Five Years After Lockdown: How It Changed Neurodivergent Lives

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Neurodivergent Experience

Episode: Five Years After Lockdown: How It Changed Neurodivergent Lives
Hosts: Jordan James & Simon Scott
Date: November 27, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode reflects on the five-year anniversary of the COVID-19 lockdown and its enduring impact on neurodivergent individuals. Hosts Jordan and Simon discuss personal and societal changes, the unexpected positives, the deep challenges, and the evolving landscape for autistic and ADHD people. With a mix of humor and honesty, they unpack how the pandemic period fundamentally rewired mental health, social norms, and individual identity, especially for people on the spectrum.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Personal Updates & Setting the Stage

• Simon shares he may soon be adopting an elderly puggle, bringing his home companionship and more routine.
• The hosts discuss upcoming plans to visit Liverpool and start early Christmas celebrations, revealing a tone of friendship and informal banter.
• Opens with playful remarks about holiday traditions and shared personal quirks, establishing the authentic, conversational tone that continues throughout.

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The Five-Year Mark: Societal Shifts Post-Lockdown (04:27)

• Recognizing the Anniversary:
  • “It’s five years since COVID…and I have to admit, it doesn’t live five years ago in my head.” (Jordan, 04:27)
• Lingering Effects:
  • The hosts note how some days the pandemic feels recent, others it’s like it never happened, highlighting a sense of temporal dislocation.
• Social & Mental Health Fallout:
  • Not just neurodivergent kids – many young people now have difficulty with real-life communication due to formative years spent isolated.
  • Simon observes “people are feral now, dude…there is something that has changed with people and ironically, it is almost like a failure of social skills…” (Simon, 07:11)
  • Noted behavioral shifts include impatience, selfishness (“me first attitude”), and a decline in empathy.
• Skill Regression in Young Adults:
  • Simon relates working with young people now: “It’s literally like it’s their first day on earth...a serious skill regression that you guys have gone through socially…” (Simon, 09:35)

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Revisiting the Lockdown Timeline & Government Response (10:39)

• Jordan walks through the stages of UK lockdown, from March 2020 closures to phased reopenings and “eat out to help out.”
• Both hosts critique the government’s handling and frequent policy shifts.
  • “The fact is the government were incompetent. They were responsible for thousands of deaths, in my opinion, especially in the care home situation, that was awful.” (Jordan, 15:11)
• Personal moments of anxiety, uncertainty about livelihoods, and the balancing act between health and financial security.
  • “I lost my job overnight, dude…March 6, I was actually on my way to a theater to sign a contract…That building doesn’t even exist now.” (Simon, 14:39)

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Living Through Lockdown: Neurodivergence, Burnout, and Unmasking (21:16)

• Identity Crisis and Unmasking:
  • Simon’s "long burnout" began with lockdown: his social, professional, and romantic identities unraveled, forcing him to confront his neurodivergence.
  • “As soon as all of it stopped, so did my ties to sort of my identity and I started to unmask…” (Simon, 22:36)
  • Couples spending unusually intense time together, leading to relationships fracturing or strengthening.
• Difficult Relationships:
  • Simon: “She was really ableist with me…she could not understand who the hell I was.” (Simon, 23:05)
  • His experience highlight the unique challenge of unmasking in an environment where one’s partner lacks awareness or empathy.
• Coping Mechanisms:
  • Gaming, creative pursuits (podcasting!), and leaning into childhood interests became essential regulation and escape.

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Positive Family Experiences Amid External Chaos (31:03)

• “But in this house, Sylvie and I especially, we loved it…we just, we were with each other every single day, just all the time.” (Jordan, 31:19)
• Jordan reflects on paradox: the world felt apocalyptic, but home was happy, validating the diversity of neurodivergent experience during lockdown.

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The Need for Routine, Sense of Justice, and Social Conflict (34:38)

• Jordan discusses his heightened sensitivity to fairness and frustration seeing others break lockdown rules.
• Simon recounts experiencing and witnessing increased aggression, racism, and injustice:
  • “I was so, so angry that somebody would do that to just somebody that they were just walking past…” (Simon, 38:13)
  • Both hosts reflect how societal breakdowns around justice and empathy were exacerbated in an already traumatic time.
• Broader societal discourse enters (Brexit, Trump, racism in the UK) — demonstrating the intersectionality of pandemic fallout.

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Regression, Accomplishments, and the Rise of Online Community (43:19)

• Skill Loss and Social Shrinkage:
  • Simon: “Once lockdown ended...I almost didn’t know how to anymore. I’d gotten so used to being indoors and working from home that my world just...shrunk.” (Simon, 44:37)
• Creativity and Connection in Isolation:
  • Simon: “I started doing a podcast...It was one of the best things I’ve ever done.”
  • Many built tighter, more meaningful connections with select friends/family, lost more casual social links.
  • Shared activities (board games, Mario Kart) became crucial for family bonding.

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Masks, OCD, and Pandemic Behaviors (45:49)

• Frustrations about misusing masks, improper hygiene, and low public understanding of virus transmission.
  • “Some people are just dumb, dude.” (Jordan, 46:07)
  • Both hosts confess to heightened germ aversion and share anecdotes of public hygiene missteps.

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Lockdown as a Catalyst for Neurodivergent Self-Discovery (54:57)

• Simon’s ‘Autistic Enlightenment’:
  • Pre-pandemic, he suspected ADHD (“the entry level drug of neurodivergence”) but didn’t see himself as autistic.
  • “That was the beginning of a burnout that lasted until pretty much the middle of 2022...My social skills just completely disappeared. This is the first time I ever recognized skill regression.” (Simon, 55:04)
  • Lockdown’s forced isolation pushed him to unmask, rediscover childhood stims/interests, cope with skill regression, and ultimately embrace a new self-understanding.
• Positive Yet Painful Transformation:
  • Despite immense challenges, Simon came out with a fuller sense of self: “I moved up to Manchester. I split up with my ex. I changed my job...It was a forced reset. And I’m so grateful for it.” (Simon, 63:31)

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Society’s Transformation & The Remote Revolution (67:28)

• Permanent Societal Change:
  • Explosion in creative self-employment (podcasts, streaming, TikTok careers).
  • Jordan: “You can be a superstar on social media...it is a legitimate job in the future.” (Jordan, 70:15)
• Work-from-Home as a Neurodivergent Lifeline:
  • “The biggest and best thing that has changed fundamentally within society for neurodivergent people is the ability to work remotely.” (Jordan, 75:17)
  • Remote work enables many (including Jordan’s own kids) to avoid the intense daily masking required by traditional offices — improving mental health and job access.

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Societal Fallout & The "Me First" Attitude (63:54 & Onward)

• Simon and Jordan agree social divisions, phone addiction, and selfishness have escalated post-pandemic — but hope for eventual rebalancing.
  • “During the height of COVID it was like the opposite. Everyone was helping everyone else...and then as soon as COVID finishes, everyone’s like, right, now, it’s all about me.” (Jordan, 65:30)
• The pandemic’s legacy is ongoing, especially for the neurodivergent — its mental health effects will take decades to fully understand.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It kind of feels...Some days it feels like it was further ago, like we just forgotten about it. And some days it literally feels like it was the other day.”
  – Jordan James (04:27)

• “People are feral now, dude...ironically, it is almost like a failure of social skills.”
  – Simon Scott (07:11)

• “It was the beginning of my long burnout. That’s what COVID caused for me.”
  – Simon Scott (21:16)

• “As soon as everything that sort of tied to that identity of, oh, you live in London...as soon as all of it stopped, so did my ties to sort of my identity and I started to unmask in front of my ex and our relationship completely fell apart.”
  – Simon Scott (22:36)

• “In this house, it was a really happy time...Sylvie and I especially, we loved it...It’s such a paradox.”
  – Jordan James (31:19)

• “I look back on it now, and that was the beginning of a burnout that lasted until...the middle of 2022...my social skills just completely disappeared.”
  – Simon Scott (55:04)

• “The biggest and best thing...is the ability to work remotely...my kids don’t have to [mask in the office].”
  – Jordan James (75:17)

• “It made me realize that the character that I was playing is not who I am. I am who I am now.”
  – Simon Scott (63:02)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• 05:00 — The social and mental fallout of lockdown
• 10:39 — Lockdown timeline and critique of government response
• 21:16 — Beginnings of burnout; unraveling of identity
• 31:03 — Contradictions of joy and fear within one household
• 43:19 — Social regression and post-lockdown challenges
• 54:57 — Simon’s journey to neurodivergent self-discovery
• 67:28 — The rise of remote work, social creators, and shifting job markets
• 75:17 — Remote work as a positive pandemic legacy for neurodivergents

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Tone & Language

The hosts maintain a warm, conversational, and candid style, blending deep vulnerability with humor and frank, relatable storytelling. Their language is direct, emotionally honest, sometimes irreverent, and always accessible—ensuring validation as well as practical insight for listeners.

