I’m Autistic

I’m Autistic. There….I said it! It is out in the open. Ready for the world to see and read. Now is the time to take a deep breath.

Let me take some time to explain why that is important.

Not knowing about this before has cost businesses, business relationships and personal relationships. Whilst they are in the past, they are cherished and there are many lessons to take in order to move forwards.

I hold my hands up and also apologise for a self-enforced social media hiatus that has lasted from September 2019 up until now.

For a while I have struggled with various things in life. Communication, eye contact, liking things done in a certain way and at a certain time. Various external pressures from a lot of people lead me to have a breakdown in November 2019.

That had a knock on affect with friends, family and business partners.

Changes were made and I knew that I had to seek this diagnosis out for the benefit or those around me and also for my own personal benefit.

I made a promise on The Property Nomads Podcast and to myself that I would get an official diagnosis.

My communication with you has been poor. It should have been explained in a better way and you should have been kept up to date with everything that was going on.

To be honest, and we have all been there at somepoint, I just did not want to face the world or indeed face myself. What has happened has happened. As individuals, we are who we are and we should be comfortable with that.

We live in our own skin every day and if you do not like the person that you have become then you have to ask questions of yourself and make some changes.

For me, those changes are gradual and now is finding a balance between that mindset of ‘you can achieve everything that you want to achieve’ and ‘if I am genetically wired in a certain way then will that change’. As you can see, both at complete different ends of the spectrum (pardon the pun but I did laugh whilst writing that)

My top 3 tips for my experiences over the last 7 months are:

1. Do not suffer in silence. Tell peope (that you implicitly trust) about your situation and work with each other on it.
2. Seek professional help as well. If you are not well or think that you have mental challenges or are genetically wired in a different way then seek help in order to get answers
3. Be yourself

Being yourself is important. I know that I will get flustered if I have too much on at the same time. Too many things, too many people, too much pressue all at the same time is not good for me.

Aaron Devoy (new co-host of The Property Nomads Podcast) is excellent at dealing with a multitude of things.

We, at The Property Nomads Podcast, are working on many new things. We will make sure that we are better at consistently communicating with you.

Thank you to you for your support. It means a lot and I hope that this news may help to shed some light on things as well.

Rob Smallbone