it kind of just felt like hey guys. So it's actually taken me quite a while at this point to kind of figure out since the last puzzle I completed you know what am I gonna work on next. And you know I picked up a lot of brand new sets recently and ones from brands that I haven't tried before. But I realize you know I have a ton of puzzles behind me and some from brands that I've never tried before. So I figured you know what today's the day we're gonna pick one from the shelf and we're just gonna do it. So the puzzle that I've picked this time that's sadly been set on my shelf for the longest now is one from Spin Masters Puzzles. And this one is called Gloria Rose General Store. It is 1000 pieces and it is 27 by 20 inches when it's completed. And the artist is Tom and Tonyshak. They do include a poster and on the back of the box it does state that these have a satisfying snap. Spin Master creates best in class puzzles of the highest quality. They use precision cut dies and advanced machinery to create unique puzzle pieces that fit together securely every time. Oh that's already getting me very excited. You know I love that kind of stuff. And aside from you know reading all that good stuff that they just mentioned I mean this image you know what this is this is reminding me of right. If you've been watching me for a long time now you know that this kind of style of image would you know immediately make me think of the Oregon Trail. I love that game. I know I always mention it but you know that that's such a classic for me and is super nostalgic. So whenever I see images like this from like this is like the times of the American pioneers. I find that that time period super fascinating. And this store is huge. I love general stores. You know I'm in there shopping for some good deals right. I mean look at the prices that they have here. Those are my kind of prices. And you know general stores tend to be one stop shops.  We'll see right. But the scenery in the background looks amazing. We got some people and kids here going about their day. This is fantastic. But anyways in terms of challenge level with this image it seems like it's pretty straightforward. I feel like I can make a tray for the the store itself. You know the sky the scenery in the background people horses not too bad. But then again who knows. I might get sick and tired of it along the way. You know I highly doubt that but you know you never know. The more I look at it though you know it continues to give me those really big Oregon Trail vibes. It just gives me those feels and it's already me it's already putting me in a really good place. I want to see what this satisfying snap is all about and if it's even true and go from there.  Let's finally get into this one. All right so let's get this one opened up. Now this brand does have tape on two sides of the box. So let's open that up real quick. All right. Let's see what we got here. All right. So we have our pieces in a plastic bag and here is our poster. Well that's a really nice size reference image. I like this and it's on good quality paper as well. So you know it's not going to rip easily you know which is great for a beast like me. And let's look at our pieces here. All right. So let's check out these pieces here real quick. First impression. I'm already dropping pieces. What the heck. Again first impressions here. Does have a bit of a glossy finish as you can see there. Quite strong. I guess it's I have a light shine an extra light shining over here. So I don't know if that's causing it but you know that's something to note whilst puzzling and who knows it might get easier as it moves on or different lighting might affect it. But anyways let's check out this print. All right. So the image print on these looks to be pretty good. The colors look pretty darn true to the actual image here. And because of that you know the print does look a little bit on the I don't want to say fuzzy or blurry. It's really not that bad because when you think about it the nature of this image is it's a painting. So you're not going to have exact you know clear details here. We do have a really good piece size which is always a plus and the print does also have what looks to be you know the actual texture of the canvas. You can kind of use that to help you figure out the orientation of these pieces. You know pretty much how they go on the puzzle. So you can line them up all that way if you're sorting them by shape and whatnot. I don't know. I think I'm going to get a better feeling idea for what this print is all about whilst I'm puzzling. But let's look at the quality of the pieces itself. Now to be honest I kind of feel like these are pretty darn thin and the tabs aren't exactly the strongest. So you know you can't really let your beastly force out on these.  But with regards to that I'm curious to see how these pieces are going to hold together. Are they going to be crumbly? I don't know. We shall see as we move along this puzzle. So you know what guys? I better make sure I pick up all the pieces that I keep dropping. But so far I don't know. I kind of feel like I'm not really sure what to expect with this puzzling experience. But I do know that I do love this image and I think it's going to be fun to piece together anyways. So you know what guys? Let's get these pieces sorted out and let's start putting this together. All right this wasn't my most organized sort but that's okay. So here's what I did. First tray here we have all the edge pieces. This tray I kind of have a few piles set up and I'm probably going to disperse it amongst my other trays but I wanted to try these from this table. But this was mainly pieces that I you know obviously belong to the general store. So we have like a pile here for the windows. This is siding. This is like pieces of roofing. This is like the signs and some of the shutters. These are like the little fence areas and this is just a big pile of who knows what. I think what I did was I did any of the pieces that kind of weren't like objects. So we have like the barrels here. We have some supplies sat up top there. So I think that's what we got going on here. This tray looked to be for the sky. So we have all these light blue pieces. We have like this yellow going on here kind of for like this horizon right here. And some of these pieces are going to have like bits of the roofing and the chimney and whatnot. So that's the sky. This tray I don't know. I kind of just put anything here that had browns to them which could be basically anywhere from the image. It could be the dirt path. It could be any of the mountains in the back. I'm not too sure but it's all kind of like the same color scheme here. This tray are pieces that have people's faces bodies and whatnot and probably the horse's face. This tray we have greenery and we also have pieces here with the little river in the background pieces from this area with the house grass and dirt path which is that little pile there is not much but you know better than nothing. And then this tray I don't know actually these are all very very dark pieces and I couldn't quite make out where they belonged. It's probably gonna be from like this area here where you have like the dark trees and whatnot. So yeah that's that's what I did. Again like always I'll most likely be resorting as I go through it to kind of make the piles easier to work with. But you know what we got edge pieces here so let's get started on these and figure out from there what we do next. All right let's move on. So I ended up resorting the edge pieces to little piles with light colors and details and that helped me get through that fairly quickly. Then I decided the next plan of attack was piecing the general store together since I pretty much had most of that tray already resorted.  But anyways as the general store started to take shape I was already starting to summarize how this experience was going so far since I was already starting to notice a few things about this brand. And it also got me thinking about other brands that I've worked on. Ones I knew that were very comparable in price and where I could find them. And two brands stuck out to me the most and they are Seaco and Buffalo. I know I can find all three of these and like a Walmart or a Target and if I remember correctly all three of these range around the 10 to 12 dollar range give or take of course depending on the piece count but still kind of on the same tier level if you get what I'm saying I hope I'm making sense. I hope I don't start rambling aimlessly now but anyways for brand new puzzles I consider these very budget friendly. So what's the difference? Is there a difference? So far from my own experience they do have a number of similarities. All three have a good variety of pea shapes. I also kind of feel like the overall print quality is just about the same even though that was kind of a hard conclusion for me to make considering some images are blurrier than others. But then again that could just be because of the nature of the artwork glare level I feel is about the same. Heck I even feel like the number of damaged pieces you can find in your box are about the same. I had a few in this spin master's puzzle that were messed up and I know I've experienced that with both Seaco and Buffalo. Now in regards to the differences well that dawned on me when it came time to think about the overall fit and hold but we're gonna get into that later on in the video. Let's continue getting my shopping day piece together. Well we got some pretty darn good progress and I feel like I'm getting through this fairly quickly. Certain areas of the house is a little challenging but not overly. Now I'm just trying to figure out what section to do next and I'm I don't know I'm probably thinking about doing the background now because I feel like this area here I mean I don't know it might be easy it might be hard I'm not sure. But anyways I don't know I always think I have a plan on what I'm gonna do next and I end up doing something else anyways so you know what I'm just gonna keep re-sorting as I go through these trays again and hopefully we can finish stuff fairly soon. All right let's move on. Once I got the store for the most part done it really did start to get a bit challenging because I was starting to get left with pieces that pretty much looked the same especially those darker pieces that was a little tough but you gotta keep those puzzle juices flowing and figure out ways or tricks to get through those tough moments in puzzling. All right so I'm feeling like I'm a little stuck now so I figured the best thing to do would be to start kind of like lining these pieces up according to you know how they sit on the puzzle and this is definitely one of those puzzles where it's pretty easy to kind of tell how they fit because you can kind of see these lines going from left to right here across the image and I think I mentioned this earlier in the video but I think this has to do with the canvas of the painting so yeah you can kind of see like that small pattern going from left to right there on these pieces and it's on all of them it's harder to see on the much darker pieces but here's another one you can kind of see the lines there again and that just kind of helps you you know kind of gives you a little hint as to how they set so yeah I kind of just took some pieces that were in one of my blue trays and kind of just laid them out here because I'm kind of finding these trays to be a lot nicer because of the surface area that you have to work with and I could lay them all out and I can see them quite nicely instead of them just being in one big pile but anyways this has been an interesting challenge I'm kind of now trying to work on the dark areas I should probably try the sky or something like that I know I said earlier I was going to do you know like the scenery in the background of course I didn't do that but anyways any progress is better than no progress so let's just move on with this I must say it feels so good when you finally figured out a system to help you push through the completion process for the final stages I put in all the tricks I I did another resort by colors and tones even resorted them by shape and line them up correctly using