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Conclusion & Listener Call-to-Action

The hosts close by inviting listeners to share their own stories about how the COVID lockdown changed their lives, especially regarding neurodivergence, identity, and long-term adjustment. They underscore that, while the challenges have been significant, new opportunities and understandings have also emerged, particularly for the neurodivergent community.

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Useful for new listeners:

• This episode is both a personal memoir and a thoughtful social analysis, connecting individual experiences to larger trends.
• Key themes include: social skill regression, unmasking, changing careers, rise of remote work, and shifting societal attitudes.
• The dynamic between the hosts—balancing humor with hard truths—makes for an engaging, validating exploration of the neurodivergent experience in a post-pandemic world.

Transcript

[Simon Scott]

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[Jordan James]

Welcome to the Neurodiver Experience Podcast. A podcast where we share the lived experiences of neurodivergent people to help create a better understanding for our community.

[Simon Scott]

Join us every week as we bring you honest, raw and inspiring conversations with specialists, advocates and individuals who know exactly what it's like to live the neurodivergent experience.

[Jordan James]

I'm Jordan James, a neurodivergent specialist, father of neurodivergent children, husband to a neurodivergent wife, and author of the Autistic Experience. And I'm joined by my best friend, I'm Simon Scott.

[Simon Scott]

I'm an autistic ADHD broadcaster, actor and advocate. Join us as we journey into unraveling the neurodivergent experience.

[Jordan James]

Hello and welcome back everybody. Scotty, how are you doing?

[Simon Scott]

Hello my friend. Do you know what? I'm I'm very, very good. I've had some rather fun developments with my life potentially this week. By the time this show comes around for the listener, not when we're recording it, but when the listener hears it. I may have adopted a dog.

[Jordan James]

It's very cute.

[Simon Scott]

It's very cute.

[Jordan James]

She's very.

[Simon Scott]

Yeah, no, she is. She's very, very cute. So she's a. An eight year old puggle which is a mix between a pug and a beagle. And there's none of the like the breathing things. I've been to meet her, she is such a little loaf of bread. She is so chilled and yeah, we're very, very excited to potentially be bringing her into our home. So you're coming up this Weekend to see me in Liverpool. So by the time this comes out, we'll have already hung out and been to the Beatles museum and hung out with the boys. So that's excited about.

[Jordan James]

I can't wait to drive up.

[Simon Scott]

Yeah, that'll be a lot of fun.

[Jordan James]

Go to Liverpool, go to Christmas fair. Fair market. Christmas market, yeah, whatever. Start Christmas early. We've already got our decorations up.

[Simon Scott]

Oh, have you? If you have had a premature tree jackulation. Have you?

[Jordan James]

Yeah, like I said, ever since last year and I put a post out about December being the start of Christmas and people were like, don't yuck my yum. And I was like, oh, okay, yeah.

[Simon Scott]

It would be don't yuck my yule.

[Jordan James]

I think, but I don't like you anymore.

[Simon Scott]

So yes, by the time the listener hears this, you and I will have hung out. We'll have been big spoon, little spoon in my spare room or Sylvia will be on the sofa. We'll have been to the Beatles museum and I may have a dog. So it's been a big sort of whirlwind sort of decision, but I feel really good about it. I'm really sort of excited to, to. To give this little dog a home and give it a lot of love. And to be honest, bro, like, even though I have like a lot of friends and I'm still super social, I am a home bird and I do get a bit lonely. So sort of having the companion of a dog I think will bring a bit of something to my life that's missing like a bit of responsibility, if I'm honest. Get me out of the house, force me to go out for walks and things like that. So I'm hoping, fingers crossed, it's going to be a really big positive thing.

[Jordan James]

Yeah. And as they get older, there will be a lot more poop and pee and vet bills. So good luck with that.

[Simon Scott]

Thank you for your realism, my friend. I always need a good thank you for yucking on my yule. So what are we talking about this week?

[Jordan James]

Well, I keep being reminded somehow that it's five years since COVID Jesus, it's five years since COVID And I have to admit, it doesn't live five years ago. In my head. It. It kind of. It kind of feels. Some days it feels like it was further ago, like we just forgotten about it. And some days it literally feels like it was the other day because it was just such a monumental event in.

[Simon Scott]

Our lives that it was wild, wasn't it really?

[Jordan James]

And it has fundamentally changed society as we Know it and it. And we're now seeing the, the results of the, the mental health and the social aspect of that lockdown and how long it lasted. And it's not, it's not good. There's a lot of kids that, that grew up in that time that are now. It's not just neurodivergent kids, it's loads of kids in general who are just really bad at communicating in real life.

[Simon Scott]

Oh, yeah. And it happened at such like a peak time for so many people that. Wasn't your son meant to be at uni during that?

[Jordan James]

Yeah, he never actually went into uni. He did. He did his entire degree online. He never had the uni experience. And obviously last. Last week's hot topic about COVID giving us autism, I'm just wondering as like, on, in like a completely fun, definitely not factual way, did Covid give everybody, like, autistic social anxiety symptoms without them being autistic? Do you know what I mean? Like, they're.

[Simon Scott]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes a lot of sense, you know?

[Jordan James]

Yeah. So it's not like, oh, it caused autism or adhd, but there's a lot of, like, stereotypical symptoms of loneliness, bad with communication, easily distracted. Those things are happening to neurotypicals and a lot of people are saying, oh, that's a symptom of autism, ADHD or so on and so forth. And I, I'm wondering, are like, a lot of people who are experiencing this, who didn't experience this before COVID Is it because of COVID because of the lockdown itself? Because I don't. We're not going to talk about the, the COVID disease with that. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the lockdown, how the lockdown affected us. So that's. That. That's what we really, really want to focus on, the mental health of the lockdown itself.

[Simon Scott]

Yeah, because I've, I've experienced this in the. After the lockdown. You know, I was working in podcasting full time in radio and then essentially had a, an unforeseen job change with a project that sort of fell through and I had to go and work in a bar for a bit. And people are feral now, dude. Like, there is something that has changed with people and ironically, it is almost like a failure of social skills, which is. I totally agree with you in that. Obviously you could view that as sort of if an uneducated perspective on like an autistic trait, really. But I have noticed that obviously in this country, in the uk we have a queuing culture for our American friends. We love a good queue. We will find a queue and we'll stand in it for a while.

[Jordan James]

No, I find a queue and run away.

[Simon Scott]

Run away. Caris is exactly the same like any. If we're looking forward to doing anything and she sees a queue, I have to like really get through a demand avoidance to really get it to be like just, let's just chill out in the queue. Honestly, dude, people became very rude in the. I noticed that so many people just stopped caring about just like being empathetic or had manners and everybody went into like survival mode. But I vividly remember when I was trying to. I was in a supermarket during COVID I was in like a little Tesco Express in the high street in London that I lived in and a guy tried to grab my shopping as I left and sort of had to like wrestle food off of him. And that is sort of an energy I feel like still exists in that people are a bit more sort of like resource guarding.

