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Autism and Pet Management
1.3k Plays1 year ago
What are the challenges autistic people experience with pets and how can you manage them? How can pets benefit autistic and disabled people? WHY does Mike have 2 therapy peacocks?!
In this podcast, Thomas Henley talks to Mike from @Autistic_AF about his experiences owning and managing a large number of animals or pets, why Autism makes pet ownership difficult, what benefits pets can offer autistic people, and which strategies he uses to maintain his sanity long-term.
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@Autistic_AF YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Autistic_AF
Chapters:
00:00 - 02:47 Introduction
02:47 - 14:00 Who Is Autistic AF?
14:00 - 24:43 Mikes Home Zoo!
24:43 - 44:34 Benefits Of Pets For Autistic People
44:34 - 55:23 Overcoming Autistic Challenges With Pets
55:23 - 01:09:49 Community Q&A
01:09:49 - 01:20:31 3 Top Tips For Pet Management
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Transcript
Live Episode Format Discussion
00:00:07
Speaker
Good day, and welcome back to the 4DOZ podcast with your host, Mr. Thomas Henley, of course. And today it's going to be a bit of a strange podcast because we are actually doing this live. I was thinking to myself that it wouldn't be funny for me to have two episodes in season three and then just switch and just do season four just because we're doing like a different format.
00:00:35
Speaker
But maybe not, I think we'll keep this as part of season 3 and if you do want to and if you do listen to this podcast on other streaming services or you watch the recording replay please do make sure to go and check out my channel beforehand so that you can get updated when we do do this live because we will be taking
00:00:57
Speaker
some comments, some pieces of the chat and using that as a sort of talking point so if you want to stay engaged then that would be really cool. Today we're going to be addressing a different, well obviously a different topic because it'd be a bit strange if we didn't have a different topic every time.
Autism and Social Media Engagement
00:01:16
Speaker
But we're going to be talking about autism and pets and searching through, looking through the internet, scouring the web to try and find the right person to do this, of course. And of course, probably the best person to ask about this is my very, very good friend Mike from Autistic AF. How are you doing today, Mike?
00:01:42
Speaker
I am doing great. Thank you very much for having me, Thomas. And also, yeah, if you are listening to Thomas on the other platforms, give him a good rating as well. It's quite helpful to drop a rating on those things. Yes, yes, it is very true. I completely forget about the intricacies of like asking for likes and subscribes and ratings and stuff. I'm still trying to get it into my vocabulary of being online. Do you know what I mean?
00:02:11
Speaker
I understand, I do, I really do. I feel like a, I don't know, I mean, my brain's only just sort of crossing that threshold of, oh, my YouTuber now, is that like, you know, there's this new vocabulary, I'm only just getting to grips with the whole neurodiversity vocabulary. You know, and there's still some like elements of that I find difficult. We can talk about like, I'm stimming, it just feels a little bit to me. I'm not saying stimming's like, not good, for those that can't see on the camera. But like, um,
00:02:39
Speaker
yeah it's like a whole load of new vocabulary and for youtube as well same thing okay so it's very very strange worlds well um it'll be i suppose it'd be nice for anybody who doesn't um know of you and your work mike for us for you to give a little bit of a background maybe into your channel possibly about where sort of the autistic hats come into the picture i'm sure we'd be very very happy to hear about
00:03:04
Speaker
That'll be good to hear. Yeah, so I started my YouTube channel in October, 2023. Originally, I just wanted something quiet and simple. I just thought autistic after 14 was available. So I just took that as a domain name and put a couple of videos on it, unlisted them. And they were just me talking to my phone with the intention of sharing it with a couple of friends because the people that I sort of suggested, Hey, look, I'm on a waiting list. I think I might be autistic.
00:03:32
Speaker
No you're not autistic or you can't be autistic or why do you think you're autistic or you don't have autism, you have autism, it's something that can be treated right and it's like all this stuff and I thought I can't be dealing with having this conversation with people. I'm not saying a massive friend group but you feel like onion circles, I've got family.
00:03:52
Speaker
And Dineen has been very supportive, but at first she was like, you know, you think you're not entirely sure. Do you know what I mean? So I kind of wanted to just sort of put something down that was edited, but I like video as a medium rather than sort of writing it down. And so I thought I'll make some videos and then I can just sort of send them and go, this explains me better. And
00:04:16
Speaker
The thing that really came to mind for me was, while I was doing that, I made a video about monotropism. Yes, that was one of your first ones, wasn't it? I thought I wanted something that was like autism, that wasn't, that kind of explained how I felt, or at least some of my struggles, or at least something explained what I'm sort of good at. I know this kind of tunnel vision that we often have,
00:04:41
Speaker
You know, generally a lot of autistic people relate quite strongly. It's a fantastic study, by the way, if you want to read it. It's only a few pages long with three autistic authors. Fantastic, fantastic piece of writing.
Monotropism and Neurodiversity
00:04:52
Speaker
Yeah, for anybody who doesn't know about much about monotropism, it's basically, at its basic level, it is like the style of focus that people have. So like, I think you're right, there was maybe two or three sort of autistic researchers, like actually autistic people who sort of came up with the idea and there's like monotropism, and then there's polytropism.
00:05:19
Speaker
Monodripsum is more characterised as like an autistic thing whereby you find one thing to sort of pull you in quite a bit, you know, you hear phrases like autistic inertia,
00:05:34
Speaker
What was the other one that we used in terms of hyper focusing? Of course, that's another one that that gets thrown about quite a bit. And it's quite an interesting theory because I think one of the I think one of one of the the shining positives of that kind of study and that kind of work is that it very much sort of takes away sort of the pathology of it. So like within the sort of medical school system,
00:06:04
Speaker
you know autism is kind of seen as this like through this very deficit type lens and it's kind of our behaviors around sort of being focused and struggling to transition are sort of highlighted as being like challenging behaviors or something that we need to fix whereas this kind of concept of monotropism sort of brought in that this is kind of like a inherent like autistic trait which
00:06:32
Speaker
I think brings a bit more power into the hands of the autistic people. I think it looks at it, not from an othering perspective.
00:06:44
Speaker
But from just saying how it is, it's a different neurotype, it's a different way of being. It's neither good nor bad. It has good and bad aspects to it, of course, but it just is. And then as far as I just went from there and thought, oh, I'll make another one, another one. And by this point, I was now showing them to people and getting in real life, that is. And it was sort of helping people to understand and I just carried on. And I also started doing live streams as well, which were kind of great fun.
00:07:14
Speaker
Yeah, I think when I tuned in last time, you were playing a game as a cat or something. Hey, oh, fantastic. What was that game?
00:07:25
Speaker
Stray is a wonderful, wonderful game. I actually pre-ordered that. I actually had some email chats with developers years ago when it was in a prototype, because I just thought this is a wonderful idea. You can be a cat and run around. It's a three-dimensional platform game as a cat. It's a most apocalyptic world. It's a little bit dark. It's not kind of the game that I would make, but you get to be a cat. Oh my goodness, you get to scratch furniture and everything. It's brilliant.
00:07:52
Speaker
Is there a like, I suppose, like, I suppose going a bit kind of deep, do you have like a sort of an overarching goal or like, what you something that you want you want to achieve by sort of being online? Or is it kind of just something that you because for me, when I started off, it was probably about seven years ago, I've been
00:08:17
Speaker
in the online world for quite a while, but it's not really been something that I've been very consistent with. But when I started, it was, I think I was probably about 19, 20. And I just, the reason why I started is because I wanted kind of like a platform to talk about my experiences and perhaps like just kind of get it out of my brain and sort of onto a video. What is your kind of
00:08:45
Speaker
I fully understand thomas it's like it's cathartic so i know i'll be lying if i said hey i'm doing this for other people to educate wasn't actually really that it was almost like.
00:08:56
Speaker
I'm making some early explainer videos. You can see it early on in my channel actually, especially now I'm saying explicitly. Those early videos, I'm almost explaining it to myself. It's almost a cathartic thing. Almost therapeutic. Does that make sense?