that those canvas lines that I had mentioned and I must say guys look at your print and if you see those lines use them to help you figure out how those pieces are supposed to sit or fit is that the same thing I think so well this puzzle took me about eight hours to complete and once I popped that last piece in I was finally able to get my cheap shopping done and I walked away with a lot of good stuff and of course stayed way under budget too not surprising with those prices but anyways this image was fun and spin masters does have a number of good qualities to it the print was overall pretty good we got some great colors and what I can say about this which was a nice plus was that this brand does have a great number of piece shapes and the size is pretty good as well I did have a number of glare issues with it did kind of you know make it a little bit more challenging to see what was going on you know depending on where the light was coming from so yeah that's something to be aware of and overall the image was fun to put together it did have a number of challenging areas where you know the color scheme was kind of the same in certain areas but other than that you know I feel like the image is what you know really really made this a fun experience in the end other than that I don't really feel overall that the quality was extremely special now in terms of the thickness and I mentioned this when I was doing the unboxing but again the pieces weren't very thick so with that in mind I really initially wasn't sure what to expect during the completion process I was able to tell very early on that the fit wasn't very tight now overall piecing this together you know it was a little confusing at times because I couldn't really say that the overall puzzle itself held very well together in terms of like you know how I like to move sections around and whatnot some little sections would hold okay together but others would just you know fall apart and I don't know if that had to do with my puzzle surface I don't know if it was because it was snagging on the fibers and of course you know that I had to try out the pickup test and quite surprisingly it held up to it but when it came to the storage test it fumbled through that one there were numerous casualties as I tried to break it into sections but you know at the end of the day that's okay because this image I feel is fun enough for me to want to work on again in regards to what it says on the back of the box of you know the satisfying snap quite honestly I don't really know what they were getting at with that the pieces did fit okay together but I wouldn't say the snap was satisfying enough to make mention on the box quite honestly I don't even think I I felt any snapping sensation or or anything like that it kind of just felt like it really wasn't anything special I'll put it that way now as I've said I was super curious as how this puzzle would compare to other brands that are within the same price range and a couple of the brands that I'm talking about are seco and buffalo so yeah I figured you know why not compare them and figure out you know which would be your best value I guess you can say in terms of quality and overall experience now in terms of piece thickness both spin masters and seco are the same and buffalo is thicker and it's pretty obvious to tell when you have them lined up together you can see the difference and with that of course buffalo is a lot stronger in terms of piece size both seco and spin masters are pretty much the same but buffalo is slightly smaller now when you're looking at the fit and hold across these three brands seco as we mostly know sucks spin masters does hold better than a seco puzzle which you know if you look at it it'll it'll just fall apart in front of your eyes but of course compared to buffalo buffalo has a much better fit a much better hold especially compared to the other two so if I had to rank these three brands I have to say spin master really falls in between seco and buffalo with you know seco of course being at the bottom of the list but I hope this little bit of information can kind of help you decide you know when you're looking at a shelf in a store and you see these three brands and you're kind of thinking you know which one is going to be the better value in terms of quality if quality is most important to you but I'd be very curious to hear what your experiences have been like with spin masters puzzles have any of you experienced some of the same things that I did do you think seco well you probably don't think seco is better but do you think that you know compared to buffalo is it comparable to that brand or do you agree with me do you think is the lesser of the two again at the end of the day overall I kind of felt like this brand wasn't anything extremely special it really is at the end of the day one of the more budget friendly puzzle brands so you know you get what you pay for you can't expect you know amazing schmitt quality or robins robins burger quality at the end of the day anyways but you know I'm not mad for trying this puzzle out it did have some issues with the hold but that's okay at the end of the day it wasn't as bad as a seco hold which you know is always a plus but as I said the image was fun it made me think about Oregon Trail which you know is my favorite and I do look forward to trying another puzzle from this brand and see if I get the same experience in the end but anyways guys if any of you are looking for a place to share your own puzzle experiences with other puzzlers I do have a community that you can join and if you're interested I'm gonna leave a link down below so that you could look more into it and if you're new here and you want to hear what I have to say about other puzzle brands be sure to subscribe but anyways guys I need to get a move on with my next puzzle so I hope you're all doing well thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next one


The makers of Wrigley Spearman Chewing Gum invite you to enjoy life, life with Luigi, a comedy show created by Cy Howard, and starring that celebrated actor, Mr. J. Carol Lash, with Alan Reed as Beswally. As you know, Wrigley Spearman Chewing Gum is giving daily enjoyment to millions of people all over America. In offices and factories, on farms and branches, in mines and oil fields, folks find that chewing Wrigley Spearman helps them feel better and work better. The makers of Wrigley Spearman Gum are glad that their product is proving helpful and enjoyable to so many people, and they're glad too that they're able to bring you life with Luigi, because they know it's the kind of a radio program that millions of Americans enjoy. And now let's read Luigi's letter as he writes about his adventures in America to his mama-basco innit. Mama-mummy. Almost everything I'm a do. I'm a do like the American mama-mummy, except in a business. Everywhere are things that are good. People are buying and buying. Everybody's a work in a business. It's a better than ever. It's a prosperity all over. Then you look into my cash register and you see big depression. Here, mama-mummy, with everybody, business is a turnover. With me, it's a lay down like a rock. But the worst of all, mama-mummy, I'm all plenty rent to my landlord Pasquale. And now he's a make-of for me. He's sending me bills in little poems. This morning he's sending me one in his reed. Dear Luigi, your rent is a do. You ain't got until 1952. And then this afternoon he's sending another one.  I remember before he used to say to me, it's all right, Luigi, take your time. And I'm a doker, but now I'm getting afraid. I think I better go in his store and have a little talk with him. Oh, sir. Dear Luigi, put down that ice cream, McCone. You always want to weigh 250 pounds? Oh, papa, I don't weigh 250 pounds anymore. You don't? That's wonderful. How much you weigh now? 256. The one always with that ice cream in the hot weather. Oh, don't worry, puppy. For sure. And you accept the baby another head. I said put down that ice cream. Ain't the skinny, indeed. Dear Luigi, come in the store today to ask about his rent. No. By this time, it would be busting in here with that little popsqueaker voice of horror. And, Pascuali, give me one more chance. Hey, Pascuali, give me one more chance, sir. Hey, what's the matter? Why are you looking at me like this? You keep quiet.  Well, Pascuali, these letters, these poems that you sent to me. All you mean about the rent for May? Uh-huh. And before that April, and don't forget March? And a February and a January. Is there one thing about you, Luigi, you're very prompt. It comes the first of every month that you don't pay on a time. Dear Pascuali, you forget. I paid you last December. Yeah, I remember. I was a fine Christmas present, a one month's rent. Luigi, let's face it, are you a no-business man? I'm never going to get in my rent, and I've got to do something the drastic. Well, don't do that, Pascuali. Please, have a little patience. I'm not going to pay you. With the word that the Marshal of Bland helps out of countries, they're not cabbage pusses. All right, Papa. I thought I told you to get rid of that ice cream cup. I am, Papa. I'm finishing it as fast as I can. Well, Luigi, now that we're alone. Yeah, but, Pascuali, please, if you've got any ideas, I'm going to promise you I'm not going to do everything I can at the celebration. Oh, stop with that talk. What are you going to do? Call up a Paul Revere, ask him if he wants to buy a batch of cabbage pusses. I've been thinking, Luigi, this ain't the neighborhood of parantics. Lots of people pass that store every day, see? So I've got a way for you to pay off your rent and still keep your next door in case you ever change your mind about a rosa. Well, Pascuali, what's your idea?   Yes, it's just for the summer. Yeah, but what are they going to sell today? Hot dogs. Hot dogs? Oh, no, no, no, Pascuali, you're joking. Yeah, then why aren't you laughing? I'm just going to knock out the front half and set up an open account for the pass of the trade. What are you so afraid of? It's a good thing I'm doing this. That's a good thing. Sure, Thomas, you're going to rent out the front half and set up an open account for the pass of the trade. That's a good thing. Sure, Thomas and Jefferson and the others, if they die and they get in the back of the store and get in too much of a sunbite in your window.  No, no, Pascuali, you can't talk like this. You can't do this to me. Oh, no. Hey, Jerry, Jerry, will you stop your dinner a minute to come over here? Jerry, I mean to Luigi, a fellow who's going to be selling antiques and back to your hot dog store. Oh, hi, Luigi. Hey, we're going to make a great combination, kid. You were the antiques and me with a 20-year-old mustard. Ha, ha, ha, ha. He didn't beat it. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.  No, no, no, Pascuali, nobody's going to buy my antiques if they're from a hot dog store. Oh, I don't say that, Luigi. Maybe we can work together, partner. Every hot dog, we give away free one spinning wheel. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. There you are. Get your red hot, hot dogs. Nice hot, hot dogs, just like Betsy Ross used to make. No, no, no, I'm a nut that you're packing and you're crazy. Hey, what's eating you? You hot the dogs then. That's the what kind of goodbye. I guess we're making popcorn. Quiet, please. Settle down, please. I'll call the road. Mr. Basko? Here? Mr. Horowitz? Yeah? Mr. Shultz? Eh, yeah? Mr. Shultz? Columbus, 40, 92, the pilgrim, 16, 20, evolutionary board, 17, 89. Uh, Mr. Shultz? Don't stop me, Miss Spaulding. I'm going to give you all the right answers before I forget them. Mr. Shultz, I don't know why you quoted those dates. Today's lesson was in English, not in history. Himmel, today I got smart for nothing. Well, let's get on. I assigned you the lesson on punctuation marks. Yes, Mr. Basko? Is your hand raised? Yes, Miss Spaulding. Miss Spaulding, you think it's a right to sell hot dogs in antique shops? Well, Mr. Basko, whatever it is, please save your personal problems till after class. Now, gentlemen, getting back to our English lesson, who can tell us the difference between a comma and a semicolon? Mr. Horowitz?  