Merry delayed Christmas from us! This week we gift to you our informal Christmas episode where we discuss our favourite and strange things about Christmas including a cursed Santa decoration, Sophie managing to incorporate Scotland into everything, games at Christmas and more! 

We hope that you all had a lovely Christmas despite this year being well this year and hope you enjoy this episode for New Year week! 

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This week on Autistics in the Wild we have better audio for Sophie to provide you with topics such as Melissa vs keeping tea in the cup, books, Sophie’s deep love of Eurovision, autism vs concerts, reduced sensory coping, the reason for the episode title and more. 

Do be aware each episode in this series will have a curious name selected from something discussed within! 

Content warning: brief mention of reading ABA research (no details) and some pandemic chat

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Melissa: https://twitter.com/MelissaChapple

Sophie: https://twitter.com/SophWilliams28

After a long break (reasons explained within) we return with a different format to act as a season 1.5 while we prepare our usual content. These episodes are more informal and general with the pair of us discussing anything and everything including autism of course! Be aware of some audio issues with Sophie being much quieter due to mic problems and us learning to do this via distance.

Episode 1 starts us as we mean to go on giving you all insights into what our general lives look like rather than specific autism related topics. This week we discuss the name of the series, some impact of Covid, where we have been for the last year, Melissa vs falling post it note and measuring or not measuring alcohol.

Content Warnings: Covid-19 and brief mention of alcohol 

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Melissa: https://twitter.com/MelissaChapple

Sophie: https://twitter.com/SophWilliams28

This week there is a bonus episode due to it having been mental health day in the week of recording. Melissa suggested that we have a casual chat over tea and chocolate about mental health. We discuss a mix of our own mental health, experiences with professionals, other topics that we have opinions on as well as fangirling over some of the staff at Liverpool University and how great the department is about talking about mental health and support from staff.

We do discuss a range of issues that are sensitive in nature and some listeners may find uncomfortable to listen to.

Anxiety, Depression, Suicide, Psychosis (briefly), bad interactions with professionals, trauma, C/PTSD, therapy and eating disorders.

If anyone is going through mental distress do contact your GP or seek advice/help from one of the links below:

Samaritans – for everyone

https://www.samaritans.org/

Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) – for men

Papyrus – for people under 35

https://papyrus-uk.org/

Childline – for children and young people under 19

https://www.childline.org.uk/

Mind - https://www.mind.org.uk/

Mental Health Foundation - https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/

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After a short hiatus Melissa and Sophie return this week to discuss one of the most significant and difficult aspects of being autistic, sensory processing.

We talk about hypo/hyper sensitivities, the mixture of sensory avoidance, seeking within each sense, the fact it’s hard to remember the five senses and then that there are two more…? We discuss how each of us are with each sense, things that are good, bad and horrific to experience which between the two of us highlights how no two autistics are the same.

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This week we discuss overload, meltdown, burnout and we mention shutdown which are experiences not always talked about as often as they should. Melissa explains block theory (version of spoon theory), Sophie moans about the stress of having a new kitchen being fitted alongside both discussing what each one is and how we go about dealing with each one. Also Sophie further moans about the kitchen and how awful roadworks and bus route changes are.

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Melissa: https://twitter.com/MelissaChapple

Sophie: https://twitter.com/SophWilliams28

In this episode we discuss socialisation from social chit chat, Melissa's struggle with the greeting 'alright', Sophie's panic question, the difference between interacting with other autistic people and neurotypicals and the struggle of adapting to socialisation of another neurotype. We also discuss empathy. 

Research mentioned by Catherine Crompton and Sue Fletcher-Watson Diversity in Social Intelligent Project: http://dart.ed.ac.uk/research/nd-iq/

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Melissa: https://twitter.com/MelissaChapple

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In episode 3 we discuss disclosing being autistic. From past experiences (good and bad) when we disclose and how we disclose. We discuss it in a range of settings from friendships, work and on the bus.

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Melissa: https://twitter.com/MelissaChapple

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In our second episode we discuss special interests from our own, to the many benefits of special interests, how they can be utilised in good ways and we eventually realise we do also need to cover the negatives. 

We also talk about our special interests so prepare for Scotland, highland cows, Autism Psychology, Bon Jovi and Pink Floyd as well as shout outs to prior special interests.

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Melissa: https://twitter.com/MelissaChapple

Sophie: https://twitter.com/SophWilliams28

Join Melissa and Sophie as they embark on a podcast adventure. This first episode looks at the big question of what it is like to be autistic. From not actually knowing, to never being asked, finally figuring it out and having to hide it. Also we talk about lemurs. 

Next Episode will be on special interests.

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Social Media Links:

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Melissa: https://twitter.com/MelissaChapple

Sophie: https://twitter.com/SophWilliams28