Public Perception and Misconceptions of Autism
00:09:13
Speaker
And it was a fantastic way of
00:09:17
Speaker
I'm not way of disclosure i mean i think disclosure is a whole other topic jump on the internet and tell the people i don't know it kind of sort of make sense and i actually thought. But by going on the internet and telling loads of people that it wouldn't it wouldn't be like it would be close to me.
00:09:35
Speaker
Turns out I'm completely wrong and I met a neighbour who watches my channel. Yeah, I completely agree. I think it's... I don't know about you, but I mean, it's something that I've been wrestling with for a while, but I think because my experience is so sort of atypical to those, particularly who are neurotypical sort of around me in my life, even if I really, really care about them,
00:10:04
Speaker
It's quite a hard thing for people to relate to like with anxiety disorder people can sort of relate to the feeling of being anxious in terms of perhaps obviously it's not like all ADHD kind of aspects but in terms of sort of the the focusing aspect of like ADHD like some people might be able to sort of relate a little bit to that but autism there's like
00:10:32
Speaker
introverts, maybe. Oh, you're introverted. That's what that is. Yeah, just like autism hasn't had its OCD moment, in my opinion, that moment of people where they go, Oh, I'm a little bit OCD. I forgot my car. You know, I've left the cookering on or, Oh, I need everything completely clean because I'm a bit OCD. They don't mean it.
00:10:54
Speaker
Just like some people when they say, oh, everyone's a bit autistic, particularly with techies, I've spoken to a couple of techy friends that I think are almost certainly on the spectrum. But they're like, oh, you know, we don't think too much about it. We're all a bit on the spectrum, especially in this industry. And it's like, well, no, but
00:11:11
Speaker
just you know it's quite complicated because people don't really understand what that means like ADHD particularly the inattentive and hyperactive side of those things people can kind of almost understand what that means or relate to it and go okay i think i've got an idea what that is yeah but you know like if you're thinking about sort of tv and media where are the autistic examples where are the autistic not role models but
00:11:33
Speaker
And of course, there's a spectrum. So there's no like, that's kind of part of the problem, really. It's kind of like, you can't really sort of put all the traits on character and go, here's your, you know, example, or use your Sheldon Cooper, for example. It's not like that. You know, but then people go, Oh, you're not like that. Or you're not like my, and it's true, everyone's got a five year old flippin nephew, who's autistic with high support needs. Where are they all? Where are all these kids? They've been everywhere. You're not like that.
00:12:04
Speaker
You're not autistic. So it's really it's quite odd. Yeah, I think that's kind of the problem. I don't know if we're ever going to as like an advocate community. I don't know that we're ever gonna get there because it's such a wide spectrum. You can't say this is what autism is.
00:12:23
Speaker
this, you know, for everyone, these are, this is a set of challenges that everyone has, and they're exactly the same. That is one of the difficulties, isn't there? It's like, you know, you give any characterization of autism, and it's, it's not gonna sink in or apply to or relate to some demographic of autistic people, like, so it's, so it's always a task. But I do, I do think that we do have
00:12:51
Speaker
Like you saying about like little, little OCD. Like I have heard a lot of phrases going about at the moment, like, um, a touch of Tism, um, or the touch touch of Tism people say, or I'm a bit autistic. I heard that one. It's a good thing to have a touch. I don't know. Spider devil sort of thing. Where are we at with this?
00:13:20
Speaker
I don't know because obviously it really depends on the person who's saying it like some people I think they just say it because they do think they're a bit autistic but they don't want to say like openly I'm autistic or you know so it could be using that way some people might use it to describe themselves as being a bit quirky or unique or like
00:13:39
Speaker
I think there's a lot of stuff like that.
Autism and Pets
00:13:44
Speaker
You have autistic people themselves, autistic influences using that type of phraseology, but then you also have people who are outside using it in a derogatory way as well.
00:13:56
Speaker
It's quite complex, but, um, let's not, let's not, um, dwell too much on aspects of things. Cause today we are going to be talking specifically about your experience with pets and where we go.
00:14:13
Speaker
I do want to sort of preface this by saying that although I have throughout my life pretty much grown up around dogs, like I think at every single point in my life I've had some kind of dog loosely attached to the family, whether it's my mum's partner's dog or my dog or my brother's dog or
00:14:38
Speaker
There's always been some some dog in the family and it's it's very much sort of something that I would want but one of the difficulties that I have in life tends to come in the form of executive dysfunction and that's one of the reasons why I'm a bit tentative around getting a pet because I sometimes struggle to look after myself you know with those executive functioning difficulties plus mental health it's kind of
00:15:06
Speaker
a bit too much and I want to be able to like sort of satisfactory or take care of an animal sort of and I don't want to feel like I'm not meeting their needs you know so I think it would be a really interesting episode to to touch on but I guess one thing that I want to ask you first is how many and what type of pets do you have? All right let's get into this right we'll dive into it you've touched on a really big topic but I have a series of videos planned
00:15:36
Speaker
about. It's the number one thing I get asked actually on the executive dysfunction side of things and husbandry let's call it. So we've got 13 cats which is down from 21 and mostly because old rescue animals, some of them in their early 20s. Three dogs, there's a number of fish now by the way, that's as a result of live stream. We've built an aquarium on the live stream.
00:16:02
Speaker
um we've got three ducks which are muscovy ducks tied with the type of goose but actually a duck we have some critically endangered shetland ducks on the way so we'll show you the progress of those we have chickens and we have peacocks two peacocks you have three ducks you have an absolute farm going on you have two peacocks yeah yeah i got a couple of peacocks are they male or female oh they're both male
00:16:30
Speaker
It's actually the girls that travel. The girls have the typical kind of male gender role, right? You know, they're kind of like, I'm going to go adventuring. I'm going to go have babies. I'm going to go here, there, and everywhere. It's actually the females, the pea hens that travel. So you occasionally get a pea hen coming by, but the pea hens go off, find a boy, then they leave them and then they go lay eggs or whatever. And then, you know, so because of the peacocks, they have, um,
00:16:58
Speaker
like their feathers are too weighty that just do they struggle to fly or is that? No, they can fly, right? So I think the original kind of, it's kind of a far eastern bird that hunts snakes, right? They're kind of an interesting bird. But I think that the kind of dragon metaphors come from peacocks because peacocks can actually fly down from trees and their wingspan is nearly as wide as this room, you know, unlike the tail. So like they actually look like dragons when they're coming down. They're quite intimidating. So yeah.
00:17:26
Speaker
It's quite a few animals. But my background anyway, with regard to animals was, when I was growing up, I grew up, my parents were in the army. So I was born in Germany, and we used to move around a lot. So we'd never had pets as such. What would happen is that military families would have pets, because you moved every six months.
00:17:46
Speaker
people kind of adopted pets, so the pets kind of like moved from household to household to household as people moved around, it's quite complex. As a result, we had animals around us, you know, I'd have guinea pigs for a few months and I'd have a dog for a few months and that dog would go to someone else and it was all kind of confusing. But in my early 20s, I got involved with Cats Protection in the UK. I kind of culminated in me actually serving on the board of a few animal charities for quite a few years.
00:18:14
Speaker
But I'd often find time to kind of go down and pet the cats, you know what I mean? Feed them and that sort of stuff. And then eventually helping them with fundraising, helping them with organization and then governance and HR and finance and that sort of stuff. As a consequence of that, I'd end up with like, hey, we've got a three legged cat.
00:18:32
Speaker
If you go to Mike, I'll try to take this cat and I'll end up just like accumulating animals that were either deaf or injured or missing bits or whatever. That's so sweet. A regular joke could come up about me eating them because like there's bits of limbs missing off different onto them, you know what I mean? It's not true, I promise you. Vegan, of course. Someone in the chat said, is it an emotional support peacock?