Well, I'll accept that. Oh, it brings a tackle and then I'll go fishing. Oh, please. Now, tell us about the uses of the comma and semicolon. Suppose you give us an example to illustrate. With pleasure. John, Henry, Jack and Joe ventured the movies. And where are the comma? Between John and Henry, and Henry and Jack, and Jack and Joe. Oh, is he splitting up that family? No, not quite, Mr. Horowitz. Mr. Schultz, what would you put between Jack and Joe? In the movies? Two pretty girls. No, no. A bag of popcorn? No, no. Mr. Basko, what do you think? Well, I'm, I'm thinking the movies would be alright to have dogs, but they're never in an antique shop.   That's the worst thing that can happen to me. Oh, Luigi, why do you stand for it? Because, Horowitz, I, I, I don't know what to do. Well, now, sometimes a misfortune can be a blessing in disguise. Now, if Baskoley goes through with this plan, it just might help your future. Yeah, but, uh... How is it gonna help my future, Horowitz? Well, uh, Luigi, you might be fortunate to find a, a more suitable store. You know there's something to that, Mr. Basko. Yeah, but I'm even a kind of peddler after for this one. Ha, ha! You just hit the nail on the head. Using Baskoley would ever stand when someone else, but he stands for you. That's right. You'll always keep your arms as long as there's a chance you'll marry his daughter. He's just a little girl. If there's a chance you'll marry his daughter.  Yeah, and that's some squeeze. Luigi, Luigi, don't worry. Just go back and tell him, or, squally, pick between me and the hot dogs. About a first, you baby, you better fat-knock a little. He'll pick and you'll still look like a hot dog. Smile.  Live it, yeah. Positive, you'll have to beg that. So, Mr. Basko, just be firm. All right, just to be firm, huh? All right, I'm not going to tell him.  Ah, that's impossible, Luigi. As long as Baskoley has got a fat daughter and as long as you are single, not one hot dog is going to snuggle in a bomb this summer. Hey, Baskoley. Right now, Baskoley, quickly, you got to choose between me and the hot dogs. That's easy, I'm picking the hot dogs.  I didn't say ex-Avia Cougats.  If you want to sell the hot dogs in the antique shop, I'm packing up in a living. I'm a living in you and the Rossa. Goodbye, goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye. Yes, a wonderful bye for me and a wonderful Rossa. Now goodbye, I said it for both of us together, goodbye. Baskoley, I'm not going to say goodbye to you. Too bad. I'm not even going to say good. I don't care if you don't even say good. I, I, I know you don't mean it, so I'm going to give you another chance. Thanks very much. Goodbye. All right. One more chance.  Goodbye, good riddance, and don't ever bother me again. I'm a wonderful ninja. Luigi, I'd like to mention the extra enjoyment. Wrigley's Spearman chewing gum can give you now that the weather is getting warmer. When you're active out in the sun or working hard indoors, there are times when your mouth and throat get dry. Well, just slip a stick of refreshing Wrigley's Spearman gum into your mouth. Start in chewing and see what a difference it makes.   It sweetens your breath, too. So keep a package of delicious Wrigley's Spearman chewing gum handy all the time. It's a refreshing treat that's easy to carry with you and enjoy at any time. Now let's turn to page two of Luigi Vasco's letter to his mother-in-law. Well, Mamma Mia, I'm going to find out as soon enough that a Pasquale is a really meanie.  He's putting it under my door this morning and there was another Pasquale forming as a ridder. If you ain't out by half past three, I'm going to spray the place to where it did it came. So Mamma Mia, there's nothing left for me to do, so I'm going to pack up all of my clothes. I'm going to take everything from all the shelves. I'm going to put everything out of all of the places I'm going to get. I'm going to put everything else I'm all in the world. And this is going to take me five minutes. But where am I going now? What am I going to do? I'm going to know. Oh, wait, Mamma Mia, is there somebody coming in? Luigi, my fellow boom friend. Tell me, what happened?  What did you get? A moonburn? No, no, I'm sure it's that. Pasquale has picked the hot dogs and I'm going to go. Ach, well, smile, Luigi. Like we say in the delicatessen business, every knock is a verse. Yeah, but for me, it's too bad to show you because when I'm a walk out of the store, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? What am I living? Well, it is tough with you, Luigi.  Listen, Luigi, it's partly my fault what has happened. So I give you the wrong advice. I'm going to help you get a job. A job? No, no, no, no. I'm going to remember what's happened when I took out a job in a factory. Yeah, yeah, it's 12 o'clock, it's all blue and you yelled out, everybody should hide, it's an air raid. I guess that's when somebody's asking for help and I'm just saying that she's in her workaholic. That's no good in either because, sure, I'm on a good foreign ticket shop. For anything else, I'm going to get a tulip behind me. Tulip? Huh? People, you'd make a wonderful fair basement for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Ah, smile, Luigi, don't give up. We're going to look into newspapers and find them. All right, it's just that I'm an officer. Here's something right here. He wanted 75 dollars to start pleasant working conditions of this big executive in his work. All right, that's a good issue. Yeah, sure, another way. Here's a catch. You better be a young attractive girl. I better look under the mail section. I like it.  Yeah, but, uh, middle machines, a drill press operator, tool grinder, uh, hydraulic installer, cheek and fixture builder, a metal fiddler, punch press operator. Ah, Luigi, why couldn't you be a young attractive girl? It's just that I'm not... No, no, wait, wait, wait, wait. Here's something. Soda church, one of the ice cream parlors. No experience necessary. That's it, Luigi.  Yeah, but I'm sure someone never started a jack-in-in-my-life thing. Look, the church in Soda starts only at the beginning, with your business sense. I see great things to do. But the water church... Well, you know how drug stores look in Soda Parking. After your own Soda Parking, you can take in a line of toothbrushes and then you'll have a drug store. Yeah, but I'm sure... But I'm sure you think it could happen. Why not, Luigi? Toothbrushes and ice cream. You'll make a fortune. But how wonderful. People will brush their teeth with a moniated pistachio. You can be so rich, you can be so rich you're going to spend your windows in a fine hotel in Las Vegas, and your summers in that same hotel. Your springs in that same hotel. And then what should someone ever going to travel though? I'm sure you're going to travel. You're going to be so rich you can take that hotel along with you. That smile, Luigi, she asked. Everything is going to turn out fine. Oh, she'll say thank you.  You're always happy. Well, that's my model, Luigi. Yeah, I'd walk a mile for a smile.  Always happy. Always loving.  Oh, yes, Annie. You want a nice ice cream economy, huh? Give me a chocolate sundae. All right. You come back in a five days for those only Thursdays. I want a chocolate sundae. Today, not sundae.  You mix me all up, please. What's the trouble with, though? Well, you see, he's only a little boy with English. I want a chocolate sundae with chocolate syrup. Oh, right, kid.  One of what? The black bottom. That's a chocolate sundae. Mummy, it's a one-addiction item. I forgot to buy a soda dictionary. Don't worry, Vasco. You'll catch on fast. Just call those orders into Charlie nice and loud. Here's some of the lingo. What's the reckoning? If somebody orders a soda, you say fizz water. Well, what's the matter with a soda? Somebody's got something against that the word? No, no. Just how we say. If somebody wants an ice cream cone with two scoops, that's a double-decker black stick. Artificial flavor and bug juice. Root beer's called 55. Chocolate ice cream's chopped vanilla's van. Four scoops of ice cream's pourin' a boat. Any question? Well, yeah, about a two dozen. Come on, mummy.  Vasco, keep it up. You're doing fine. Thinkin' nothin' out of their budget. Now, what are you gonna have there? How about a chocolate soda? Oh, sure. One a bucket of juice up and down, up in a sec. How are you doing? I'm the bear, monsieur. I'm the bear. What are you? Is that a church or a radar special? No, no, no, monsieur. You gotta get the half. That's the lingo. A glass of milk, please. All right, sir. Where's the cow? Smaller glass of butter? No, lard. You must not talk. Even I am for shimmer. Tell me, look, I gave Vasco a lot of this place. Was he down here yet? No, no, I'm expecting him, but he's in a camp. Look, here, he comes now. I'll put it on a big act. Very independent. The lard to me is very hot outside. I'm likely some refreshment. Oh, of course you are, sir. Come closer, my boy. You look like somebody I know. Pumpkin-seed eyes, if they remind me of somebody, but the melon head is a little different. Well, all right, Jack. I'm busy. What is it? Look who's getting up in the pub today. All right, give me a chocolate and all of the milk. One of the black and the white. And of course, some eggs, sir. Mr. Breaker, come on, Luigi. I know you. What's this, a double at all? Well, you thought I wouldn't be good if nothing else, so you threw me out. For what are you all wrong? I'm going to wait on a similar customer. Yes, sir, is there something for you? I'll have a banana split. One-a-house about that. And are you pleased? Oh, I'll have three flavors of ice cream with nuts, crushed fruit, whipped cream and plenty of nice red cherries. How do you call it, Pascale? How do you like it the way I'm working out here? You think you're rubbing it in on me, huh? Well, Luigi, just a few information. I had the contract to make up a plan that he's starting to build the next week. What? You're going to throw at everything? That's all right. It's a free country. I'm not going to stop you from taking this as a job, but it's also a free country that can change the antique shop to a hot dog stand. Goodbye. Here's the money. You can eat in my mall to the milk.  I've heard everything, Luigi. Oh, how you got that spaghetti veil from Matt. But it's just the way to do it. He's never going to let me back in. Ah, you know what? You got it. A good job.  Your heart ain't really... Ain't really Mr. Park Juice in the house post, huh? No, no, no, sir. Well, all right, Luigi. I got one more idea in my head. Pasquale gave it to me when he said you should eat till you bust. You mean you want me to buy some? No, no, no, but I know a certain other party who will. And Luigi, smile.  I mean Schultz.  I don't have a glass of missionary. I'd like to, yes, sir. Where's the capistan now? Up with the top? Oh, I'll best tell you back again after the third time this week. If you want to kick me out, why you keep coming back? Luigi, for myself, I'm happy to get rid of you and I got the contract to start this afternoon. Contract? What? Excuse me, Pasquale, make up another three house boats for that party in the booth back there. Okay, boss. It's not a trip, Anastasia. Now, you see, Luigi, with a rose, it's a different. She don't stay around the store anymore. She goes away for long afternoons. And when all the warriors, she's already gained the ten pounds in one week. Oh, that's so bad.  Mummy, how does the party connect? Luigi, what kind of a customer you got here?  Who can afford us so much? Yeah, but that's the privilege, Pasquale.  That's not it. Because there's been no shakes. Rosa, after you, they're taking like a pair of pigs. Soldiers, the way you get all the money, she's going to weigh 400 pounds as soon. She's going to bust. Well, so what? For how is there going to be a happy explosion? Rosa, here's your three milk shakes. This is a free country, nobody's going to stop you. You listen to stop that, I do anything. I take you back, I'm going to stop that. Oh, no, no, no, Pasquale, I'm making a good money here. Luigi, money ain't everything. Well, if money ain't everything, are you throwing me out there? Hello, why are you throwing me out there and putting in a hot dog stand?  