[Jordan James]

Oh, it's. There's definitely a me first attitude.

[Simon Scott]

Yeah, there is like a selfishness that has appeared. Like I've noticed people be really rude to me. I've noticed people have a lot less patience people and I know that we always seem to come back to this, but people on the road got so much worse. Like people have become real dicks of like I don't give a damn about anybody else. I've really, really noticed that energy. And yeah, it's not been very helpful for anybody. Like as somebody who sort of has like a naturally anxious disposition and I'm. I am a fauna by nature. I have just gotten out of the way of a lot of people post lockdown. Especially like when I've gone on like me gone out for meals or anything like that. It's like everybody is sort of just down tools with empathy but also like with effort. Like there's certain kids that I worked with but that I suppose would be like sort of in your son's generation, like those that didn't quite go to uni, that were just sort of at home. And there was a handful of kids that I've worked with that are in their very early twenties now and it's literally like it's their first day on earth. Like having to sort of like explain certain things to them with work or just like sort of like simple routines that happen. And I was like, wow, this is like a serious skill regression that you guys have gone through socially in the. I would ask Somebody to send an email whether they're neurotypical or not and they just freak out. Just wouldn't know what to do. And I don't know whether that's just sort of maybe that person, but I feel like I've noticed it loads and loads where I'm just meeting people where they're massively selfish but also they don't really know how to do anything anymore. They're just sort of like, oh well, sod it, somebody else will deal with it.

[Jordan James]

Yeah, I don't know. I, I have to make like. Like the selfish thing is, is definitely concerning. But let's let me talk you through the, the timeline because I, I find it's like good to just sort of re refresh our experience.

[Simon Scott]

So great.

[Jordan James]

Like content warning. I'm going to talk about how it all went down. So obviously Covid started in the end of 2019 but England officially entered the lockdown on the 23rd of March 2020, obviously. And then by the 1st of June, so March, April, May, all of that time not until June, then there was phased reopening of schools which I still think was a huge mistake.

[Simon Scott]

Yeah, me too.

[Jordan James]

And I, I think that as I go through these, you can just see mistake after mistake after mistake that leads to the inevitability of the November lockdown, which we are now five years from. So 15th of June, non essential shops reopen nationally. Could you remember what like. Yeah, I'll get onto that in a second. It's just, it's just like the whole non essential and I'm like I, I did. Yeah, we'll talk about that in a second.

[Simon Scott]

That was like the, the whole like eat out to help out era, wasn't it? Where it was like don't leave your homes unless you have to. But if you do go to a J of US pastor house, that would be great, you know, because the economy.

[Jordan James]

Yeah, we're getting the economy back in. So yeah, the 23rd of June, I've added this in. The incompetent Prime Minister announces relaxing of restrictions and 2 meter social distancing rules. Which is like 6ft, wasn't it? Now I'll talk about this a bit later, but I really missed that so much.

[Simon Scott]

I had a guy stood so close behind me in the airport the other day and I was like, brother, just, just half a half a second back could just be great.

[Jordan James]

I start aggressive coughing. But anyway, fourth of July, further restrictions eased in England including reopening pubs, restaurants and hairdressers.

[Simon Scott]

I remember I went to go and get my haircut.

[Jordan James]

Sylvie was cutting my hair during it. But again, we'll talk about that in a second. I love it.

[Simon Scott]

I also had a Brit. I had a Britney moment as well.

[Jordan James]

I love getting ahead of myself. 14th of August, lockdown restrictions eased further including the reopening of indoor theaters, bowling alleys and soft play.

[Simon Scott]

Soft play. I remember it well. I went back to work.

[Jordan James]

Softly, softly, softly. 14th of September, rule of six introduced. So indoor and outdoor gatherings of over six band. Well, I still think six people is too many indoors, but okay. 22nd of September, 10:00pm curfew for hospitality, sex is introduced and prime minister advises a return to working from home. Okay. 14th of October, three tier system of COVID 19 restrictions start in England and 5th of November November England in the second national lockdown. It just, it was inevitable. Like at the end of the day it was, it, it was such a hard thing to watch because you, you saw the impact that the disease was having on people's health which was, was awful, just tragic.

[Simon Scott]

I know a lot of people that.

[Jordan James]

Died actually I also do. And it was so scary. But at the same time people's futures and livelihoods were in the balance.

[Simon Scott]

I lost my job overnight, dude. Like I had like multiple jobs at the time. But I remember March 6, I was actually on my way to a theater to sign a contract that I was so excited about having this like residency job. It was what I'd been working towards for a few years and I got turned around because the person that was no hiring me had got covered. I never even went back, dude. That building doesn't even exist now. Like it completely put my entire life on hold. It was scary.

[Jordan James]

The fact is the government were incompetent. They, they, they were responsible for thousands of deaths. In, in my opinion, especially in the care home situation, that, that was awful. So I think coming from my own perspective, because that's all I can really speak about for me just the anxiety of not only what was going to happen for Sylvia and her job because she's a dental nurse and of course that was non essential at the beginning, whereas my job was essential. And it's to do with where I work in the security industry. I basically look after a building and that building needed to be looked after. I don't really talk about my job, it's very, very boring. But essentially, and I really wish this wasn't the case, I had to go to work because security, you know, people break into buildings and that building needed security so that you, you've got to go and do your job. Yeah, so that's, that's why I actually just carried on regardless, as it were. You know, I wasn't a hero working for the NHS or working for the fire brigade or the police. Those, those people were incredible, you know, putting their lives on the line. Yeah, I was just working in a data center, you know, it's. But it was considered essential, so off I went.

[Simon Scott]

Yeah, I had exactly the same thing. I was technically a key worker because I was working in news at the time and I reported on, you know, like the NHS applaud thing that used to happen on a Thursday night. That used to work on my shift times. I used to go into a building, dude, and run radio shows where people were recording. Like we're doing now, broadcasting from home. It's kind of where I learned how to do it and sort of would just be in this like, glass studio on my own PPE up to the nines. And I was going and doing that three, four times a week. But my girlfriend at the time was working in the West End. I was also working in the West End. Unlike my other days, we both lost our jobs. We went home, we didn't get furloughed, we just had no jobs and we had no money. And it was so, so frightening because we were like this entire industry that we've sort of built our lives around, not only is completely gone, we don't know if it's going to come back because so many shows are sort of floated on debt. We were like, if they're not making money, we don't even know if they're going to reopen. And a lot of them didn't. Like, there were so many people that we were friends with that lost their jobs and had career changes because they didn't know what else to do.

[Jordan James]

Yeah, it was, it was crazy because I think the, the, the things that, that we had to mentally cope with, I think that that was, that was really, really like bringing us down as a family. Because especially with the kids, they, they couldn't see any of their friends, they couldn't go out and do things. And it's, it certainly has affected. Well, it did affect them for many years after them being neurodivergent. I wasn't like, as advanced in my knowledge now. It was very, very much at the beginning of my journey. I literally started posting and becoming an advocate in 2019. And then, so it's only about a year really. And then obviously that's when I started posting and then there was. It progressed me becoming an Advocate. And, and that didn't happen until much later in 2019 because at first it was just about the photography and I just wanted to, you know, meet people and it was that I. There were so many people had approached me towards the end of 2019, beginning of 2020 of thing projects they wanted to do like charities and, and like some people wanted to help me with my photography, some people wanted me to help them with their understanding of autism and stuff like that. And I had all these plans and genuinely I do, I do wonder because at the beginning of it I, I wanted to be a full time photographer. I was like, that's. I don't want to be working in security, I want to be a full time photographer. I, I would love to be a speaker, you know, I would love to be an advocate and a speaker. And people were saying no, like this is so good. And obviously I'd started doing school talks and things like that and then it just all stopped. It all stopped. And I didn't stop. I carried on on Facebook as best I could. I started doing talks online. I did a bit of coaching, helping people, but wasn't. I wasn't very good at it. I knew I wasn't very good at it. So I gave them all their money back because I felt really bad. I was like, I'm just, this isn't for me and I'm really sorry and here's your money back. And. But you know, I was trying to do different things because I was sort of desperate to get out of my job. But like I massively appreciated my job because it was keeping us afloat. Like I still was able to go in, I was still able to work. It didn't have any effect on that. It was just home life was very, very different. Like, how was it for you?