00:18:59
Speaker
I don't want to promote my videos, but if you go back a couple of videos, you'll actually see me start a video with Mr. Emotional Support Peacock. Yeah, absolutely. It was quite a nice hook. Yeah, they're great. But like, I ended up studying a feline studies diploma. My background is science, but
00:19:21
Speaker
I just kind of have a history of following my interests and we're a bit where, you know, we're financially in time available, right?
Fascinating Parasites
00:19:28
Speaker
Yeah. But now it's like, I've got to be a martyrdom. I think when I when I did my biomedical sciences during Manchester, I did a
00:19:43
Speaker
a few modules so like one of the areas of specialty that i had was in parasitology and i learned a lot about like there's basically this sort of amoeba sort of like creature called toxoplasmosis which i'm sure you'll know about
00:20:03
Speaker
um but it's so it's such an interesting like it's probably one of the more the more interesting parasites out there because it has like genuine um like impacts on someone's like emotion both humans cats and rats um emotional states and like um one of the the interesting things about it was that it actually because there's like a life cycle of it wanting to go through felines and
00:20:31
Speaker
from rats and stuff. It actually changes the biochemistry of the rat's brain to enjoy and be attracted to the smell of cat pee. Yeah, it's a really interesting organism. It essentially makes, for example, things like cats and things fearless. It makes the rats fearless too.
00:20:51
Speaker
It's like the rats are almost like they will go find a cat and they'll not fight for their lives in the like eat me yes interesting and cordyceps in a mess of a pet kind of thing like that also does something really similar and there's quite a few other things in the ocean.
00:21:09
Speaker
passion in the marine. There's quite a few things in the marine environment that do really similar things and it's like neurological hijacking. It's kind of really quite interesting. Have you seen the gender changing crab parasite? Do you know of that one? No, but gender changing is quite common.
00:21:29
Speaker
I think there's like a parasite that can only live in like the eggs of crabs so it like whenever it infects a crab it like basically hijacks its genetic code to make it more likely to have more female
00:21:48
Speaker
crabs or something yeah okay it's really there's loads of cool i mean cordyceps is like one of the best ones i've ever like it's that's cordyceps other than that southern hemisphere not not where we are but like i'd love to see it uh joe i love border collies the most we have a border collie called mazy um i love that i i saw it on the video about one the video that i reacted to such a sweet dog it's making me want a border collie
00:22:17
Speaker
Mike's colleagues in the room and so I zoned out and then her copy Happy is like obstinate straight from straight from the devil You know can be dealt with like I mean I don't want to sort of turn my channel into the Jackson Galaxy of autistic app content He's a creator on YouTube that talks about cats if your questions about cats. I'd probably recommend checking out his channel and
00:22:42
Speaker
But like, uh, yeah, there are, there are sort of substances you can use, um, enzymes and things to break that down. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, um, managing, managing cats. I can, I can take conversations off, but in terms of like detective functioning, we, um, I have some videos to, to, to, to, to kind of put this together.
Managing Pet Care with Executive Dysfunction
00:23:01
Speaker
It is like a really high question. I get asked a lot how to join your Minecraft service. Probably number one question, but like the second one is how do you manage the animals? Um,
00:23:10
Speaker
is i don't manage them on my own number one is big one and number two is we have systems for everything yes like systems we have databases of all the animals whenever anything happens with one of them it goes into the database this means that anyone else can care for them but then simple things like feeders are automatic like there's one behind me there which is tuned in to like super chats by the way on my live streams
00:23:33
Speaker
comes in it sets off the feeder so this particular feeder has got like high value treats in yeah um other ones uh do that um they've just got a normal food so we've got like electronic feeders i think like liquor trays when the when the super chat goes off to like the cats just hear it and just like run at it to like try and get the treat yeah so so before there is actually a bell behind me uh on on the shelf this bell here i'll be i'll be a bit careful because i know you're recording so
00:24:02
Speaker
It's got to be really quiet. This is the cat-mageddon bell. So if I ring this bell, because the animals are going free, we need a way to bring them back in. Yes, yeah. So if I ring this bell, they're all bell trained, and it's like a big brass school bell. I'm just holding the bell inside, because if this goes off, they're all going to come running. But they are also now starting to train themselves to the super chat noise.
00:24:31
Speaker
So that's kind of just like my side of things here. Like I just really enjoyed the API. I had to buy like a button presser that has an API and you can kind of code for that.
00:24:42
Speaker
I do have some some particular sort of questions to ask you about um like the challenges but before we talk about those sort of more in detail I'd like to perhaps understand what what you think the benefits of having pets are to like specifically autistic people like oh you could maybe not just specifically but
00:25:07
Speaker
if there are some specific ones maybe mention them but obviously like i can imagine they're sort of
00:25:14
Speaker
Yeah, drop some big ones for you. Yeah, so I've actually been reading in research in preparation for an upcoming video. I'm sorry to keep hinting this, but this is absolutely super fascinating to me and it's like the number two question. So, and it's about how autistic people gravitate towards non-human animals. So, we're all animals, get out of the way. But like, if you've got like cats, dogs, for example, companion animals, how much extra value
00:25:43
Speaker
People gain out of that compared to your typical so that's the first thing there's a certain unfortunately reading a lot of these studies there's a lot of.
00:25:54
Speaker
It's called like human replacement or people replacement and it's a bizarre kind of concept This is other language of oh, they look at Mike over there. He prefers cats to people and it's like well Yes, but I'm not replacing people with cats. It's not like I want an army of people around me I'm just gonna replace them all with cats. That's not it's not where we're going with it. It's just that we we Get a lot of what we could gain out of social relationships with other humans from companions
00:26:22
Speaker
animals as well and that's just mammals but you know that can be fish it can be your bearded dragons and reptiles and things as well but we get an awful lot out of that and there's an awful lot of benefits that autistic people can gain from it being a fulfillment of a ritual so it's really kind of hard to explain but
00:26:39
Speaker
the act of caring for our like you got like a routine in the morning so for example we have a routine for feeding the birds involves just checking them out load of corn it's a really simple routine it's very kind of medieval you get a bucket you get the corn you pick it up and just flick it on there and you're done right that's them done and it's like there is something kind of like really peaceful about that and really kind of
00:26:59
Speaker
Like, you know, it's like a life goal, just a bucket of corn and chickens and you just chuck corn out for birds. It's just like it's very peaceful and it's really rewarding. So it's like on one hand, it can be hard to actually get yourself into into an actual routine. But on the other hand, once you are in it and you have that routine, a part of your day, it's kind of like a nice thing.
00:27:23
Speaker
think that it's kind of almost a grounding thing. So another example is I will forget to feed myself but the cats won't let me forget to feed them. So if the machines are not there for the cats to feed them or they're empty or whatever, they will not let you sleep, they won't let you rest, they will bother you really badly to feed them.
00:27:42
Speaker
And once you're in that zone of like feeding the cats, it's then like, maybe I should make myself a sandwich or like cereal as well. So it like reminds you to kickstart other parts of your routine. Yeah, exactly. Thomas, thank you so much. That's exactly what I'm trying to say. So like the routine that goes along with the animal husbandry does kind of connect in with the routines that you need to follow through as a human as well. That makes sense. That's really cool.
00:28:07
Speaker
We also get really good, sort of like, steamy value from them as well. So one of them wants to come in. I've got Emma here, and Emma's kind of like, she's pretty neurospicy. But they're great, you know, they feel good, they're purring away, you know. If you're lying down on a bed with like 10 cats on YouTube, it's a fantastic experience. It's like a weighted blanket, a heated blanket, and like a stim toys all in one. You know, so there's kind of like that element of it as well. So there's kind of like the physical sensory kind of element.
00:28:36
Speaker
Then there is a flip side as well, things like litter trays and whatnot. And we've got some unique ways, I think, of managing that. How are we doing in the chat, by the way? Yeah, we're doing good. Maybe we'll read out a couple of things. Renee says, my cats generally just steal covers or the best part of the pillow. Isabella says, two of my favorite people doing a podcast.