Well, then Pasquale, you forget the hot dog stand and take me back here? Anything, anything, Luigi, please come back. Well, I don't. All right, Pasquale. Welcome home, my son. It's good to come home, Pasquale. Hey, how about a chocolate mollo, not with eggs? All right, then. Chocolate mollo with eggs. Chocolate mollo with milk with one egg. What? You heard me, boss, chocolate mollo with milk with one egg.   Well, I'm learning the whole act in an ice cream appala. All the different language is called the lingo. And when I'm going to come back to Pasquale's story, he's the one to learn it too. So he's the son to me. Hey, Luigi, if you were still a Wacken man, I'd order for chocolate mollo with an egg to come in. You want a little milk with one egg? Well, Pasquale, is it like this? Want a milk with twisted chocolate and a macadacacca? So tonight, the mom and me are sleep-well-good to know I'm always thinking of you, your loving son, the Luigi bass, the little him. Folks, the makers of Wrigley Spearman Chewing Gum hope you've enjoyed tonight's episode of Life with Luigi and they want to remind you that delicious Wrigley Spearman Gum is good to enjoy whether you're indoors or out, relaxing.  Besides, the chewing action helps cleanse your teeth and helps keep them looking bright and attractive.  It costs so little, you can enjoy it often every day. The makers of Wrigley Spearman Chewing Gum write another letter to his mama-basco in Italy. Life with Luigi is a sigh-howered production and is directed by Norman McDonough. Mac Benhoff writes the script with Lou Dermott. J. Carol Nash is starred as Luigi Basco with Alameda Spasquale, Hans Connery of Schultz, Jody Gilbert of Groza, Mary Shippes of Miss Balding, Joe Forfea's Horowitz and Ken Peter Bezos. Music is directed by Lev Gluck, Bob Stephenson speaking to some CV ads for Columbia broadcasting.


Good day, my lovely listeners! You are listening to The Forty Autie Podcast. Tune in every week to explore inspiring stories and insightful information that dive headfirst into the world of autism and mental health. With all those tantalising tongue twisters out of the way, let's get into the show. And welcome back to The Forty Autie Podcast with your host, Mr Thomas Henley, of course. Today we've got, I dread to say, a different episode than usual, even. We're going to be talking about something that is perhaps quite, as most people would say, triggering or difficult or emotional. We're going to be talking about autism and suicide and, you know, everything that comes along with it, things to do with depression, things to do with mental health support. We're going to be talking about our particular experiences with it. So if that's something that you are thinking yourself, oh my god, I don't want to spiral myself out and I'm not in a good place to listen to this, then I would encourage you to check out one of your other episodes. But if not, I'm sure this is going to be a really great conversation. And I forgot to introduce my guest. We have Amelia here from Autistic Positivity. How are you doing? Yeah, I'm doing fine. Thank you. How are you doing today? How's your week been so far? I'm a little stressful with stuff at school, but I guess I'm okay. What kind of stuff are you studying at the moment? Is it just like all the bases or is like a few subjects? The base is just, you know, school is quite stressful by itself and I'm failing maths, actually. So I'm trying to work on that. Yeah, yeah. I really struggled with maths. I had this absolutely awful teacher who was very, very authoritarian. Like nobody speaks and if you speak, then you get a strike across your name and if you get three strikes, then you're off to detention. And he didn't like me because I took everything that he said very literally. You can talk when you finished working. So I finished working very quickly and then I talked and then he got annoyed at me and so he moved me down to like a lower set. Which is lovely of him. Would you like to tell everybody a little bit about yourself? Yeah, so I'm Amelia, as you know, I started Autistic Positivity on Instagram and I think November last year, that is 2021. So I am Autistic. I was diagnosed when I was 16. And yeah, my special interests include autism and mental health. So I really love what I do. What are your sort of plans like after you finish school in year? Are you going to go into work or you're going to kind of stick to online stuff or go to university? So when I got my disability papers, there was a note that said I'm not able to work. And yeah, I agree with that. So no plans at the moment, but I'm really hoping to grow my platform and help even more people. I'm sure you will and you've already done some like really great, great work. Thank you. I can't remember what posted. So it might been something related to mental health. Oh, okay. I think it is a really, really important topic, isn't it? Yeah, it is. I think it might be sort of quite good to go through some statistics on mental health because I mean, I know I didn't say that I do this at the start of the podcast, but I have my presentation up for the autism show that I'll be doing this weekend. And I looked at the new research and there's like some real like, it's very depressing when I see it, but I see the potential of sort of showing these stats to people. So at the moment, 22% of autistic people are in either full-time or part-time employment. 40% have lifelong depression. 20% have anxiety disorders. 63% of autistic people in school are bullied significantly, 63%. Autistic people actually have an increased rate of mortality. So dying about 20 years on average earlier. Yeah, that's true. 66% of autistic people think seriously about suicide and 35% of people attempt further to that. 41% of suicides in a recent study be like a big sort of analysis of mental health and suicides and sort of talking to the family and stuff. 41% of those suicides that they surveyed had showed strong autistic traits. You know, starting with these statistics, it kind of gives us a bit of a frame when it because I know some people who kind of may tune into us speaking and think that it's kind of like an isolated case or it's something that's not very common. It actually is, yeah. I guess jumping into our first question after me rambling about stats. I think it's important to talk about those. I think so too, and definitely in the context of this talk. So what are some of the reasons that autistic people are more likely to attempt suicide? I think that's a very punchy question right to the heart of things. Yeah, what do you think about that? So I think that the first factor is where more likely to be socially isolated. There are autistics that struggle with socializing at, yeah. And we may have issues to go out or meet with friends or even make friends. So that when you're isolated for the majority of your life or when you're at school, when we're friends are really important that puts you at risk at either depression or even suicidal thoughts or attempts even because of it, because you feel so alone and you don't have anybody to talk to. I think that's a really important point, because across the board it seems to be a trend that autistic people just receive a lot of trauma from going through the high school secondary school experience. Is that something that you've experienced? So I never was really bullied, but the kids definitely, as I was saying, I was diagnosed at 16. So I didn't know I was out of autistics, but the kids definitely knew that there was something wrong with me or I was different. They were talking behind my back definitely that time, the weird one. So yeah, I can imagine what these people who are bullied must go through. It's definitely something that I've talked about it quite a lot, but I really struggled in secondary school with bullies and stuff. It's actually one of the reasons why I started doing martial arts in Taekwondo, because it was just, it's quite difficult, because it's not like there's a rulebook for bad interactions with people. It's like most people just say walk away or something. Some people will say, hit them, hit them back and then first. Yeah, it's not always that easy. Indeed. But I've also seen a lot of isolation, social isolation in older autistic people, who have been really late in the life diagnosis. A lot of people messaging and commenting on my stuff about their circumstances, they masked all their life and had really bad experiences with people. Due to all of that, pretty much just live alone. Some people will say that they don't need social interaction because they're autistics, we don't need social interaction. Well, you might feel like it, but I don't think it's really true. Yeah, it's a big part for everybody, I think. Yes, even if we don't enjoy it that much, I think we need it either way. It's kind of like a bit of therapy, isn't it? Yeah, it can be. Yeah, even in situations where I find it really stressful, I always feel sort of, it's just good to have someone to talk to as a sounding board because most of the time, I'm always in our head thinking about things and interactions and people and concepts. It can get a little bit too much sometimes, it's good to voice them and get them out of your brain. Yeah, definitely. I agree. Well, I think that one of the other sort of factors that's really become more apparent to me as time goes on is misdiagnosis or being undiagnosed or not knowing that you're autistic. Yes. People getting a diagnosis of BPD, specifically women around BPD and psychosis evens, schizophrenia. Yes, yes. And I know there's been a little bit of history with that kind of crossover, but from listening to people, it seems that it's really bad. It's really bad for them because they kind of shuffled through this mental health pathway, which is not sort of specialized or friendly to autistic people. Yes, I can say by looking at my story, I was misdiagnosed with borderline personality disorder. And I didn't really see any of those traits in myself. It's like diagnosing autism would be a bad thing, I felt like. I did show a lot of autistic traits at the time. Yeah, and definitely being undiagnosed for the, well, most of my life is a huge, plays a huge role in my mental health and my struggles. It can be due to services that I received being unaccommodated for autistic people or the specialists who treated me didn't really know how to support me because they didn't know I was autistic and autistic people should be accommodated in receiving those services, whether it's online therapy instead of going to the place or, well, yeah, there's a whole list I could make of accommodations, but you know what I mean. Yeah, definitely. I think it's really important to kind of go back to why people just attempt suicide anyway. I think it's, at least from my experiences, it's either been something that I feel is my only way out of discomfort or pain or emotional difficulties, but it's also been like a little bit of, you know, in sort of a maladaptive way, it's a little bit of a coping mechanism at times.  