[Simon Scott]

Well, it was the beginning of my long burnout. That's what, that's what Covid caused for me. And it really sort of, it peeled back the mask in a way that I look back on now. Is life changing. But at the time I was working in radio, I decided that I wanted to go into theater full time to become a sound designer. All of that was sort of laid out in front of me like I had a plan and the plan was happening. I could see it all happening. And I was literally about to move into the next phase. And I'd worked so hard to become a resident sound designer in an off West End theater. I was living my dream and I was with somebody at the time who I thought was person for me. And as soon as everything that sort of tied to that identity of, oh, you live in London and you have a nice apartment with a view of the London eye and you have this great job and you have a girlfriend that works in the same sort of field and we're becoming like in the theater scene and socialites and all of this sort of thing. And then as soon as all of it stopped, so did like my ties to sort of my identity and I started to unmask in front of my ex and our relationship completely fell apart.

[Jordan James]

It happened.

[Simon Scott]

Just completely fell apart, dude. Like everything fell apart.

[Jordan James]

I saw this a lot. Is that, that, that when. When couples ended up having to spend so much time together just like all the time. Especially when both were furloughed and it was. And you were stuck indoors and. Yeah, we got separate houses.

[Simon Scott]

We never used to spend more than two, three hours a day with each other.

[Jordan James]

Exactly. A lot of shit came out of the closet.

[Simon Scott]

Tough dude. Because like suddenly I then had an ex girlfriend. That was not. It was. I look back on it now and I don't really have any like ill will towards her, but she was really ableist with me. Like really ableist with me because as I was unmasking and sort of, I'd gone from being somebody that lived out of a backpack, constantly on the, on the move for nine years, to suddenly just being at home. I. I unmasked. And she could not understand who the hell I was. And then I realized a couple of months in, I didn't like her. I actually didn't like her as a person. I liked the idea of who she was and how she fit into my life and the sort of idea that we gave to people as a couple. But when I actually started spending one on one time with her, I realized that it wasn't that she was a bad person. We just had very different outlooks on like the, the deep side of life. Like, and I look back on it now, I realize she's autistic and she had a lot of internalized ableism she was dealing with. But then she would project it onto me also. And it just caused so many issues, dude. So, so many issues. Like I would be at home wanting to play Call of Duty Warzone with my friends and she'd be like, do you need to play a video game for more than an hour? Which during COVID was hard, hard work. Like she, she made life really hard because she was constantly like, you know, we need more money, we need more this, we need more that, we need more this. And we. That was when we suddenly started having arguments and it became bad. Like it was a horrible sort of environment to be in for me. And we were both deeply unhappy and running out of money. She thought her career was completely over. And because she was from a different country as well, she couldn't go home and see her family, who were then struggling with long term Covid illnesses as well. So she had extreme homesickness. We're both really angry at the world and we just took lumps out of each other, dude, it was like being in a boxing ring every single day. We just character assassinated each other because we were both unmasking and didn't know what the hell was happening. It was just so odd that I went from being a super social, pick up the phone, ring anybody sort of person to needing to be convinced to even go to the shops. Like, I was scared to just go and get milk. And before that, dude, I was like a freaking, you know, socialite warrior. I just used to just talk to and be anybody. And suddenly I would even struggle to just go and knock on my neighbor's door to ask for something. And I just completely skill regressed socially. And she didn't understand it, I didn't understand it, and we just started blaming each other. And it was. It was awful. It was so, so toxic. But then again, at the same time, I started a podcast talking about football with two friends, and I learned how to make podcasts during COVID And that was the best thing that I have, I've ever done in my life because it's. It's brought me to you, it's brought me to my job and all of these amazing people that I speak to genuinely every single day now. It's built my world. And a lot of people, especially, like, my ex was like, well, now we've got all of this time, so we're gonna see what people are really about, like, what they do with their time. You know, like, are you gonna be productive or are you just gonna forget to clean your teeth for a week? And I started doing a podcast. But then at the same time, she was like, do you not think you could do something more productive with your time? So it was like this constant, like.

[Jordan James]

Yeah, nothing was ever good.

[Simon Scott]

Nothing was right. So it was like this constant battle. And it was all because she was so scared that she was in a different country, miles away from her family. And I totally have empathy with that. But then at the same time, like, we made the mistake of, of getting a dog, like so many people did during COVID And then when our relationship ended, we had to sort of figure that out and it was all like, I just made so many mistakes because I was trying to be the person that I was in 2019, in 2020. And that when Covid happened, everything that tied me to that identity died and I just went into like burnout freefall. It was a really weird time.

[Jordan James]

I really want to delve into, like how you first started understanding that you were neurodivergent and if that had anything to do with that time. But let's have a break and then we can, we can dive in a little bit deeper because I can also talk about how it affected Sylvia and I.

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[Simon Scott]

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[Simon Scott]

This is a neurodivergent experience. Public Announcement if you live in England and you or a loved one is waiting for an autism or ADHD assessment, you don't have to wait years. RTN Diagnostics is now part of the NHS Right to Choose scheme, which means if your local wait for a consultant led autism or ADHD assessment is more than 18 weeks, you can choose RTN instead and it won't cost you a penny. Jordan chose RTN for his own family because their care and attention to detail were second to none. They didn't just diagnose autism and adhd, they Looked at the full picture, including pda, ocd, anxiety and more. The team is friendly, neuroaffirming and comprises many neurodivergent individuals, so they truly understand getting started is simple. Download the GP referral letter and questionnaire from the link in our show notes. Take those to your GP and ask for a referral to RTN diagnostics. If approved, RTN will be in touch within eight weeks to begin your assessment. Remember, this only applies in England and some exclusions do apply. RTN is not currently able to accept referrals for child ADHD assessments, so check the details before you start RTN diagnostics, helping you get the answers you deserve without the weight. Welcome back to the neurodivergent experience. We've been having a real blast from the past. Remember that really naff thing that happened a couple of years ago? Like the COVID lockdowns? Well, what an effect that had on autistic people, especially unmasked, undiagnosed. No clue they were neurodivergent autistic people, because that is when my journey to where I am today sort of began. That's when I started doing the research and, and figuring out who I was in that time. So I've given a little bit about sort of how it unlocked for me, but I'm interested. Obviously, you so newly into the world at the time and you were sort of figuring it out, what was the sort of effects that lockdown had on. On you and Sylvia as two unmasking people?

[Jordan James]

Well, it was really interesting, actually, because we were surrounded by essentially death. You know, just like putting it bluntly, that that's what Kovid was. It was death, but death was in the air.

[Simon Scott]

It was really scary.

[Jordan James]

It was so scary. But in this house, it was a really happy time. And, and it's, it's. It's such a paradox that I'd go outside or turn the TV on and it was like just the worst. Everything was so 28 days later. It was so, so bad. But then in this house, Sylvia and I especially, we loved it because she was home all the time. And because the way my shift patterns work, I get, you know, like a big load of days off, so I might work six in a row, then I have six off, so I'd have like weeks off. And obviously you take holiday as well in that time. And we just, we were with each other every single day, just all the time. And, and it's like this. I think this is like the testament to how good a relationship that we had is that we Just didn't get on each other's nerves ever. That we just, we enjoyed it great. Yeah, we, we watched loads of TV together, we played loads of video games together. We would do regular board games on the back table with the kids.