00:29:05
Speaker
Ah, thank you Isabella. Autistic couple, I'll answer that one. Where is Mike everyone? Did he say Malaysia? No, my mother's Malaysian. I'm on a place called the Isle of Man. The Isle of Man is a little island in the Irish Sea. It's not just men though, is it? It's not like a... No, no, no. There's some women over here, I'm afraid. Oh, they can see a cat there.
00:29:32
Speaker
yes so this is this is emma and she's at her she's at her bowl but we're on we're on the wrong stream emma this is not this is not the super trap stream you see i i actually um oh
00:29:52
Speaker
It's so good. I actually for a long time, I think it was probably because of my my grandma because she has like a really crippling phobia of cats.
00:30:06
Speaker
um she has she has this story of like how one sort of summer day um sort of a group of cats sort of climbed in through like a small window in in one of her apartments and um like
00:30:23
Speaker
They like stole it like an entire sort of Easter egg or something.
Emotional Bonds with Pets
00:30:28
Speaker
And apparently that scarred her for life. She doesn't like us. But that kind of rubbed off for me a little bit for a while. So I've always been like a very much like a dog person. But when I went to Thailand, basically like
00:30:51
Speaker
I think probably about three or four nights a week I'd go to this Taekwondo Center. It was this sort of Thai team. Chiang Mai was the place kind of in the North Thailand. And after every session I would sort of sit on the mats and do some stretches and stuff. And there was always this one cat that would just come up to me and just like sit between my legs while I was like stretching.
00:31:20
Speaker
I got chosen by the car and I was like, I'm trying very, very hard not to like you, but it's getting more difficult and I kind of got a little bit of a bond with them and I was like, hmm, maybe I should change my perspective. Yeah, maybe Thomas. I mean, you're not nearly a miles from me, you should perhaps visit and we'll see if we can sort of run you over with the cats, but we have dogs as well. I like them now.
00:31:52
Speaker
this is sabre another one yeah there's quite a few in here at the minute let me know if the audio is a problem guys daniel says cats get confused around gingers cats steal seals souls but gingers have no souls it's a conundrum well with that ginger cats they're one brain cell i cannot i cannot confirm or deny if this is true
00:32:20
Speaker
probably true i can i can well i don't know it's quite hard to sort of determine if someone has a soul by looking at them but i'd assume that the the follicles on someone's head does not determine the the um the encapsulation what am i trying to say the the containment of a soul i would say probably that's a little bit ghostbusters
00:32:50
Speaker
Well, I would definitely say for me when it comes to like the benefits of sort of pets, like as I said, I've only really had a dog and it wasn't really looked after by me. But my first dog, he was from the kennel. He was called Bob. We quite often called him Bobby Dog, of course.
00:33:12
Speaker
and he was like, he had like a midnight coat, midnight eyes, we got him from, my parents got him from a kennel like about a year before I was born as a puppy and he was basically my big brother and I think he lived until about
00:33:28
Speaker
the age of about 14, 15. So it was a large part of my life for a long time. And I do remember sort of coming home from from days at school and sort of like cuddling with him at the top of the staircase. And yeah, I don't know. It's it kind of
00:33:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of like an unspeakable bond. I don't really know how to describe it very much, but it was a big part of my life for a long time. Still haven't really got over it, to be honest. I don't think you do. It is actually the worst thing.
00:34:13
Speaker
And sometimes I find myself getting into thought spirals where I'll be like, you know, probably one of the cats presumably and and I'll be like, imagining like when they're going to die or something. And stressing myself out about it. And it sounds kind of ridiculous. And I know it's a human thing, but I do get pretty sad. And then I find myself getting quite sort of anxious and upset.
00:34:36
Speaker
about it and it's like morning them before they're gone or even afterwards. To a degree it's healthy and the next time it's not like an equal sum game of the amount of joy you get has all got to be repaid with some sadness as well.
00:34:54
Speaker
And it is hard, I completely understand that. In a weird sort of way, I said I had 21 cats and, you know, the average mean age of that was about 18. So, you know, long period, I mean, I think I was 35 before I lost my first cat. My first pet, so it was kind of like quite a hard thing to, to kind of go through and then quite a few order.
00:35:18
Speaker
I think it definitely does like highlight sort of the fragility of life. Like that was kind of like my first experience with like having a death, you know, in and around me rather, which was
00:35:37
Speaker
really hard of course. I mean my parents said that it just kind of ran off somewhere but you know that's just like what parents say but um it's but it really I don't know it kind of
00:35:53
Speaker
I suppose, prepared me for like, the nature, the nature of what like, life is like, and, you know, the, the sort of subtleties of, like, the value that each day has with somebody or a pet or, I remember it hit me quite hard, even though I was quite young. No, especially because you were quite young, I think. And I think it's like, it's quite
00:36:21
Speaker
I mean i mean life is difficult and you don't know when and i don't mean it's not not in a morbid way but you don't know when the last time you'll speak someone will be or when the last time you'll see someone so kind of it is a reminder it's a very cognizant reminder of kind of taking each day.
00:36:39
Speaker
on its own, you know.
Mental Health Benefits of Pets
00:36:42
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, it's well understood anyway, that pets help with anxiety. I know folks from the army that have PTSD service dogs. And it's, I worry about them not having the dog anymore, you know, it's kind of like, we need to succession plan these dogs and encourage them to get another one because their service dogs are getting a bit old. You know, because it gives them so much hope and it gives them so much, hope is a wrong term, actually.
00:37:07
Speaker
Oh, relief might be a better one. It's hard to pick the right word. But, you know, it's like, even when they can't care for themselves, they can for their service animal. Yes. Yeah. Because that is, I guess, another thing that it's talked about a lot.
00:37:26
Speaker
when it comes to like autism pets because you can get autism sort of support dogs and things like I interviewed Ella on the podcast I think probably sometime within season two we were talking about their service dog Coco how they help live like meltdowns and stuff like that I thought that was really interesting
00:37:53
Speaker
And also to kind of position themselves between you and other people to kind of give you just that, just that space that you might not be aware of yourself. There's so much a bubble. Yeah. And dogs are great at that. That almost comes naturally to them, perhaps even more than perhaps a blind person service dog would be. But I don't, short of the other content creators, I don't know anyone with an autism service animal. But I do know a lot of autistic people
00:38:22
Speaker
with companion animals. In fact I can see from even in this chat there's quite a few people with like their pets as profile pictures and I noticed that quite a lot on my live streams. People have also emailed me pictures of their pets. I've got an email inbox full of photographs of people's pets. I encourage people to send me pictures of their pets. I really enjoy people sending me pictures of their cats and their dogs and their fish and all sorts of stuff. Rabbits and reptiles and lizards and I think it's fantastic. It's a great way to bond with other people.
00:38:52
Speaker
the friends that I have in real life as well. I mean, Thomas, you're a friend of your life, but you know what I mean? Like, it, IRL, you know, like a rapidly geographically nearby. Yeah. I've all come broadly speaking from either my work with marine and environment stuff, or pets. So it's kind of like, like even having pets kind of brings you closer to other people in a good way. Like if you walk a dog, if I walk Maisie,
00:39:19
Speaker
In fact, she doesn't get walked as much as she should because people want to talk to me all the time. They go, oh, such a cute dog. How old is she? What's her name? And it's like, OK, OK, at least it's a script. But it's like, please, I just want to walk for a dog. Yeah, I think that I think that Palala was talking about that too, as it being like, it's kind of nice because you get a pass to talk to people, but also sometimes you just don't want to, you can't be asked for it.
00:39:45
Speaker
I think there was someone in the chat called QC alcoholic which was talking about
00:39:56
Speaker
Oh, wonderful. The benefits of they said that I have fish tanks to help me regulate. And like I actually for a long time, I wanted to get one of those like not fluorescent, but like the color changing jellyfish. I really wanted to get like a color changing jellyfish, a mean jellyfish or something for a while until it until I realized how difficult it is to actually have a jellyfish.
