner inner emotions. Yeah. And, you know, try and make something positive and productive of that.

And usually by by doing something like that, like doing the graphics design or writing or anything really that’s creative redirects my attention for long enough so that I can sort of reset my brain. Yeah. And, you know, create a plan of action once I feel in the right headspace.

Definitely. It’s definitely bringing yourself back to the right headspace because there’s no point in, you know, even it’s even when children or students are in the classroom as well, you know, if they’re not in the right headspace for learning, they just need to be able to like Patrick, my son at work, he just goes for a walk. And then he might be just five minutes around the site and he’ll come back, he’ll get on with his work.

And it’s just it’s just five minutes. And that’s for me, you know, reasonable adjustments don’t cost anything. It’s just he needs to go for a walk, come back and get on with his work.

Well, in our modern times, anxiety is more of a hindrance than a than a positive thing. You know, it used to be you got anxious, and then your muscles activate, and your blood starts pumping, and you can run away from predators. But in this modern society, you have to use your brain to think about stuff and plan.

And yeah, you just can’t do that when your brain is buzzing. No, just to remind everyone, so YouTube, it’s Asperger’s growth, podcast, or T or T podcast, T H or U G H T Y, or T A U T I podcast. The website is thomashennelly.co.uk and social media on Instagram and on Twitter, I believe it’s at Asperger’s growth.

So Thomas is going to be writing an article for us, which will be on the charity website, just to remind you www.anna kennedy online.com at Anna Kennedy one on Twitter, which I’ll be sharing on there. And Anna Kennedy online on Facebook and at Anna Kennedy OBE on Instagram. We’re always updating our latest news page.

We’re always updating our resources page. If you check it out, and if you think that there should be something on there that you’d like to share, we’re all actually don’t get quite a few emails from people saying, oh, is there any chance that you could put this on the charity website? And not only from the UK, it’s actually from overseas as well. So we check it out if we feel it’s appropriate and it fits in with what we’re doing.

We will just load it onto the charity website. And don’t forget, we now start in 2022. Autumn’s got talent.

So show us your talent. So I always say whether you’re a singer or dancer, whether you’re a musician, a magician, you’re in a group playing acoustic guitar, electric guitar, you’ve got poetry, you’ve got artwork, whatever it is, please send it in by the end of April. So the end of April, and then we will have the difficult task of choosing 20 performers that will be going to the Mermaid Theatre in London in October.

We’ve got the theatre booked. We will also be doing our Autism Expo, the charity expo. So if you check out the information for that, we’ll be on the charity website early in the new year.

So that will be happening at Brunel University. And yeah, lots of updates that will be happening very soon. And I just want to say everyone keep going.

All the best for 2022. It’s got to get better. Bye everyone.

Bye Thomas. Take care. Bye.