[Simon Scott]

Oh, I had a. Me and my ex used to play a lot of board games. We'd play like chess and stuff every morning. And I read a lot of books. I watched loads of films that I had always wanted to watch. So like it was kind of an enriching time. Like it was. There were moments where I had a lot of fun.

[Jordan James]

Well, but I think a lot of people, because they had so much time on their hands, whether they wanted it or not, they like the more productive minded people that we have in our society, put that time into something productive. And I think, I think if I'm right, like there's a lot of people realize that they didn't like their jobs and they wanted to do something different. And, and, and in a way I do wonder if I, if I had been made to stay at home, if I had been furloughed and I'd had that extra time to concentrate on my career as a photographer. Obviously I, I couldn't really get out much. I could just walk to local parks and stuff, which I did. And I also, that's what got me into wildlife photography because before that I wasn't really into taking pictures of animals, which is a bit weird because I.

[Simon Scott]

Love animals, which I can't, I can't ever imagine you not being like that, if I'm honest.

[Jordan James]

Yeah, Right at the beginning I was all about landscapes. I was a landscape photographer. It was landscapes, landscapes, landscapes. But I, you know, I got into wildlife photography a lot more, you know, taking pictures of birds in my garden, you know, walking to the local woods, you know, because. Couldn't drive unless I was going to work or back. Because I was terrified of being struck by the place and like rightfully so. Because people shouldn't have been traveling. People places back of an Uber. There you go. But the other side of it is that I, that sense of justice that we have was just constantly being triggered.

[Simon Scott]

Yes.

[Jordan James]

Because I'd, I'd be out and I'd see kids in the park right in the middle of like the height of, of it being spread. Like when all those graphs they show were hitting the top of the graph of how terrible it was. There was kids in the park playing football with each other, like 10 of them.

[Simon Scott]

I had a lady run past me breathing really heavily once in Greenwich park. And I had a massive go at her. I was like, you're literally just breathing on everybody as you run past them. You selfish. Like, I had so many moments like that. We had one guy in our building who ran an Airbnb, and freaking 30 people turned up and had, like, a really big party, and I had to call the police. Nobody came. But, like. And that was the thing is, it was just so sort of. I had so many moments like that where I was like, you selfish.

[Jordan James]

I think it's the. It's so. It's so annoying when you're doing the right thing and you'll be like, okay, I'm doing the right thing. I'm doing what I should be doing. And then you just see people just being so blase about it, and you're just like, do you not understand that people are dying? It's not a really, really bad cold, this shit. And I know that flu kills you, but not like this. And then there was the online arguing. And of course, this is. This is the time where I was online. Very new to the whole social media thing. I was getting more and more popular, and that was very new to me. So I went from like, no one gives a about me to, like, there was thousands of people.

[Simon Scott]

What a time to find your voice.

[Jordan James]

Yeah, I know, right? But at the same time, I would fall out with friends that I had made over the. The George Floyd thing, you know, with the Black Lives Matter. Because. Because all of a sudden, you'd have these numpty fucks with the all lives Matter. And I was like, are you kidding me? Do you not understand why they're talking about why black lives matter? They're not saying black lives matter more. They're. They're saying black lives also asking for matter.

[Simon Scott]

Yeah.

[Jordan James]

Yeah. And it's like. It's like, we. We. I mean, the world already treats white people like they matter the most. And the whole point of that movement was the fact that, no, they don't. Everybody matters. So we had to talk about the ones that get ignored, which was people of color. But I would also do posts about neurodivergent people. Autistic people matter because autistic people were getting, like, forgotten about and not cared about.

[Simon Scott]

Well, there were so many people that took their own lives during this time.

[Jordan James]

Oh, dude.

[Simon Scott]

And I've. I heard and read about some of them, and it was awful. Like, I had one particular time. You know, it's the only time I've ever had a warning of a police officer. I was walking through London Bridge Station. Because that's where I worked, worked above there. And I saw a white guy spit at a black kid on the train. He took his mask down and he spat in his face.

[Jordan James]

Oh, my God. God.

[Simon Scott]

And the kid punched him. And literally eight police officers ran up and jumped on this kid. And I tried to pull them off of them. And I was like, you've literally got the wrong guy. And a police officer turned me around to put me up against the wall. And I explained it to him. And when I explained it to him, I says, why does it take a white guy to explain to you, to be, to listen? And, like, I had this whole sort of thing and I really got my, I could have got myself in a lot of bother sort of defending this kid, but my justice sensitivity, I just couldn't, I just couldn't see. I had to do something. I was just so, even thinking about it now is making me upset. I was so, so angry that somebody would do that to just somebody that they were just walking past. It was disgusting. But that was just sort of what I kept experiencing. I just kept experiencing all these people that were just going feral. They were just doing, like. And I think so much of it is tied as well to, like, Trump's presidency. I know that it came to an end after 2020, the first time, but this sort of attitude idea that develops around his sort of presidency, which is just, you can do whatever the fuck you want.

[Jordan James]

Yeah, literally. And it's. But the same thing happened with Brexit. It was because Brexit was fundamentally. I'm not saying everybody that voted for Brexit is racist. I'm not saying that. But fundamentally, at its core, it was, it was, it was immigration based in, in, on, on racism.

[Simon Scott]

Yeah.

[Jordan James]

In the exact same way that reform at its core is just racism. It just is. And, and I mean, people can argue all they like, but do you know.

[Simon Scott]

I have said to many, I guess.

[Jordan James]

Because it just is.

[Simon Scott]

I've said to many people that I know of voting reform, and I said to somebody recently, okay, you're not racist, but if you see people that are voting reform that are racist, call it out. Prove me wrong.

[Jordan James]

Yes, that.

[Simon Scott]

Prove me wrong.

[Jordan James]

Also do your research and look into the things they say, which is fundamentally, which is what our hot topic is about tomorrow. No spoilers. But it's, it's a very interesting one. But, yeah, so I, I, I would say that there, there was definitely a lot of good that happened for us personally, because it also meant that we spent more time as a family and I think before that we, we had kind of like the kids as they were getting old into those teenage years, they were obviously spending a lot more time with their friends outdoors, they were going around each other's houses. And it's not that I'm happy they couldn't do that. I'm not that selfish that I need my children next to me all day long. But it did feel like I was losing them, you know, And I put so much of my self worth into being a dad and being a good dad that when my kids started doing the usual teenage things that every kid does, and weirdly enough, a lot of neurodivergent kids don't do those things, but my kids were, they were blossoming socially, which is a huge deal when you look back at it, especially them being neurodivergent makes even bigger of a deal. But obviously I had that fomo, I had that rejection sensitivity. I definitely felt like I was losing my little buddies who, because we always did everything together, I did enjoy spending more time and, and, and figuring out, you know, how to best put our time into something useful, you know, so we, we, we, we would, we were just bonding a lot more. But it was, it was so hard to watch the kids just be so sad because they couldn't just go out and do whatever they wanted because that, and, and, and so like that this is the massive negative is the fact that, okay, it was great because they got to spend more time with me, but it was terrible because that time in which they are learning how to socialize in person, that, that time in which is the most important part of a young person's life where they're learning to become an adult. You know, you're getting in the workforce and so on.

[Simon Scott]

And so it's transition period. It's really, yeah, it's really key.

[Jordan James]

And my kids were on the right in the middle of growing and it stunted their growth. So not only did neurodivergence stunt their growth as it, as it does for many of us, but then you also had COVID lockdown stunting that growth as well, and the amount of anxiety that it was giving them as well, because they did stick to the rules. They were really, really good. And they would get upset as much as I did when people they knew were having parties.