00:40:24
Speaker
Yeah really really cool. They can be done by the way. I've got a fish tank on the livestream and just looking at it now so it's out of frame, it's just over there. And I understand what Aquaholic is saying because you're kind of just looking, even the ripples of the water, watching the fish move, watching the plants move a bit. It's very relaxing, it's a kind of visual stim.
00:40:47
Speaker
I mean, I do a lot of scuba diving, which is another topic I sort of broach on on the channel quite a bit. And there's an autistic kind of element to it as well, because it's a different type of scuba diving to your tropical thing you might have in mind, our diving is dark, cold, green, and there's a lot more equipment. But I really enjoy it. I love being in the ocean, ideally on my own in dark, and it's great. But I will spend I could spend an hour just looking at an area of the size of this table.
00:41:15
Speaker
um just and it's a visual sim for me i just really thoroughly enjoy it and i never really thought of that as an autistic thing but my dive buddies get you know because they want to go swim around and i just want to like look at something and take pictures of it or just count the my um my dad is very very very much into scuba diving he's he's been to like the
00:41:38
Speaker
Can't remember where it was like Egypt or something. He's like he did his like Paddy and my brother even got into it at one point as well. I definitely do like like I think. I visualize myself like getting a house at some point and having like a really big aquarium because I just there is something just very serene about like aquatic animals and like interesting even when it comes to like things like shrimp or like
00:42:06
Speaker
like crabs or lobsters, they're just like, they're so, like, colourful. Oh, man, it's... Like anything in the ocean now, or in streams or rivers?
00:42:21
Speaker
Doesn't have gravity to contend with, so it can evolve in a way that they don't need like a skeleton, they don't have a skeleton, so they can evolve in weird ways. I like diving because it's all interesting and different, and I do a lot of citizen science with that.
00:42:38
Speaker
no i yeah i mean i saw a wild pets that i don't need to care for i saw a turtle a turtle once in um in turkey or something what is that is that a seal it looks like an angry seal
00:42:58
Speaker
Yeah, he looks like an, yeah, I literally look angry, but he sort of does. Maybe that's just his face, Thomas. I saw a turtle in the wild once. It's like one of the animals that I just really wanted to see. Like I've been in person, I think probably
00:43:21
Speaker
The most terrifying animal I've ever seen is a squid. Squids. Oh, yeah. They do something just primal effect on me.
Unique Traits of Marine Life
00:43:36
Speaker
It's just like I think it's because they have like human looking eyes and the like these eyes are better than ours. They're from a cephalopod family and their eyes are actually kind of wired, if you will, from the back rather than from the front. Sorry.
00:43:51
Speaker
Let's stop. Let's change subjects because this is going to be a two hour long monologue. No, but I went to Turkey. I saw a turtle in the wild, which was really, really cool. I think I went to. Yeah, I don't know. I quite like to just see things that see things in like real life that wouldn't be able to. And like, I really love to see like a Arctic fox or like a, you know, like. Yeah, me too.
00:44:19
Speaker
People spend their lives chasing them. Now that we've talked a little bit about the benefits of having pets and I think
00:44:41
Speaker
I know you touched on about sort of the companionship and I do think that specifically for people who have mental health conditions like depression they can be quite beneficial and also anxiety which does tend to happen a careful lot for autistic people.
00:45:01
Speaker
but also I think when it comes to like loneliness and isolation sometimes that can be a real big issue for us so I think pets definitely fill that hole in a sense or play a role in our lives in that way but I think talking about the actual act of having a pet and some of like the challenges, the trials and tribulations of earring a pet I mean obviously it's going to be dependent on the pet but
00:45:31
Speaker
I'd really like to hear some of the parts more difficult side of having a pet.
Challenges in Pet Care
00:45:39
Speaker
So, I mean, obviously losing them is pretty difficult. Taking them to the vets is pretty challenging. And I mean, I've kind of like, one of the things, this is just adjacent, and it's about my autism diagnosis, and I'm really sorry, Nina's just arrived, so the dogs are kicking off. It's okay.
00:45:59
Speaker
live. What can I say, guys? This is live. Yeah, we'll just pause it. Stay on the line. This will take two minutes. So one of the one of the problems is, you know, if I'm working, for example, and then the dogs kick off non-tropic focus, it can be a big problem because it is like, for example, on Friday, I was working on a video script that was due out today. I would have had that video on my channel today. It's not that much. I'm not blaming anyone or anything, but it's like,
00:46:26
Speaker
The dogs barking and then the cat's not something over and it's just like I go from one thing to another thing to another thing and then the letter train you then seeing so I go do that and it's like and now I literally and it sounds ridiculous. It sounds like I'm making excuses, which perhaps I am, but.
00:46:41
Speaker
the reason for it is I've just sort of now used up the remainder of my energy that I had to do something. So I go sit down and I go back to focus and I just can't again. So managing things like distractions, as my dog Maisie is barking in the background, is exactly kind of what I'm talking about with regarding challenges. But I have tried, I consider my psychologist, I've tried to kind of like manage my environment as best as I can to suit
00:47:06
Speaker
my needs without realizing I was making autistic accommodations for myself. And in that respect, making accommodations to animals too. If you don't have a pet, I'm really not recommending anyone goes out and looks for 13 cats. But if you are looking to get a pet, there are ones that you just feed like once every six months, for example. There are certain sort of
00:47:27
Speaker
things and it can be helpful there are also kind of fake pets we have you know i'm surrounded by my plushies here i've got my manta ray over here sorry we're all manta ray when i'm filming i'm looking at my manta ray we've got our manta rays which meet some similar needs um
00:47:45
Speaker
i'm thinking when you were saying fake dog fake pets i was talking i was thinking about nintendo dogs you know like the first certain nintendo ds game nintendo the dogs think she's about to arrive
00:48:05
Speaker
which means that they then start getting on the other and then they'll start barking. So what I do is I kind of work my schedule around when things like the dogs are going to be barking. So for example, the postman arrives between 1 and 2 p.m. every day. I black that out on my calendar. I don't start some deep work around that time. When I made my video about my last video, which was originally going to be called
00:48:33
Speaker
don't be an autistic a-hole. I realize on your channel, because I'm trying to, I'm trying, I'm being super polite.
00:48:43
Speaker
Nina was like, oh, you totally need to get in there. Like when you're interrupted, you just become an a-hole, you just become, you're like, you're in your job. You just do like that. Switch. So like managing that is part and parcel of, you know, and that's just like an example of like managing myself and managing my work, managing my life and trying to reduce the things that cause me difficulties. And so with pets, it's the same. So with pets, for example,
00:49:13
Speaker
With the cats, like I say, their feeding is automated, everything goes onto a database. I get reminders for things like fleeing treatments, worm treatments, just the basic kind of husbandry, that is literally all automated in Notion. So Notion is kind of like,
00:49:27
Speaker
app service which i used to put on my video scripts in i put all of my stuff in there so they're a bit different to dogs though because you don't have to like entertain them really do you because they're just yeah well pretty it's more a case of like like if there's a fight breaking it up but like mazy does that for us as well
00:49:44
Speaker
So like birds are like way easy. Keeping chickens is like the easiest thing. They're not difficult at all to keep. So like a farm chat. Shall I get a chicken farm chat? Exactly. So like chickens are great. I love that title I guess.
00:50:03
Speaker
I don't know if you would like it changed it but like it's not meant like in any way to be disparaging about us in the community is more cases. You have to watch video or tell us you know like yes things like feeding is kind of automated we've got animals and special diets and we've got for example.
00:50:25
Speaker
Things like this. This is a special diet machine. So it's kind of got special pouches on, but it's microchipped. So because all the animals are microchipped, certain animals can have their special diet food from dispensers like these that we've got scattered around the house. What do you mean by special diet? So Emma, for example, is on a special diet. And so it's really, really attractive. It's a special kind of wet food. And the other animals really, really want to eat it.