It's kind of like a, it's like the person's coping mechanism to deal with an environment or circumstances or a brain that just causes you a lot of distress and pain and difficulty. And I can imagine, like when we're talking about it in the context of autism, it's, you know, you've got things like a lexifamia and things like that that kind of come in and make it harder to receive support or even realize that you need it. Mm, definitely. And also, like factors of quality of life, like unemployment, difficulty finding a relationship, difficulty finding friends, you know, being able to pay your way. That can play a huge role too, just like you shared those statistics with, statistics with unemployment in autistic people. Not having maybe work sometimes can be, can feel like a purpose to live maybe. And you also find a community there, friends, you have a boss, you have a job that you have to attend to, you have to get out of bed every day. So that can be helpful, but also of course exhausting. So when we can't work, we may feel isolated. And yeah, difficulty finding friends or partner is something that we struggle with too. And that can also play a role in, for example, depression or even suicide. Yeah, yeah. It's a really difficult one because there's a lot of sort of avenues for autistic people receiving a lot of bad life experiences, like what we said about anxiety and just rates of depression and rates of bullying, unemployment, isolation, you know, it's the role of like- So trauma, different kinds, I don't know, maybe in family at school, we mentioned that, yeah. I like that. I think you might point it out, but like social isolation, it doesn't necessarily have to be something that occurs when you're just on your own all the time. I think another thing that's really so popular to talk about at the moment is like masking and things like that, like the sort of existential sort of feeling that anyone that you meet or that you talk to who likes you when there's a part of your life, like because you have this mask up all the time, you don't really feel connected to the people around you. Yes, I read somewhere that side effects of long-term masking can be depression, anxiety, loss of identity, and also depression and suicidal thoughts. So it's definitely important to mention that. It's like we interact with somebody and it's like the person who talks to us meets another person, a different person, someone that we just put up an act. We don't feel like ourselves anymore sometimes when we mask. I think it's also as well like we need to put in a little more effort into sort of interacting and maintaining friendships and things of that nature. So if people aren't like, if the only thing that people have experienced is negativity or not connecting with people when they talk to them, then that exact social anxiety and those social difficulties are going to be way out of order with their desire to talk to people. In my life I went through a big phase in my second year of university where I was in a situation where I'd moved away from home and one of the issues about it is that you're not exactly surrounded by people all the time in adult life and you have to go and find people which is the difficulty. I was on my own for a month or so and I didn't really go outside and it had some really bad effects on making my anxiety and panic attacks and depression worse because it's like you're just stuck alone with your thoughts sometimes. I guess what I really want to know is one of the reasons why I asked you to come on is because I was interested in hearing what your experiences of mental health were like. Would you be able to sort of give us a little bit of a story time on? Yeah, sure. A lot of hope. There's no pressure on you. I can always add it to it. Okay. So my depression started when I was 12. I also had anxiety. Now the anxiety is very low. I don't feel that much anymore but however the depression is sometimes unbearable. When I was 13, I started self-harming. The self-harm kind of got worse and of course I won't describe the details but it got worse from July, August. Okay, in August I took pills but I didn't really know anything about the dosage so it failed as you see. And about a month from that I got admitted into a psych ward. I was there for a month and a week and yeah, I don't want to scare you. It's important to remember that I am in Poland, the mental health services and especially psych wards and especially child psych wards are extremely underfunded but I talked to a psychologist for maybe 30 minutes, two times during my stay there. So a stay of a month and a month and a half and you talked to a psychologist twice. And my visits with the psychiatrist were really like a physical exam or just talking about I don't know my family or when will I get discharged from there and so the food was also terrible. I as you may know I have arphids, avoidant restrictive food intake disorder. Yes, yes. So and I also didn't know that it existed then. I thought I was just weird and so the food wasn't, I ate only bread there really and maybe pasta without any sauce if I was lucky. And yes, I at the end all the psychologists and psychologists quit their job. So the ward was closed. I'm laughing now but it's of course the ward was closed and that's why you were discharged. There was a doctor when I was near my discharge date from another hospital but it happened when I was there and I avoided the closing but yeah. So I got home. I was seriously controlled by my parents and well it's not really that weird when your child wants to do and their life it's I think it's natural to want to know what they are doing. And I self harmed pretty bad but when I got to the doctor he said that there's an ocean of books that I should read to get better and life is beautiful. He was around 70 and that's how he treated my self harm and wound that required stitching but remember if you're self harming and your wounds don't require stitching it's just as important as those who require it. Yes, it's not a competition and I don't want anybody to I forgot the word compare themselves to me. Yeah and then I like for three days ago from this incident at the doctors I was having a psychosis attack and yeah I think it's for it was from depression that I read somewhere that depression can cause psychotic attacks and I was 13 at the time I didn't know what was happening. Yes, yes it felt like I taken I don't know drugs. I was talking like I was really heavily drunk that the world is in our hands or something I was texting all my friends or the group chats with this bullet. Yeah and my mom called the ambulance and they gave me I don't know if you will know what is called in English if I will tell you hydroxazine. Hydroxazine. Hydroxazine. Yeah they gave me two of those.  It makes my brain so I just can't focus on anything like. Yes I took that for a while for sleeping but it didn't really work and after this incident I was my parents told me that I'm going to a psych ward just for some some tests for a few hours of course I was there for another month and can I just I don't want to sort of interrupt your flower or anything but I I just find it absolutely incompatible about like how healthcare professionals or people think that it's it's a suitable thing to to basically just lock up someone who's who's recently like attempted or someone who's who's self harmed quite badly and yeah and only see them twice once for a physical exam and then expect when they're released for them to be to be okay or into in a better state and not to return there anymore. Well you'd be worse aren't you because it's a horrible experience so you yes it's maybe a little bit traumatized me the patients helped me a lot more than the actual doctors yeah and this psych ward was the doctors and the psychologists were a little bit more well they were talking to us but you had an individual consultation with the psychologist just once a in a week which is also not ideal but still better by individual or individual or group kind of yes there was also something called group sorry therapy but it was just smelling candles and the psychologist reading us children's stories children's books so that was the patients there were like 14 or 15 yeah there's children sorry but what yeah exactly that's yeah and not you I know you're saying about you know this this this situation being in Poland yes but I've heard I've heard a lot of stories from people in the US and the UK who you know going it's it I have to say it's not quite as bad as that as having really bad food and it's so bad I know yeah and like the environments that they put you in from yes from going going to these places are just like the worst like you you're huddled together with other people who are really struggling yes you're you're expected to eat certain things and go to sleep at certain times and wake up at certain times and like yes it's like it's like more of a prison like a short term like we'll put a we'll put like a timeout on them and then they'll be released so they won't kill themselves just not helping them but it's just for them yes yes and I have a question actually you're in the UK yes yeah yes okay but I had a question if psych wards in America are paid as there is only private healthcare yeah and I'm not too sure about that I um no I kind of I can and voluntary hold maybe the bill isn't really that um high if it's if there is a bill maybe you probably know more about it than I do I just the only thing I know about this situation like the what do you call it psych wards and things like that is that they are not great for autistic people and um and also that uh there's you know even within my my workplace there's there's people within my workplace trying to like pass do like training and pass pass laws to like prevent autistic people going going to psych wards because it's just like it's such a not adapted to us even in the UK yeah not heard some not heard good stories about it but yeah but but yes I can't remember why you were wearing your story before I really interrupted in this weird group therapy thing I yeah yeah so I don't eat for example pasta that's mixed with something else and they just gave it to me and told me that I have to eat it um so definitely not adapted to eating disorders in general I think that a lot of psych wards are um for example for patients with anorexia they just are like you have to eat it and there's not a lot of therapy and maybe talking talking through that issue yeah I suppose even in that situation if you're you know you're still you're still delaying stuff because you're you're putting a a band-aid on them yes not eating and just forcing them to eat and then like when they're released when they when they get out they're like they're gonna have even more negative things attached to eating yes that's true yeah so I got out of the psych ward and I never returned there frankly I started family therapy and we are in still in this therapy and I started my own I think it was psychodynamic therapy with elements of cognitive behavioral sorry therapy CBT yes CBT I was there for a year then my therapist changed I was there for another year and she left work I went to a different therapist in uh oh I forgot the month again it doesn't make the months do you have to worry about the months I'm not gonna fact check you okay I went to another therapist in August of 2021 but we didn't really click it sometimes it's like that and I left I started therapy again actually two weeks ago and she referred me to another therapist and I had different meds and right now I'm on oh I don't know if I would know the you can try I do have some knowledge of medical prescriptions and so it's fennel vaccine I think fennel vaccine fennel vaccine is fax or something um fennel vaccine fennel fennel vaccine fennel um a mono monoamine oxidase inhibitor used to treat atypical depression oh yeah fennel so I'm on that and I'm also on and again not sure of the English version wet up in with a q wet up peanut we're gonna gonna do a bit of a pharmacology class here yeah that it's used to treat is schizophrenia and psychosis I take it for sleep it really helps but it's it's strong when it kicks I just you're out yeah I'm out yeah a lot a lot of the the schizophrenia type medication is it's very very highly sedative isn't that yes and it's actually not meant to treat children I started it when I was like um 15 so it's a bit of a medical experiment and they also gave it gave it to us in the hospital um so we were just um well it's not not really the first choice you would make with anti antipsychotics to treat um insomnia but yeah it works and that's that's important and I find that really really interesting because um I've gone through the the medical circuit as it as it be a few times for changing medications and yes I started for for depression I started with phloxatine which is prozac and sertraline which was awful and I've only heard bad things about sertraline apart from one person but I'm still not sure about that one um and now I'm I'm currently on satala pram which oh okay I think I did that too I'm searching now so I'm a stuprattolem I think it's what it's called it's a similar um substance to an SSRI yeah so um it's uh it's still like one of the sort of the more modern antidepressants yes like I know that the more the more dated the antidepressants get the more likely they are to have side effects and issues and things that you can't do when