[Simon Scott]

Yes, it, yes. I had a friend who had a party and then the police rocked up and I was like, I hate to say I told you so, I told you so. I mean, I used to have it where my friend used to come round and we'd literally sit on either side of my kitchen, and I'd be like, almost sat on the balcony outside, and he'd just be in the kitchen, and we just sort of have these. These sort of broken conversations. But it's weird because, like, I lost contact with so many people during COVID that were almost like, casual acquaintances. And then I doing a podcast with my friends James and Jack, who I still speak to every single day. Like, James now lives in Manchester, and he's, like, one of my closest friends. And we just. We had a podcast called FC Podcast, and we just talked about football, and it taught me a lot of the skills that I now use every day. It was one of the best things I've ever done. But then at the same time, I lost so many social skills, dude. Like, I became really reclusive and really struggled to get out. Once lockdown ended, like, once it ended and you could go back out, I almost didn't know how to anymore. I'd gotten so used to being indoors and working from home that my world just. Just shrunk. It was so hard.

[Jordan James]

You wouldn't. You wouldn't have been able to socialize with anybody. And I'd imagine. Did. Did the level of communication that you would have had with your family did. Did that significantly drop? Because it wasn't as easy as, like, just going and hanging out or just. Oh, because I know you how well you've gone with your dad. Just like, you know, meeting your dad or something.

[Simon Scott]

Well, they were 250 miles away, dude. I was in London. They were in Doncaster.

[Jordan James]

Well, that probably made that a little bit easier.

[Simon Scott]

Yeah, but, I mean, we used to speak on the phone all the time. We would, like, have FaceTimes and stuff. Like, do you remember what, Like, I don't know if you did the quizzes. I did, like, a pub quiz. Two different groups every other week and stuff.

[Jordan James]

But we just play video games as a fan. We played a lot of Mario Kart as well.

[Simon Scott]

That's wicked. I played, like, all three of the original Spyro games and completed them to 100%. So it was like I was starting to, like, really, for the first time, build this relationship with the inner child. But then I was also sort of unmasking with somebody that wasn't the right person to unmask with for me. And it was just a real cocktail. It's like, before we go to the break, how did you find the masks?

[Jordan James]

Yeah, I. We should have been using them a lot earlier, but it was just another thing with that Sense of justice that drove me insane because like just. Oh, some people are just dumb, dude.

[Simon Scott]

People like cut nose holes in them. Yeah, I saw people wear like two in the, like had them like beaks and their mouth was free like I saw.

[Jordan James]

Oh, they would do the, the, the, the, the chim, the, the chin. Oh the old chin strappers. Oh yeah, remember them? And you'd like what? Like oh, I'm wearing a mask. And you'd be like, well you like, you still got to wear it correctly. Plus then you had all the waste of the mask and no one disposed of them correctly. So that was driving me insane.

[Simon Scott]

I mean I, I've still got a bottle of hand sanitizer in my glove box that's just been there for years.

[Jordan James]

And then this is just one example. And I saw, I saw this all the time. Just people absent mindedly not realizing how Covid Frickin spreads. It doesn't just spread when you breathe, when you cough, it spread on things that you touch.

[Simon Scott]

Contact.

[Jordan James]

Yeah, right. So you at home coughing your hands and maybe you didn't wash them properly or. I mean it was, I mean things changed at my work so much. I'm not going to go into details, but it was very regimented because they were a business and they had to do a certain way and protect their people.

[Simon Scott]

Horror movie.

[Jordan James]

Yeah, it. And I, I actually had a lot of struggles at work with that. But that's a, that's like a whole other thing. But I was, I was out and this, this was when, when it started easing off and we could go to shops for like non essentials. It was around about that time and everyone's got a mask on. I, I think my memory isn't exactly perfectly clear with this, but I, I was at a. Traffic lights, you know, like pedestrian traffic lights and I was going to cross one way and someone was crossing the other way and they, they touched the button and then touched them, the mask with their hands.

[Simon Scott]

That's kind of counterintuitive, isn't it?

[Jordan James]

And, and then, and then put it on their face as they approached me and I'm like, well you know, you, you just touched a dirty thing and then you put that dirty thing on your mask and then you put that mask on your face. Does that, does that, does that not compute? Yeah, because people, I, I just think people were so blase about it and I think, I think OCD might have saved a lot of lives because I knew a lot of like germaphobes. I'm not a germaphobe. But neither am. I was definitely a germaphobe during COVID Yeah, I was so anal about everything. I had so much hand sanitizer. Like, you couldn't get it. But luckily, because of how we are, we already had hand sanitizer.

[Simon Scott]

They were giving it out at my work, so.

[Jordan James]

Oh, were they really? Yeah, we had, like, these machines that just. You put your hand down. It did it automatically. But, yeah, like, it. There was just so many people that just didn't seem to understand how. How it was just everywhere. This cover was just everywhere. And. And I. I definitely got it, but I. I kept testing negative, which was really weird.

[Simon Scott]

I was just about to say this, and I think we'll. We'll go to a break. I never had Covid.

[Jordan James]

Yeah, technically, I never had it either.

[Simon Scott]

But, dude, I had some periods where I was so freaking unwell during that. And I kept testing, and I just kept getting a negative and a negative. And then at one point, one of the neighbors that we used to sort of go downstairs with and stand a distance apart and just sort of hang out with, she got covered. Had absolutely no symptoms whatsoever. Then me and my partner at the time were dog ill, and we were like, oh, my God, we've definitely got covered. Never, ever got a positive, either of us, ever.

[Jordan James]

I think the tests were. I really do. So I say now, I. I don't know if how good or bad they were, but, I mean, I. I got Covid. And I'm sure about this because I would go to work, you know, at the beginning of lockdown, and then I. On the way back, in the. In the mornings or in the evenings, I would stop off at this woodlands. I drove past. No one else was ever there at the time I was there. And I would go for runs to keep myself fit because I didn't want to run around people. And this was the middle of the woods, and I was like, this is perfect. So I would go for these runs. And one day I went for a run, and I got like two minutes into the run, and I couldn't breathe properly. I was like, what the hell's wrong with me? And then the next day, I was so ill. But this was before the tests, before the test, so you couldn't test. So I called up my work. I'm really, really ill. They tell, stay home. And they were actually paying sickness back then. So they're like, stay home. Don't come in. And I was like, hooray. I'd have rather gone to work. I'd have rather gone to work than dealt with what I dealt with. It was horrible.

[Simon Scott]

The sweat was a bit that killed.

[Jordan James]

Me dude being cold and then warm and then cold. Oh so bad and then. But I couldn't test so I just assumed that I had Covid so it could be that my body had built up the antibodies that then later on when I did get Covid again, it just didn't, you know, show up in, in the test. I have no idea. But that, that was my experience. Yeah, let's, let's have a break and then we'll come back and we'll talk a little bit like, you know, how the world has changed for the better and the worse.

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[Simon Scott]

Have you ever felt stuck in patterns that don't serve you, struggled with stress, or wanted to connect more deeply with yourself? Then I have to introduce you to a friend of the podcast Ashley Bentley of Integrated coaching, Breathwork and Hypnotherapy. Ashley is a highly experienced clinical hypnotherapist and coach specializing in working with neurodivergent minds. Through a unique blend of integrative coaching, breathwork and hypnotherapy. Ashley helps people rewire subconscious patterns, regulate their nervous systems, step into more empowered versions of themselves. Whether you're dealing with addiction, anxiety, burnout, or struggles with self acceptance, Ashley offers practical and science backed tools tailored just for you. Her unique methods combine Neuroscience, storytelling, subconscious transformation to create real, lasting change. Jordan and I can personally attest to the profound and transformative effects of her sessions, which have been life changing. She does all of these sessions online, meaning she can work with you no matter where you are in the world. If you're ready to break free from old patterns and start living with more clarity, confidence and connection, go to Bit ly Ashleynde to book a free consultation or learn more. Welcome back to the Neurodivergent Experience. We've been discussing lockdowns and sort of how that has had effects on us as people and. But just neurodivergent people in general. And we'll wrap up this to this episode with sort of like what we think is sort of like the positive and negatives. Now, one of the positives that I think has come from sort of the lockdown period, because this is from my own experience, is I had my autistic enlightenment during this time.