00:50:54
Speaker
Now this machine will only open up for her. Special machine. If she puts her head in here, she's got a scanner and it will only open up. It'll only open up for her. So we've got like, in that way we can feed the different animals differently. And so we just manage as best as we can. Like, there's just a couple of examples. I could, I could talk about this all night, but like trying to find ways that work for you. We've been through every robotic litter tray you could imagine. Um,
00:51:23
Speaker
and like it's just a case like finding a method that works we just have like massive boxes with wood chip that we can sort of dump and hedgerow appreciate you can't do that in a town we live in the middle of nowhere um i suppose like i suppose like that's
00:51:39
Speaker
touching a lot on like the executive function side which i think is one of the reasons why i'm being a bit careful about considering getting a pet but um i suppose another potential aspect of having pets is because i know you're talking about the benefits of it sensory wise but there are also not so nice benefits not not so nice sensory elements to having pets like how do you manage that
00:52:07
Speaker
OK, so breaking that down a bit more, if we're talking things like PM2, right? Yeah, that's fairly straightforward. That's fairly straightforward to manage, but it is one of the more difficult things. Actually, the culmination of the difficult sensory stuff either comes from things like injuries, which we're pretty good at here for managing. I want to be careful how much I say, because I don't want to set people off.
00:52:32
Speaker
on your channel. But going to the vet can be quite difficult because vets have got this horrible sort of smell to them. Yes. I'm not going to try and describe it. Hospital smell. It's kind of worse than hospital smell, but it's got that kind of like chemical cleaning agent smell mixed with wet dog and everything else that you can imagine. That's pretty horrible. I can't really manage that.
00:52:57
Speaker
For us, we don't have that, but we are quite clinical in the way we manage things like cleaning and things. You might expect we've got robot mops that run pretty much constantly, and they're filled up with a special kind of cleaning fluid that works really well.
Technology in Pet Management
00:53:17
Speaker
We're pretty clean here, but then when things get out of hand, say, for example, mapping robot breaks down,
00:53:24
Speaker
we can end up running into trouble quite quickly and then that can be overwhelming but that's not really a sensory kind of thing that's more of a functioning kind of thing but if you were here and you were house sitting and you didn't you didn't you won't have to do anything for like four or five days everything is all dated to that length of time so try and keep on top of it with that buffer
00:53:42
Speaker
Well, what about stuff related to hair? Because that's probably the thing that would irritate me the most, I think. Absolutely. I completely agree. We've got throws on sofas.
00:54:02
Speaker
uh which we just sort of just put one in the wash we actually have a routine i mean i'm talking to mostly autistic and neurodivergent people here so you kind of you're not going to judge me too hard on this but it's kind of like we have a routine so we just have like throat which we got from vented um really pretty pretty throws but they're cheap and we can just basically like take them off the sofa chuck them in the wash wash them dry and they're back on again you know within a couple of hours and we just sort of rotate through a pile of throws we just sort of move through those and do the same with beds and bedding and things as well
00:54:31
Speaker
And that includes things like pet beds as well as our own. So yeah, we manage hair really, really well. But things like shedding for cats happens twice a year. So they have a shed kind of over their winter coat around now. So like I said, if like the mopping robots and things break now, it's a problem. No, it's a genuine problem. I'm kind of like amping this up. I'll show you on a video and it will make sense to everyone when you see quite how much hair there is.
00:54:59
Speaker
Once it's sort of removed, if we lose control, we can lose control pretty quick. But then otherwise, the rest of the year is fine. The rest is fine and none of us can kind of come and go as well.
00:55:10
Speaker
So animals can come and go freely from the house, not the birds. We have a very mixed reaction to the concept of cat hair in the chat. I suppose, guys, like any of you in the chat, do you have any questions around sort of the challenges of pets that you'd want to ask Mike? So I think that that would probably be a good time for us to have a bit of a sort of chat interaction bit.
00:55:38
Speaker
Do it. Have some interaction. I'm sorry if I was like waffling too much. Sometimes I need to be kind of angry. Like I need to be kind of like managed. So if I'm having like, like if I'm meeting, if I'm doing like a meeting and it's completely separate, I'll tell people like I'm, I kind of have a slightly different communication style. And you know, if, if I've gone on too long or I say was actually, I mean, every few minutes.
00:55:59
Speaker
I get told off a lot within my podcast for interrupting people. There's been many, many people who have commented saying, oh, I like this, but stop interrupting people, bad taste, and then. So that's particularly difficult for me. So yeah, so that can be managed with things like this. Here is a big air purifier that sits, you know, this is like literally right next to my desk.
00:56:28
Speaker
And it's got massive, massive filters in it. And, you know, other brands are available, but you can get the filters on Amazon and subscribe and save. So the filters that you just arrive and then I just chuck them in like once every nine months, whatever. And that's pretty good. That works.
00:56:47
Speaker
And we have filters around the house as well. With carbon, carbon filtration. I know I'm kind of leaning on tech quite a lot here, but it kind of is my Mac. Do I get kind of hair in your food? No, never. Not really. It depends, right? Like, it has happened where like, if you're eating something on the kitchen table, where I did the live collaboration, it's possible that a cat because they like to live high up on the shelves, or like could jump down. And if that happens, it's really infuriating.
00:57:16
Speaker
like Polly our deaf white cat is really fluffy and when she jumps down onto the table she'll shed fur so if you're eating there that's kind of like a risk but otherwise no. I had a really good question from Bree asking does anyone feel guilty during a shutdown for not being able to play with your animal?
00:57:39
Speaker
because I kind of get that too sometimes. I don't know if it's something related to social battery but I definitely have it for pets as well and I can get a little bit agitated if pets won't leave me alone when I need to be by myself.
00:57:57
Speaker
But yeah, Brie, I can answer Brie's question like absolutely. So we have a chihuahua and a Chinese crested as well. The chihuahua is called Trudy and she's black and tan and Karen is the Chinese crested. And then Maisie, obviously the collie. And Karen is like, like, I was, I had three sort of like small burner episodes followed by a long
00:58:21
Speaker
meltdown shutdown i use the term happy meltdown by the way thomas i got that from you just as always just the way to describe like
00:58:28
Speaker
Yes, like last year I just had like so many amazing, like, and it all came at once, like all out of nowhere. I got like copper hospitality to go and do and see amazing things. And I met all kinds of people, including like some famous people and I got, it was amazing. And in like lack of sleep and in that happy anxiety and the kind of like, I don't know, mess up, mess up.
00:58:51
Speaker
three hours running on a sleepy like super happy and excited and it's like all of the amazing things think about like any of your special interests and like the key people in those and you get to meet them and hang out with them and then you get to do and like prolong that and you think it'd be amazing and it is and bang anyway so i'm in my i'm in my shutdown period and karen is just just you can tell there's something like wrong with me if that makes sense i'm using the term wrong with the dog's perspective
00:59:19
Speaker
And she goes and gets me a bagel. She finds a bagel. I don't know where the bagel came from. One of us must have given it to her like days ago. This is like a three-day-old bagel. It might have been older than that. Maybe it's from the hedge. I don't know where she got the bagel from. It was our bagel at some point.
00:59:37
Speaker
And she brought me this bagel, and she's a food gardener, is Karen. She absolutely guards food. It's weird because she's a tiny dog, and she'll guard it, she'll growl at the cats, she'll growl at the big dog, says she'll growl at everyone, like I'm eating. But she like literally donated this bagel to me, and I'm sitting outside, and I'm like, I don't want this thing, and I just threw it away.
00:59:57
Speaker
And she went and got it and brought it back to me, but she's not nudging it towards me. This is what I'm talking about. Yours, and she puts it next to me, and she goes like that. Well, I'm just so unimpressed, and I'm feeling absolutely lost. I've got a book about autism on my lap, and I'm just utterly exhausted. I can't deal with it. Nina comes home, and I'm like, oh, Nina, you've got to do something with Karen. She's got to understand what she's doing. And she's watching this dog picking up this bagel, bringing it to me, and nudging it towards me. She's never done it before or since.