you're on them and that kind of thing and um I I'm also I'm also on a sedative medication for sleep as well um called metazapine which is um it I mean it's it's it's been good um well one one the thing I wanted to bring up was like I I've heard from quite a few autistic people that you know antidepressants like prozac and things like that are supposed to treat depression and panic disorder and anxiety um things of that nature but I have found particularly in my own life that antidepressants tend to make my anxiety a lot worse so like um any like any of the the ones prozac, citalopram, sertraline um they all hire my anxiety up quite a bit and so I have to pair it with an anti-anxiety medication oh yeah which in this case is metazapine um so I always have to have like equal doses or equal effective doses of each I'm at the same time and um I mean it kind of works to a certain degree it's just like actually like I was thinking about the sedative medication and psychotic sedatives are just absurdly sedative and I I really struggle even even now I've been on it for maybe four four or five years yeah and even now I struggle to wake up in the morning and feel awake and until like 1 p.m. 2 p.m. at the max and um and when I have them it's it's also a really potent um appetite stimulant so I have them and then I had a previous issue with uh bulimia when I was younger um kind of kind of got past it but when I started taking metazapine it the appetite stimulant like restarted the binge purging thing and then you know eventually I sort of managed to get rid of the purging aspect a bit because my teeth are just falling apart um but uh now I'm left with a binging disorder so I'm I'm constantly trying to monitor and like control my weight all the time and it's it's uh it's a really big it's it's become to a point where it's really really sure I think I might be I might go and go to the doctor and see if I can get any treatment for it I realize that you haven't gone through your entire story of that things dear is that is there much much left that you want to to say no um I just wanted to say that I am better now still not maybe the best I still get uh episodes of depression quite severe um but I am definitely better after all these these years and what what made what made an impact slight what what changed and so I would say that definitely finding out that I'm autistic made a big difference I was able to understand myself better um also I would say that my advocacy online uh helped me too to just know that I am helping other people uh autistic or autistic to understand uh better autism and mental health um well yeah um I don't have many friends but those who I have are really helping me too um my boyfriend also um uh yeah and um therapy wasn't really um doing that much that I expected it to be kind of um maybe not a fix for all my problems but um it I think it's gonna be like a lot more effective than it is just considering like how readily it's used yeah and um meds also helped me um get out of bed or do chores um yeah that's my story well thank thank you very much for sharing that um I feel a bit no I in an ideal word I'd want to to have a little think about that because that's you know like you've done so well just uh like get get through it all and and come out the other side and I I totally get you like when I was when I was younger I was it was a constant battle to try and keep myself alive all the time and keep myself safe and you know even even though I'm not in that state where I'm where I can't function at all or talk or you know sort of care care for myself um I still get periods of time like maybe one or two months in a year where like depression is like really bad and yes I think that's it's a really good point to highlight because it you know it's it's a very long although it's very depressing to think about yeah it is a very very long process and um but I would like to say that anybody that I have talked to who you know who've come out the other side and done done work on themselves understanding themselves like they always you know say that it was worth it to stick through and to you know try and make something positive of the the negative experience yeah I think it's always worth it despite of how hard it is and I actually didn't mention that when I was taken to the hospital that second time I made my goodbyes and I maybe there's recently a debate online on whether you should say commit suicide or um you know die by suicide but I can't find another word to describe do describe what I wanted to do so I wanted to commit suicide and this time I'm not gonna describe the message but I was sure I'm gonna do it so if I wasn't taken to that hospital for this um how is that called um this treatment uh yeah um I wouldn't be here today that's also important to mention with our topic we're discussing yeah I think that that's that's definitely very important um yes it's something in my mind that's just slipped away you know what I want to ask because we've talked a lot about your your personal story yeah Amelia and you know I think I think it's it's always good to have that that personal aspect but yeah you know in the context of the 40-odd podcast being about autism would you be would you be up for doing a bit of theorizing on what on the ways that mental health may be different for autistic people yeah sure I think I think for me that the the biggest thing that I I'm talking talking about a lot pretty much all the time um is a lexifemia and yes how that can have like a massive massive impact on uh how you manage mental health but also like the development of it for anybody who doesn't know even even though I talk about it all the time a lexifemia is a difficulty noticing and categorizing emotions and I like to visualize it as a fresh hold condition um around 90 90 plus percent of autistic people are a lexifamic most most people can notice like if if we take anxiety as as an example and most people would be able to notice if they're like 20 30 percent anxious and a scale from one one to 100 and um no for for autistic people people who are lexifamic it's almost like like it needs to get higher in order for us to notice it and to know what it is so like maybe 60 70 80 percent um and you know quite quite often at that point once you once your anxiety is that high it's having like real impacts on your your functioning and your your well-being and it's it's very difficult to kind of adjust adjust what you're doing or or try and help yourself on on a um situation by situation basis I think it's it's really important especially with depression because um I find it very I I can sort I can sort of um I've developed ways of of going around my difficulty with a lexifemia like noticing body set bodily sensations behavior changes um you know things like that I can do that quite well with anxiety and I can gauge it a lot better but depression is a different thing because it's it's it's it's a bit sneaky and not not a lot of people even even if they develop depression know that they're depressed or they they're kind of a bit like in denial about being depressed because it's just like such a cognitive um thing you know you only really see the presentation of of depression when it's quite severe you know when people can't move or function or like you know it affects your tone of voice and your your face and you know um and so it's really really hard uh for some people to kind of say look I feel depressed and sort of get early diagnosis and early early treatment and like things of that nature um it also makes sort of living day to day with it quite hard because people will ask you how you are and you know the predominant two emotions that I have is anxiety and depression um most of the time what's my depression like what's my anxiety like so instead of saying I'm all right or you know I'm not doing too good I'll say well my legs feel this way so I must be at least this percentage of anxiety and I have had I have been having some very negative thought loops and some some sneaky sort of depression thoughts sneaking in there so maybe I'm a little bit depressed but I'm not too sure and that's that's kind of how it goes um with people that I'm comfortable around and I know very well I just kind of say you know they asked me what my ratings are and they just give them a rating um so in in that way it sometimes feels like the only two emotions that I can feel and can pay attention to um are being depressed and anxious all the time and I can't notice all of those other background emotions like happiness and and love and care and excitement and things like that because they're not they're not strong enough and they're they're always like masked under a blanket of anxiety and depression um and and that makes it that makes me feel worse because I'm like well what what do I have around me that's giving me joy and positivity and yeah possibly there are things that are doing that but I just I can't notice it yeah so that's that's that's that's one thing I think a like spy is a massive massive thing do you have any any particular you know things that you you think may be different um so I think it may be different because our um executive functioning is different um with with neurodiversity not only with autism but in ADHD or in other conditions there's problems with or differences with executive functioning we may put put of tasks or just don't have the energy to do it um and it it's I imagine it is hard to treat with therapy um when you kind of feel unable to do it either way with with the tools that therapy gives you your body just doesn't want to um and so a lot of therapy is it's kind of you have to do things yes so it's like it's adding I'm going for therapy for executive functioning you need to do this this on this on top of what you're already doing that's true and and the other thing I think that we have a tendency to have more repeating thoughts I don't want to compare to OCD but it's like a hyper focus yes and these thoughts just come back and come back no matter what we do how do we treat it um how we treat it um and they just always kind of are there um even when we are actively trying to um deal with them maybe not stop them because that's not always possible but um yeah manage them better they still can find a way to come back to us I think that it impacts how autistic people experience and treat mental health issues oh and the other thing is masking I think that when I didn't know I was autistic yet I think I was masking too um without knowing it and I think I did in therapy and that did happen in fact yeah I think I'm not alone yes masking in therapy like they're they're parapising a mask yes yes it's a really good point I did not think about that I think um you know what you said about executive executive functioning it's you know a really great point because um you know often one of the downstream effects of anxiety and depression is to make functioning a lot harder or more difficult or not as worthwhile um like in your brain due to all the chemical differences and stuff and um you know if if you already have like an existing difficulty with some managing life in yourself it doesn't take a lot of low mental health for it to like start affecting you like yes you know I sometimes notice you know if I'm feeling anxious or depressed or something along those lines I kind of look back in hindsight and I'm like I've I've not started to eat not as much or I've started to forget to brush my teeth or you know so it's like it's almost like my body's craving to be like dissociated yeah from from my body my mind from my body like it's it's trying to sort of escape my my current reality or my current feelings and thoughts um and like things you know things like just scrolling through your phone or watching a video um you know turns from a tool to help me transition to something that I can't stop watching and then suddenly like I'm glued in a single spot for about three or four hours yes it's very very strange in in certain areas you know I can still work I can still like do my online stuff and things but nowadays but it's it's it's almost like the other parts of my life that are to do with executive like cleanliness and hygiene and food and you know things like that just