[Jordan James]

Yeah, this is what I really want to hear about, man. It's like, yeah, like, what, what, what was that journey?

[Simon Scott]

So during the summer of 2019 was the first time I thought I had ADHD, you know, the entry level drug of neurodivergence. And it's like, here, smoke this adhd, man. But I worked with somebody who is still one of my closest friends. Now, my friend Sash, she got diagnosed with ADHD during this summer and she was like, simon, the only other person I've ever met in life that's like, me is you. So please look into this. Like, right, okay. And I trust you so much so. And I did look into it, did a lot of research. And I at that time self identified as having ADHD. At the beginning of 2020, I started telling people I came out to my parents and went, I, it's not. I don't think I have. Is I have adhd. And I started to sort of accept it. I didn't make any changes. I didn't implement, like, any sort of accommodations. I just went, woo, quickie boy, adhd. And sort of just stuck with it. And I look back on it now. I was so depressed during lockdown. I was drinking a lot. I was smoking a lot. Like, I was just not in a good way. I was blowing my brains out so that I didn't have to feel anything like so many other people I know did. And I look back on it now, dude. And that was the beginning of a burnout that lasted until pretty much the middle of 2022. Like, I just sort of lost interest in so much Stuff I was delving heavily into substances and sort of just blowing my brains out to try and not feel anything. I lost connection with a lot of relationships that I had. And my social skills just completely disappeared. This is the first time I ever recognized skill regression. And on mass, like, it wasn't just like I was struggling with socializing. It was. I was rehearsing in the mirror how to talk to my neighbors. Like, this is when I started like, scripting properly. And also a lot of the things that I was really interested in as a child started to flood back. I really started getting into trainers at the time I started getting into Yu Gi oh cards again. At the time I was playing video games that had, like, got remasters. Like, I did the Crash Bandicoot remaster. I did the Spyro remaster. I was playing and doing a lot of things that I had lost because of, you know, synaptic pruning or masking or, you know, just changing environments. And I was really starting to find who I was. But then again, at the same time, because of the lack of understanding that I had on just neurodivergence as a whole and the. The person that I was with and the environments that I had been in in, you know, living in London, the rat race, you're not first, your last. And no one want likes a loser. And I really turned on myself. I really started to, like, psychoanalyze myself. I was really wondering as to why I had these certain behaviors. And I started to stim. I had never. I'd never done it before, and I mean, I had, but I'd lost it, you know, Like, I'd forgotten that I stimmed. Like, when you're a kid, I forced myself not to do it. And I just lived totally unregulated for such a long time. And I started to have these ticks and I started to have these stims. And it's not her fault, but my ex thought I was putting it on.

[Jordan James]

Oh.

[Simon Scott]

So trying to then explain what is happening when I don't know what's happening. This is where my severe alexithymia kicked in. Because I stopped trying to explain myself because I just didn't have the energy, I didn't have the words. And I got on a huge spoon deficit. So all of sort of the things that that were underlying throughout my life that I struggled with were never as prominent as when lockdown happened. It's like I just couldn't hide it anymore. And it was so confusing because I felt like I'd been possessed Like, I genuinely had a moment where I slid down the kitchen fridge and I put my head in my hands. I had a horrific meltdown and I was like, what the fuck is wrong with me? What is happening to me? Why have I got these facial tics? Have I got Tourette's now? Like, that's one of the only things that I liked about wearing a mask is I could hide my facial ticks.

[Jordan James]

Yeah. Like, with the mask, I found it, like, super difficult as well. I mean, I was glad that they were there. But when I would go around and. And because I don't. I can't do people's eyes, I will sort of rapidly glance at someone's eyes and they move away. So for me, it was all about looking at people's noses and mouths. So I would be able to pretend that I was looking in your eyes, you know, to mask and to ironically mask and to fit in, you know. But I. I couldn't stare at the mask. It just felt weird and I couldn't stare in people's eyes. So for me, I. I was regressing in. In just being near people because I'd have to just look completely away.

[Simon Scott]

And that's sort of what happened with me, is, you know, I went from being this super social networking, living out of a backpack, bohemian sort of person to suddenly being somebody that didn't really want to go outside, that was really struggling with addiction. I was drinking and smoking cigarettes and doing other things at the time just to feel anything. And I was with somebody who, rather than trying to help me, was trying to understand me and couldn't. Couldn't get why I was doing all of these sorts of unusual things to her and ended up having to have group counseling. We ended up as a couple having couple therapy, which is the worst thing I've ever done. It was not fun at all. Sort of having to explain who you are to a stranger when you're suffering with extreme alexithymia. Every single sort of negative outcome that I look at, like my neurodivergent self, the disabilities that I have, the things that need accommodation, all of those red flags appeared during this time. And I was so confused, dude. I genuinely. I rang my mum up and I was like, I've got a tumor, I've got a brain tumor. Like, I'm dying, something's not right. Like, I think I've got a terminal illness or I've got me. Like, I was going through every Dr. Google thing that I could find and at no point did I ever think I was Autistic. I was like, I'm just ADHD quickie, quickie, quickie guy. Like, I never even sort of thought of the repercussions of what was happening, of how incredibly unregulated I was, how I had a lack of accommodations, how I was with somebody who was interrogating an alexithemic person every single day, going, why are you like this? I was just in the worst possible environment that I could ever be in. And it's been such a great learning lesson because I look back on a lot of those elements now and go, they're what I don't need. So, in a way, it's been a blessing. But at the time, dude, God, I was in the eye of the hurricane. I was in such a bad way.

[Jordan James]

Yeah. I mean, it. It's. It's kind of like you're going through. What's the word? When you're coming down from drugs?

[Simon Scott]

Oh, withdrawal. Yeah.

[Jordan James]

It sounds like. Like you're almost going through withdrawal. Type.

[Simon Scott]

Neurotypical.

[Jordan James]

Neurotypical withdrawal into. But, like, with withdrawal, you know, it's a terrible thing to have to go through, but when you come out the other side, you come out a better person. So, you know, like, you're saying it was. It was something really bad, but something really good happened because of it. And now, you know, you look at your life now, and it's like, it's so good compared to what you probably ever even imagined it would ever be.

[Simon Scott]

It's like, I moved up to Manchester. I split up with my ex. I changed my job. Like, it's taken a long time. It's not like I made these. These decisions, and my life changed overnight. It has been a journey, but I never would have left London, which meant I never would have moved to Manchester. I never would have met Karis. So I'm so glad that it happened because it made me realize that the character that I was playing is not who I am. I am who I am now.

[Jordan James]

And it's like a forced unmasking.

[Simon Scott]

It was a forced reset. Yeah. And I'm so grateful for it. But, dude, it was so. It was so hard. It was very painful. And I think about it now, and even talking to you about it, I feel like I've had tears on the edge of my. My eyelids a few times. With a few things we've discussed today, I kind of look back on it and I go, that was tough.

[Jordan James]

It was. There was so much. It's like the country came together, and then social media drove it apart.

[Simon Scott]

Yeah.

[Jordan James]

You know, it was such a weird thing because, like, some days you felt like, oh, it's, it's like the World Cups come to England and everybody's, you know, celebrating together and we're all united because we're, you know, against, like, like, like wartime. And the war was against the Blitz mentality.

[Simon Scott]

It was us. Yeah.

[Jordan James]

And I mean, this is the disease and. Yeah.

[Simon Scott]

And I miss it. I miss that community that we. I've developed.

[Jordan James]

I do too. I miss the fact that people were celebrating NHS workers and then they asked.