01:00:26
Speaker
You now call it the bagel of love. It's bagel of love, we call it. So whenever Karen annoys me, Nina says, do you remember the bagel of love? You know, she's a good dog, Laurie. But yeah, I felt like really bad, honestly, for like, not, like, I felt like I was kind of like, not looking after the animals. I felt like, yes, I do relate to that. And there have been times when I've gone through each
01:00:52
Speaker
depressive moments in life and I haven't taken care of the animals like I should have done.
01:00:57
Speaker
Well, I've looked after people's animals before and there was one dog that I looked after who was pretty like one thing that I cannot stand myself is having an animal in the bed while I'm sleeping. I just can't do it. I know some people are OK with it and that's cool, but I really can't do it. It just makes me feel not good. But I was looking after this dog and
01:01:28
Speaker
like I had this I had this experience where I was you know I was looking after the entire day I was playing with it and all that and then I was like okay I think I've had enough today and so like I put it out put it sort of outside my room and in the dog bed and stuff and sort of went to bed and
01:01:46
Speaker
like for the for the night it was like scratching on the doors and like barking and like wanted to come in and I let it in and I put the dog beds next to my bed and then the entire night it was just trying to get into my bed and I was like no I don't want you in my bed and it was like because I had a wooden floor it was like tapping along the wooden floor just just trying to get on top of that it was just
01:02:12
Speaker
This is way too much. You can train the dogs not to. Like some folks would say, you can have dogs and absolutely train them not to go on furniture, for example. We do. We let them jump on sofas. But then again, with the caveat that they're not messy and whatever, but occasionally Maisie will be running around in the fields. She'll be really muddy and she'll come in. And the idea is we'll shower her down. We've got like a hot tap with a thing on. We can even wash her with hot water outside.
01:02:39
Speaker
Again, all of these things are like conscious ways of like, how do we make this thing that's really annoying better? How do we like resolve that? And I take a very autistic view, I dare say and I mean that and not a pejorative way and very much a positive way. I take an autistic view of like, life and I go, What, what is the thing that's irritating me the most right now? And how do I fix it? And it's like, muddy dog. Okay, how do I solve muddy dog?
01:03:05
Speaker
It's like a tap to wash it with. It can't be cold because that would be horrible. I'll give him a hot tap. It's like cool. A hot tap with a thing. It's always there. You just blast her down. She's a collie, by the way. They're not fragile. Anyway, if she comes in muddy and jumps on the sofa, it's like, oh, you just made me half a day's worth of work. So it does happen. You can't keep dogs off beds and things. But if you're dog sitting and that dog's used to being in bed with you or being in bed with a human, yeah, I can see how that could be a problem.
01:03:35
Speaker
like a snoring dog like last night is a good example so Nina went to bed before me and I think Karen Trudy and one of them was snoring I'm like oh my god just try me nuts I'm trying to like get them without waking her up so I can put them put them away but yeah snoring dogs are a problem for me rather than that it's all good
01:03:56
Speaker
I think that was a very good suggestion. Hello, woodshed. Hello, I'll be welcome to the that we're doing a live podcast at the moment.
01:04:07
Speaker
Which is fun. This was what we recorded, almost a movie. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah, who knows? Laila says, no, I want a bagel. No, I want a bagel. Oh, the bagel. I love the story a little bit earlier. Daniel, you ever watched Sad Cat videos? It's amazing how existent you feel like you get a photo. Yeah, I choose not to. It's one of the reasons, one of the reasons I don't like social media.
01:04:34
Speaker
is because you will inevitably get the sad videos. And someone will send me a sad video with it, you know, because it might be like a happy ending or something, but I just hate it. I hate even seeing genuine cat pulls out a sewage bin getting cleaned away at the end, but I just can't stand it. And also, by the way, some people fake it. There's a lot of trachrons and some of the animal charities I've worked with.
01:05:01
Speaker
have even filmed themselves going out and rescuing animals.
01:05:05
Speaker
And their content has been, you are you're fake because there's just so much fake stuff out there. I've seen nine out of 10 videos. Hot take, I don't have evidence, but it's about that. It's in that it's in that region. It's the vast majority of fake fake suffering on there. Yeah, I'm sorry. It's a proper set off for me. It's a proper, proper thing that really upsets me. Totally. And it causes arguments like a mate will send me like, Oh, this is a cool cat thing. Michael like it.
01:05:35
Speaker
And it's like, Mike really doesn't like it. Why do you send that to me? Yes, there you go. I can understand that. I can understand that. That's definitely like one of the negatives of social media is that the most emotional content gets like usually the most views and clicks and comments and doesn't really matter what emotion is. And like when people see that, they can sort of
01:06:00
Speaker
isolate that emotion and just replicate it for their own stuff. It's not good. It's not good. Even the people who don't like it are the people who contribute to it getting popular. That's the whole difficulty of it.
Dealing with Negative Comments
01:06:18
Speaker
It's like someone posts a really bad take online and you comment and say this is a bad take and horrible.
01:06:25
Speaker
then it's like you're contributing to it getting more views and stuff like that. The biggest promise is, I don't know if you get it, I do sometimes, I occasionally get people going, I really hate you and your community and your videos and they're really awful. It's not often. It's like, what bit about it didn't you like? And then sometimes they'll watch it again and I'll be like, no, no, no, you need to watch the whole video and sometimes I'll just farm them.
01:06:52
Speaker
I'm thinking of doing a series on my channel of responding to negative comments at some point, maybe. I don't know, I'll see what the chart and you guys think, but it might be something to do later on. It might be a good way for me to
01:07:14
Speaker
I don't know because I respond to people's comments. I like people say it's usually from people outside of the community. Like, like I'll make a video on hyper focusing, perhaps, and then people someone will try to try them up and say, oh, you why do you have to make this an autistic thing? Everybody focuses. That's why we have scientists who focus on the research. And I'm like, dude, like I just I
01:07:42
Speaker
I explain to them, I explain to them and once I've explained to them, they just delete the comment. So I'm like, I need to find some way to like...
01:07:54
Speaker
I'm definitely going to do that. I did talk through some of the more interesting. I think they're funny. I'll be honest. I find them some really amusing ones, but they're quite negative. And it was upsetting. I did it on the live stream. I'm like, okay, cool. This is a bad idea. I'll leave that alone. But what I will do is response or maybe even tier ranking.
01:08:14
Speaker
I was having a little chat with Meg about this, and she was like, why don't you tier rank them? I'm like, yeah, that's a cool idea. I'll do tier ranking. But of ones that are kind of like misunderstandings of autism, I think that'd be a good one. Feel free to do it too, Thomas. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. It's like, it's just nice to explain. Because like, even on my monotrophism, people are like, like you said, this is not, you're an autistic, this isn't an autistic. No, no, this is like a human thing because it's like, cool.
01:08:39
Speaker
actually a good talking point let's talk about it what you know yes it is a human thing but what you know because we're all human but like let's let's talk about it and i think there's some fantastic talking points from misunderstanding what you're saying as well i think exactly no no i'm not talking about us it's like people run like usually on youtube shorts when it gets when one a video clip kind of gets highlighted it usually
01:09:04
Speaker
sort of has some outreach to other people outside of the community that usually I get those comments, but yeah, I mean anyway. It's when YouTube goes and YouTube goes and kind of like pressures the video, it's like an onion thing, it's like the autistic community is kind of on the inner side and then like if YouTube, if like the autistic community resonated with a video, I find
01:09:25
Speaker
YouTube then go, I reckon other people might like this too. And it pushes out to the next layer, which is full of trolls. And that's just like video does well. That's when you get that's when you get the extra. A bad thing. Well, tell you, it's like, don't worry about this. If you can't, you know,
01:09:49
Speaker
Well, I suppose so that we don't DRL too much and talk about YouTuber stuff. Let us let us bring it back to the pet stuff, because I think it would be really good to hear if there are any, because I know you brought up some kind of tips and things that you sort of recommend to autistic people who are wanting to sort of have a pet or manage a pet that they have. What I would like to know is, can you give us
01:10:19
Speaker
free top tips, it could it could be more could be less. Can you give us some top tips on managing pets as an autistic adult? Okay, number one, literally explicitly identify the routine. Now it might be I feed my cat when I come home from work, outdoors, walk, whatever. That's what I do. Okay, cool. Identify that and literally write it down and go, this is what I do when to do this. What I pet needs. This is what I do. Number one,
01:10:48
Speaker
Number two, things like vet stuff. I've got some pretty advanced tips on that one, which I'll go into in more detail at some point. But it's kind of like anything that you need or your pet needs.