seem to take a backseat a lot more now one thing that I wanted to I mean it's it's kind of related to I was going to talk about emotional regulation but I feel it's kind of very similar to Alexa if I'm hearing that sense like oh yeah we just regulate ourselves differently than holistic people and it definitely has some impact on how we receive the mental health care or services or how we experience mental health yeah because I suppose you know I suppose a lot about sort of learning to manage and live with mental health conditions is regulating yourself due to what I said about Alexa Fimea and you know things like that emotional regulation can be very difficult um it's hard to know that it's there it's hard to to know what will help and what's causing it and it's only in hindsight when you look back you're like oh is that that and that that's probably why um which isn't very helpful especially if it's like an acute sort of depression anxiety panic attack or something like that you know you could deal with the information and the way forward in your brain in that instant it's just very hard to access is there anything else that you wanted to touch on around sort of differences I think that is all I can think of yeah oh there was one last thing that I wanted to talk about which was bad social experiences and trauma oh yeah you know considering that we're so rampantly bullied like um and isolated and we have all these these low quality of life statistics it's easy to see why autistic people are struggling more I did my as part of my biomedical sciences degree I researched into sort of did a literature review so I reviewed different research papers over a hundred or so and um the only real solid piece of information about like any biological links was to do with anxiety and social anxiety which makes sense um but it still didn't explain why why there's just such absurd statistics around suicide and depression and eating disorders and like it just just seems like autistic people are just comorbid with everything like everything that's bad it's it's all that it's like there's a lot of environmental things that are going on that we can't control and they're affecting us quite badly you know um I thought that was just this important to to touch on because you know it's a massive massive massive source of mental health difficulties that early early life trauma kind of thing yes I think you know sort of rounding up to the end of the podcast but I think it's it would be important to touch on this do you do you think there are any barriers to autistic people managing and seeking support like thinking thinking about your your experiences with mental health what's stopped you from actually um getting better and getting help so I think that being undiagnosed is um is definitely a barrier um missed diagnosis and oh yes yes also um what else difficulty with making friends or romantic partners um um they are important to our mental health but well it's not really with with the mental health services um but maybe the psych wards aren't adapted to us there are bright lights and the food is it's well it does sound pretty good for all USA and in the UK or USA or anywhere else it's probably there aren't many places that will um accommodate you with your food it's also important to find a therapist or a doctor who knows how to work with autistic patients maybe they were on a um course how to do it and I know that there are such courses for professionals um and maybe uh I don't know how to pronounce that alexa simia yeah yeah alexa simia yes it can also be a barrier because you may you may have you may struggle with realizing that something is actually wrong or realize it too too late maybe yeah you say it's a lot it's a lot harder to deal with when you're younger yes find me it's it's you know as you as you grow and your knowledge expands and you know um are you learning about autism and you learn about yourself it becomes a bit more manageable but yeah it does it just I I just think back to my life through my eyes when I was you know like 13 14 15 um it's it's almost like I was just kind of in this this dream like environment and I was so separated from my emotional brain that I I felt like my brain was split into different modes or parts like my thinking and my emotional brain were just so detached from each other um which made it really difficult for therapy because most of the time they engaged with the thinking part of my brain like what I thought about it rather than what I felt about it um I think um you know there's there's one thing that I really wanted to highlight around sort of barriers and the the amount of specialized psychotherapy for autistic people um is very very sparse especially it will for me like my my parents have obviously put in a lot of work to try and you know help me with my conditions when I was younger and they could not find for the life of them a mental health uh practitioner someone who a psychotherapist or anything like that that specialized in autistic people yeah um and the ones that were were very far away requiring lots of executive functioning and travel yeah as well as money yes for my employed unemployed self so I think that's a massive one we need to see more it's all in the in the UK we need to see more um sort of NHS workers and people who um do do do this kind of thing do psychotherapy to actually like specialize in autism because it's really really needed um and everywhere else to be honest I do I just know specifically about about the UK but and also we need we need some more research around autism and co-morbidities um I know it's a bit of like a on the edge as you see kind of research scientists so we don't like those but um they do I mean a lot of the stuff that we know about autism and you know the the things that we've we've built on in life as as autistic people and like our ideas and concepts and stuff yeah they've all come from at some point some level of research or some level of understanding and um what we really don't understand which is very apparent to me is is why we have such poor life life outcomes yes um why we why we die 20 years younger than the average person which is absolutely ridiculous um you know why so many even autistic children um contemplate suicide and um and and die uh you know this understanding those co-morbidities could be absolutely massive because we could actually start making making treatment around co-morbidities rather than you know all of some of the medical community being focused on treating autism like we need to treat the causes of the anxiety and depression and eating disorders and understand them yeah exactly um so those are two things that I feel quite quite strongly about as really big barriers at the moment but um you know obviously the biggest barrier of all is trying to trying to to get these opinions these statistics these stories heard by the rest of the world yes and actually acted upon yeah we are all um not always often dismissed just because we are autistic that yeah our struggles don't matter because it's supposed to be like that or uh exactly yeah yeah autism low life quality most people's minds like well they're obviously like one in the same yeah it's like no no if you have the right adjustments to the right environment and the right people and the right support uh very high life outcomes from a few of my friends that I know um it's just the rest of us yeah um I think we'll end those those questions there I want to sort of give you give you space to kind of you know put out a message a message out there because um you know you've been through these these awful horrific experiences and you've been so open and honest and amazing about talking about them um very brave as well and you know I if in your mind if you're you're thinking of other people sort of listening to us speaking and you know someone who's going through a similar circumstance or you know struggling with their mental health what what would you like to to say to them so I would definitely say that there's always hope no matter how um how bad it seems how you feel that there isn't any other um exit or it things won't get better and maybe they won't get better tomorrow today or even in a month but I promise that it's worth it it's worth it to get treatment to talk about how you're feeling and to yeah take care of yourselves and just just trust the process I guess um but I promise that suicide is not the only option and to people who maybe know someone who is struggling or um maybe don't know but want to help um then I would say always believe an autistic person when they say that they are feeling suicidal depressed anxious it's very important to believe them and take take action um offer them help offer them a hug maybe if they feel comfortable doing so offer them their sorry your time um and if they are in immediate danger then of course call um 9-1-1 or yeah so the police or an ambulance just just be there for them yeah thank you Emilia that was brilliant I I remember do you know earlier when I said that I forgot something I've I remembered what I was going to what I was going to say um just just from from hearing you speak um around sort of attempted suicides and stuff um I feel people have a predilection to sort of label people as attention seekers when something like this happens but you know in both of our circumstances we had attempted and then later on learned more about it and actually you know made it made a proper a proper attempt on my life and yes you know so it's it's important to take people seriously even if it's even if it's just the attempt even though you have some met some voice in the back of your head telling you that there's trying to seek attention it's but it's it's it's in all circumstances you should you should take it as as what it is and yes it's a very serious thing yes you never know if the person will actually try it if they tell you that they will you believe them just even just like you said if and if you think to yourself that they are seeking attention well humans are humans are naturally seeking attention but um seeking attention for a reason yes yes and well yeah I just think it's really important to always believe the person when they tell you about how they are feeling recently I felt I feel like we've really we've really gone over a lot um and I guess you know what what I'm really interested to to know is um what is your song of the day what is what is the the song that um that really sort of that that moves you and that you know sort of represents you know your your difficulties in the past and yeah um well it's not really a song that represents maybe my difficulties but I chose golden years but by David Bowie because it is a song that gives me hope it's really um happy and it reminds me of my boyfriend who played a huge role in getting me out of the darkest place I ever been in yeah that's brilliant thank you Emilia thank you well this comes to the end of the podcast I I hope that you've all got something from this and you know if you if you do feel at all like this has made you feel worse please please contact one of your your local mental health people um or or ring somebody or or give someone a text message um one of the the crisis numbers that you have I I won't go for every single crisis number for every country but um you know don't just sit with it if it's if it's um something that's that's affected you um and uh yeah I I hope that when we finish this this podcast that you'll have a you know you have a good thing about it and that it's it will make some some positive improvements on on your life or the way that you you view mental health and suicide um you know Emilia you've been absolutely amazing talking about this like it's it's it's pretty much the one of the most emotive difficult topics that one can seek to talk about and yes um you just you've been absolutely amazing so thank you thank you so much thank you it's been a pleasure to be here follow autistic positivity follow uh as per this growth instagram thank you very much um so yes uh if you do want to to follow my work you can head over to my instagram facebook on youtube we have some videos around dating we have sort of bi-weekly q and a's around around dating we have some topic topic sessions we've got some a running series called dating an autistic which um if you are uh dating an autistic person it may be good to to look into you can also find the podcast of course on on youtube um as well as on spotify apple podcast google podcast pretty much all of them and if you want to get in contact with me for anything to do with speaking or training or modeling or anything of of that nature um you can head over to my website thomasanley.co.uk and um there is a contact page there for you to to get in touch thank you of course to all of my youtube um subscribers or join us i don't know what the gang part of my gang on youtube can be a small amount of monetary support per month thank you i appreciate that a lot and of course a massive thank you as always to mr patrick beddy for always being behind me and always supporting me on the sidelines and sort of helping me push myself in my dark moments and um yeah um massive thank you to all of you like massively appreciated yeah i we come to the most difficult part of the podcast for me which is transitioning from uh talking to talking to another person for an hour and a half or something so um i guess have you have you got any any um plans for the rest of the day um i think i'm going to play on my nintendo 2ds yeah i don't have the switch yeah it's the two the 2ds i i i have i got the the 3ds a while back oh i had that too the screen is just like like it's cool but it's so i had that too and it was too tiny i don't know if you have the camera open but this is a lot bigger than this is the xl one and this is a lot better i was playing animal crossing on the oh i love animal crossing and the screen was just so tiny and yeah do you know if animal crossing does uh like cross platform is it new horizons that you've got or is it the original i had the new leaf one new leaf yeah yeah i also played wild world so that was uh not the first but i also played the first on the the game cube oh i remember that uh you'll have to you have to send me some pictures of your your town oh okay i'd like to i'd like to see your town okay i was really interested i wish that i could play more but i i just yeah you're busy this man yeah yeah unfortunate with us rambling i think it's probably a good time to say goodbye and um again emilia thank you so much and thank you all of you for tuning in and listening to us i hope that you got something for it and i hope that you have a lovely day as always thank you for having me goodbye of course of course see you later bye


for being here in this summer's yester time. I hope don't bore you too much. Well, I am going to talk about an ongoing archaeological study of Iberian Iron Age sanctuaries. Well, I have studied different kinds of sanctuaries, of an age sanctuaries temple, but in this moment I will concentrate on the results about caves. Well, first of all, I am an astronomer, but almost all my works have been done in collaboration with archaeologists, so you can be not too much suspicious about the study. Well, in previous talks, Iberian culture has been defined. We are talking about culture in this part of Spain, in the Mediterranean desert of Spain, that developed in the last half of the first millennium BC and ended with the Roman invasion of Spain at about 200 BC. And along many years I have been studying Iberian sanctuaries and also Tartesian and various ones, the sanctuaries in the south, and this is more or less the inventory of places that I have studied. Only seven of them are cave sanctuaries, so the results are not still statistically significant. Well, I will talk to you about the results, the general results, the main results that I have found in opener and temples of the Iberian culture. When I study a site, I measure the orientation of the buildings, of the remains, but also I measure the horizon. With the purpose of seeing the relation of the building or of the sanctuary with the astronomical context, in the sense of where the rising of the celestial bodies or their setting occurs. In relation with the orientation of the temples, I have found that most of them are oriented to the east. Here we can see the 360 degrees of the horizon and each line represents one temple. They are oriented mostly to the east. You can see several crazy orientations. But most of them, I have to say that most of them correspond to second entrances, to buildings that have two entrances. One of them is oriented to the general custom to be oriented to the east, and the other one is oriented to the perpendicular. This is a correspond to the arc of the horizon where the sunrise takes place. The sunrise cannot take place at a few points of the horizon. As you know, it is restricted to an area. This represents that area. We can compare with the orientation patterns of temples of contemporary cultures in the western Mediterranean. We can see that Roman temples are normally oriented in a random form. Orientations from the Pruskans have a special orientation to the south half. The Greek also is quite random but concentrated to the east. We can see here Greek temples in the Magna Grecia and Sicily are also concentrated to the east. Also, Greek temples from North Africa. This is very interesting because the Roman temples dedicated to Saturn in North Africa are also oriented the same pattern. What's the meaning of this? Is it because in North Africa the Roman temples are dedicated to Saturn but normally the previous Punic temples are dedicated to Bahamon? You can see that the Iberian custom of orientation is similar to this one. With respect to the horizon that surrounds Iberian temples I have found a very striking result that is that almost half of them show equinoxial markers in their horizon. What does it mean? This is that the sunrise at Equinox, or very close to the equinox, is produced to a particular, a singular point of the horizon. Normally a mountain peak, for example. Here we can see a very stringing place. This is the remains, the very few remains of a wall of an Iberian sanctuary that is in a hill just up on the coast. You can see one of the walls that remain that is oriented to this isle. This is the isle of Benidorm. Many of you would know that. If you are there at the sanctuary in the morning of Equinox you will see that the sun rises just up. This is very stringing, and you can see also this marker and also the orientation of the temple. There are several other very stringing cases. This is one in El Amarejo where the sun of the Equinox makes its appearance here and is escalating in the south slope of the mountain just only in the Equinox. These are other cases. You can see orientation of walls in sacred spaces and Equinox taking place in the top of mountains. What about the caves? As I said before, I have only studied seven caves. Two of them do not show at least for me any astronomical relation, but five of them yes. Three of them are caves which are deeper than the size of the entrance. They can be considered caves. The other two are rocky shelters that are not deep. These three caves show stringing solar illumination phenomena, as we will see, and the rocky shelters have similarities with the open-air isberian sanctuaries because they show astronomical markers in the horizon. This is the first one that I studied with Herm. It's in the Cueva de la Lovera, one important Iberian sanctuary. We can see that there is an entrance at the north and this is very important because this is the western window of the cave and there are indications that the shape of this window was manipulated in the past. It was altered by Herm May. By Herm Mannheim. Yes, the important thing here, the important astronomical thing here is that just at the moment of the sunset when the sun is reaching the horizon at the equinoxes, the patch of light projected by the western window catches the innermost part of the cave. That coincides with a lot of holes all over this side. It may well reproduce in a particular shape in the patch of light. We can discuss about that, but this is not of the time. This is only produced at equinox. We can see that the patch of light is red and this is a very rapid phenomenon and we understand it as a erophyll because it might be related with a dramatization of the ritual. We told about that in the paper. This is another example. I called it Cueva de la Narita, but Susana told it Umbria de Salchito. We have some problems with the name. This cave is very spectacular because it has two main galleries like the galleries of the nose. There are two parallel galleries of the same name. We visited it. We noticed that at least the northern gallery was on the main axis, at least 20 meters long or more. I don't remember exactly. The gallery is oriented to the sunset at the winter. We were there at the moment of the sunset at that particular moment of the year and we can see from the innermost part of the cave you can see that the sun is setting perfectly at the middle of the abbey. At this point in the innermost part of the cave you can see this. There is a rock basin that normally collects the water from up to the spring that is in the interior of the cave and it has been manipulated. You can see here an artificial canal manipulated basin that collects the water. Just at the last sun rays of the day of the winter solstice you can see during a few seconds half a minute you can see tangential rays illuminating the surface of the water. You can understand that it gives a lot of... Well, it seems that to be a dramatization is something that could be very full of senses or full of information for the people seeing this. A third example is in Cueva Santa del Cabriol. This is the last one that I have studied with Sonia and this is very spectacular also because this is still a place of worship. It's still... It's now a Catholic sanctuary dedicated to the Virgin Mary but it was used as a Iberian sanctuary and also perhaps it was used even before in the Calculative and the Bronze Age. The main point of this is that the main entrance of the cave is the 12-meter long corridor is oriented perfectly to the summer source distance. You can see here a very tiny part of the horizon. This is the photographs of the illumination of the main gallery with the sun entering through the horizon and the last slides will be dedicated to the rocky shelters. I have said that they show astronomical markers similar to the open air sanctuaries as in the case of Cueva del Reymoro that we find equinoctial and substitution markers in the horizon and especially here in Cueva Negra in Fortuna, Colombia we have found the shelter is located to the south but we can see here a very particular mountain and if we measure the mountain we can find that the sunrise at 27 March should take place over that hill the mountain but this cave, this cave sanctuary in Roman times was plenty of inscriptions painted in inscriptions and in three of them the only thing that is indicated in the exhibition is six calendars of release it would correspond perfectly with 27 March if they were painted the exhibitions were painted in the first century AD which is a result which is consistent with the aesthetic chronology of the inscriptions this is a quite interesting result ok and that's my last slide well all the results indicate the importance of the results if it's an equinox in the Iberian reed what they should have at least a concept of quite the precision of the year at least how many or several reeds were related with this important part of the solar calendar the caves tend to be oriented to the west this is in contrast with the normal custom of the sun opener and then those sanctuaries that are oriented to the east in the caves there are evidences of manipulation of elements perhaps for the dramatization of the reed wall of the phenomenon of light and shadow inside the cave also the small the small size of the caves indicate that these phenomena these performances were restricted only for a small number of people restricted perhaps of passages or something and sanctuaries in rocky shelters show astronomical markers in a similar way than open air sanctuaries and there it seems that rocky shelters and caves should have differences in the reed wall this is something that we should study in the future thank you very much