01:11:01
Speaker
for the next sort of six to eight weeks, kind of get that in either like Amazon subscriber save or something or just like, just make sure you have it in. Like there's nothing worse than needing to fill a litter tray and not having anything to put in it. Do you know what I mean? Having to go and dig in the garden for some soil because you put something in. Number two is like supplies basically. Don't think like a prepper, but you know, like get a bit of that. Take a leaf out of their book. The first one is like identify your routines and write them down.
01:11:30
Speaker
And the third one is kind of come back to those first two and just make sure that you've got everything in order. Oh, Emma wants out, sorry. Number three. Oh, Hydra. Okay, cool. Right, so. Sorry, just tripping over. Okay, this is Hydra. Everybody say hello to Thomas. Hello, Hydra. You have a very beautiful coat. This is your reminder to Hydra 8, by the way.
01:11:57
Speaker
Um, hydrate. Um, number three, it's kind of like, just to revise those two key, key to my sanity is having my notion database, which has got each of the pets. And there's always a sad moment when I'm kind of like, hide one of them because it passed away or something. It's not like, it's not like a common thing, but you know, is try not to dwell on that. Just, just remember the happy times, take lots of pictures, share them with friends.
01:12:25
Speaker
If you need someone to share your pet pictures to, you can email me at michael.com. It's always great to see people's pet photos in amongst the other crap in my inbox, but it's nice to see happy. So yeah, those two things, those two things, and number three is your Israelizing. I'll give examples on a video later. Yeah, if you can systematize, I think it means it just, I can't believe I haven't for so long. Top tip to my past self, systematize.
01:12:55
Speaker
get it, get it into your routine. Hey, like explicitly, like, like, yeah, explicitly. Um, and some animals like cats are really good at it. Dogs are less good at it, but a cat won't let you forget feeding them. They'll wake you up at 3am. You know, in fact, if a cat is waking up at 3am, if you're a cat person, you've got a cat and it's waking up at 3am.
01:13:15
Speaker
probably because you could possibly train it to or you just haven't fed it, right? Like, do you know what I mean? Sure. It could be a bit hungry. So kind of like actually explicitly putting that in. I mean, it might be that you think to yourself, hey, this is a problem for me sometimes. When I'm struggling with either mental health issue or something else, I struggle to walk my dog say, and you know that and you've written it down and you can revise that and go,
01:13:40
Speaker
Well, what I need is a support network. I need a friend perhaps to walk my dog once a week maybe. But knowing that and writing it down when you're in a good frame of mind first is so important. And that's the cats. It might be, I find it a real ball egg to kind of like feed them in the morning all the time. Okay, so what other options do I have? Can I put like a bowl of cat food down for them with that? Make them fat? Would it work for my cats? It might do, it might not.
01:14:07
Speaker
And about a hopper and a feeder, which goes off, they can get quite cheap now. Loads of different ones. Things like that. You can only really think about those things once you've written down your routine. Yes. Have I waffled too much? Did that make sense, chat? No, that's brilliant. Thank you, Mike.
01:14:21
Speaker
So if you have enjoyed this episode of the 4080 podcast, please make sure to like, rate it if you are on one of the streaming services and possibly take a look at my YouTube channel.
Promotions and Outro Discussion
01:14:33
Speaker
I do have memberships which the first tier gives you access to uncut streams such as this one in their entire tree.
01:14:43
Speaker
We also have some badges, some emojis, custom emojis that we made on stream, which was pretty cool. And I'm recently sort of setting up a kind of different sort of paid content kind of part of my channel where I'll be uploading
01:15:04
Speaker
videos to my autism university playlist. So if you do want to have access to those, there's no memberships. This stream is not sponsored, but I am an affiliate of sneak, which is my favorite energy drink alternative caffeine source, whatever you want to call it. The reason why I love it so much is because it has all sorts of like hydration formulas. At the moment, I'm drinking the cola version, which basically tastes like
01:15:30
Speaker
melted jelly cola bottles that you used to get when you were a kid. So good. Got some Elphin in there. And honestly, like for me, who struggles with anxiety quite a bit, I do find that usually any drinks or coffee tend to give me a lot of caffeine jitters, sort of make my anxiety worse. But this stuff has just been really great. So happy to be an affiliate. And if you do want to check that out, I do have the links down in the description.
01:16:00
Speaker
Well, that is my little spiel of, um, yeah, I'm going to interject and just say, by the way, feeling and caffeine, I find really helps me for another day. It's another day, some different videos, such from another chat, but yeah, usually.
01:16:19
Speaker
Yeah, you're good in green tea, but I do supplement L-theanine sometimes, particularly if I'm feeling like it's going to be a difficult day or whatever. Totally. I mean, you don't really really need to get, it's kind of going back on my affiliate fame, but you don't really need to get it. You can get like L-theanine powder from, I think from bulk powders in the UK that you can use. It's a pretty good like, it's naturally found in green tea and it's
01:16:43
Speaker
absolutely amazing if you do find yourself very very tired like many people with anxiety and depression do but also um struggle getting too much caffeine getting all like the anxiety provoking effects of it um elphin in supplementation is probably like one of the best ones it's good we agree
01:17:06
Speaker
OK, great. Play us out with our own songs buzzing around. Play us out with Golden Things. Your Song of the Day. It is the outro song of my live streams, which is Golden Things by Kylie Daily. Available on YouTube and Spotify and other platforms. Awesome.
01:17:24
Speaker
What is it particularly about that song that sort of you like? It's got the vibe. It's like it's literally a song about like, it's around the campfire song about golden rays of sunshine, just happiness. And just it's just pure. It's just check it out. It's the song I tend to play on my back screen intro and exit. Awesome. Yeah.
01:17:49
Speaker
Well, that that will be that song will be down in the Spotify playlist. There is a mixed playlist from all of my previous guests, all of the songs that they've suggested. If you want to go check it out, I highly recommend you. It's a very eclectic playlist for sure. Like there is some, yes, lots of mixed genres and stuff within that playlist now by Beyonce on there. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Yes.
01:18:19
Speaker
Brilliant. Mike, would you like to share some links that you want people to know about? If they want to follow up and find you on other platforms? Yeah, if you want to find me at one place, it's www.autisticafter4040.com. It's my website, which we'll be launching in the next few days. If you go there right now, it'll just redirect you to the YouTube page.
01:18:45
Speaker
And also Autistic AF on Instagram and I was going to say TikTok too. I'm kind of like not really using TikTok. I created an account so that I could just wade through the sewer of neurodiverse content on there. I say sewer neurodiverse content. It's not really neurodiversity sort of content, but you know what I mean. It goes there sometimes. It's not a place you want to hang out unless you're going to get frustrated and annoyed.
01:19:12
Speaker
It's after the Chloe Hayden thing, that's when I signed up for TikTok. Yeah, and finally on YouTube, which is Autistic AF on YouTube. I highly recommend going checking out the Autistic A-hole video. There's a little special little Easter egg in there. Fear of Freddy. There is a special little Easter egg in there for the Henley army. Yes, the Henley army.
01:19:40
Speaker
the Henley region. That was so much fun to do, thank you for being such a great sport. Well I really hope you have enjoyed this episode the 4080 podcast and if you did tune in live please make sure to let me know and you can comment down below definitely head over to the YouTube channel if you are on a streaming platform as I said rates do all of that stuff really does help this podcast get out to more people and yeah
01:20:04
Speaker
Tell me what you think of the new formats and I really love to know. I hope you're having a very, very lovely day and a lovely evening. Now I see you later for another episode of the 40 Autie podcast. See you later, guys. Bye.