[Simon Scott]

For a pay rise two years later when everyone turned on them.

[Jordan James]

Yeah, just. It, it's. This is the thing about news nowadays is that because we have access to so much news and because we scroll, we're literally real life scrolling past news like, oh, this terrible thing happened. And by Tuesday you're just like, well, this other terrible thing happened, this other terrible thing happened, this new terrible thing happened. And everybody's arguing and everyone's disagreeing and everybody's getting angry and, and we're all part of it. I'm part of it. You know, it's, it's so weird. But, but I do, I do think during that period of time, I think people became more addicted to their phones, more addicted to social media, more dependent on, you know, being inside their own head. And like we said earlier, this very me first selfish mentality that during the height of COVID it was like the opposite. Everyone was helping everyone else and everyone was trying to help their neighbors or, you know, doing, delivering and wanting to, to, to help. And then as soon as covert finishes, everyone's like, right now, it's, this is all about me now. And, and I get that. I mean, like, no one else is going to care about you if you don't care about yourself. You know, you can't rely on others to care about you. Some people have to rely on others to care about them. They don't have a choice in that. But I think when you have a choice and you're like, well, I'm going to put myself first, it's not like I'm blaming for people for being selfish, it's. It's kind of like I'm blaming the lockdown, but it was something that had to happen. So essentially it's like whatever, wherever you think Covid came from, because there are many, many theories and I don't really care. The fact is it came from somewhere, it happened wherever it came from. That's the fault of how we are now, of this me first attitude. And I do believe that we are coming out of it. I do believe that there is a point where we're going to move on from that, but I don't think we're ever going to really move on from how addicted we are to social media, how we do things in our lives based on what we've read on a social media app. Just, just for an example, like people doing relationship tests based on. On tick tock videos.

[Simon Scott]

Yeah.

[Jordan James]

And just, just really stupid like that.

[Simon Scott]

It launched so many people's careers as well. There's so many people that are famous YouTubers now. Like, dude, YouTube went through the roof. Listen to this man. During 2017, in my master's degree, my thesis, I like dissertation thesis of my whole degree was, is podcasting the next evolutionary step of radio or the death of it as we know it? And I talked about, if audio has a boom like YouTube has had, it's fucking over for mainstream media because we will make our own news. We will trust each other more than we'll trust the establishment. And everybody will have an opportunity to become a creator. And I vividly remember writing it will take a huge societal shift where suddenly everybody is being incredibly creative as an outlet or mental health said, if suddenly people are making YouTube videos because they've got nothing else to do, we're trying to, you know, rebuild a career that they've lost overnight, then there is going to be a huge boom of self creators because they're not gonna need, you know, like how many people used to have radio shows in the 90s? 10 people. And like now there are that many freaking podcasts out there. I mean, Christ, we do it. But there are so many things out there now, like TV shows, like how many Marvel TV shows came out during lockdown and like movies and stuff. Like everything is so completely over saturated that nothing feels special because there's too much shit. And I wrote about it, I said, if this, if something societal happens where suddenly everybody stops auditioning and just makes it themselves, it's game over for everybody else. And it happened and we're still sort of living with it where like people are in school now. And when I was a kid, you'd be like, I want to be a movie star. I want to be a footballer or a basketball player or whatever. Now kids are going, I want to be a tick tock star.

[Jordan James]

Yeah. I want to be an influencer. I want to be. Yeah, it's. But the fact is, it is they are legitimate jobs if you can get them. And I would never want to crush someone's dream of being like, because there's.

[Simon Scott]

Some really great people out there.

[Jordan James]

Yeah. I mean, it's not stupid any more than it's stupid for young people to be like, well, I want to be a famous gamer. Because, like, you get parents, like, oh, just go outside, you know, why are you stuck in front of the computer all day? And then you'll probably find that they're. They're practicing the same as Michael Jordan or Rory McElroy would just practice their sport dedicated Kobe Bryant style.

[Simon Scott]

Oh, dude, there's people that have paid their parents mortgages playing freaking warzone. It's crazy.

[Jordan James]

Literally. Esports is a genuine way of making a living. And I think people need to catch up with the reality that a kid sit in front of a computer all day, isn't them wasting their lives always, but sometimes it is. In the same way as a kid that's kicking a football all day long might never be a Premier League footballer, but the fact is, is that it is a legitimate job in the future, you can be a superstar on social media.

[Simon Scott]

Well, here's the thing, dude, is like, in the two years that we've been doing this show, like, obviously it's not our jobs. We love doing it, but if we sort of stay on the trajectory that we are for another two years, this. This could potentially be our jobs. And that's an incredible sort of opportunity that this sort of societal shift has created and that you and I can talk on a microphone to other people, share our experiences and maybe help them along the way and we could have a normal life doing that. That I don't feel like that could have happened before COVID but I mean, I look at certain people now. There's like, there was one girl that was a West End dancer, and when she lost her job, like so many of the create artists and creatives that worked in that industry, like myself did, she started making tick tock videos of her doing choreography in the loading bay of the Tesco that she worked in. And she now has a career as a, as a, as a dancer way more than she did before she started making these videos. I mean, Christ, I currently watching I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here with Caris. There's a guy that's on it who started his career streaming FIFA during lockdown, and now he's like a household name for so many kids that, like, people think he's going to win because of how big of his following is, regardless of whether he's good or not. Like, it has really sort of shifted what so many people can do. And don't get me wrong, dude, we're doing it. I would never have gotten into podcasting properly if I'd not done it during lockdown. So it's created so many opportunities. But again, I sort of look at, you know, the fallouts that people have had, how people are, like, on the road now, how, like, again, that sort of, like, selfishness and the. And the me over everybody mentality. There's been pros and cons from it, but the sort of awaken the autistic awakening that I had, even though it was very difficult, I'm so, so glad that it happened.

[Jordan James]

Yeah. I mean, it just. The regression in social skills is. Is such a huge thing. But like I said right at the beginning of the show, you know, you do have this thing where a lot of people like, oh, maybe you're ADHD or maybe you're autistic. And it's. And because of the, the very, very niche stereotypes of being easily distracted or not being, you know, social. And it. And it's like, well, during COVID loads of people were getting distracted by their phone, which is like the biggest distraction there is. And loads of people became antisocial because they couldn't be socializing. And there's a lot of young people who became antisocial because stopped them socializing at that pivotal time. Which is why I think that, you know, you. And you need to broaden your knowledge of neurodivergence, which is what we're here for, to understand whether you are neurodivergent or not. Because there might be a lot of people that think they're neurodivergent because they literally watched a TikTok video or an influencer on Instagram or whatever who had, like, two traits, and they were like, I have those two traits. And it's like most people during COVID probably picked up those neurodivergent traits, but that doesn't mean you're neurodivergent. But if you do suspect that you might be, look into it more. But don't just take a couple of things and suddenly, and suddenly be like, that's me. And be like, it might, just might be the fact that Covid fundamentally changed your brain during lockdown, because that is. And we're not going to realize the effects of this for probably decades.

[Simon Scott]

Not enough time has passed.

[Jordan James]

Like, decades.

[Simon Scott]

What they're going to talk about in schools in 15 years time is going to be fascinating because, like, history will not be kind to the policymakers. And these people that spent billions of taxpayers money on PPE and all this sort of stuff like this. History will not be kind to a lot of people in this time.

[Jordan James]

No.

[Simon Scott]

But I'm interested to hear as, as a listener, how did the COVID lockdown change you? Did you have your autistic awakening during this time? Did you, you know what, what, what was the big changes in your life that came from it? I'm fascinated to hear how it's affected you after hearing how it's changed our lives.

[Jordan James]

I think just finished on this. I think the biggest and best thing that has changed fundamentally within society for neurodivergent people is the ability to work remotely. Oh, there is far, far more of that and. And my son does it. My daughter hopefully will be getting a job soon where she's working remotely and being somebody that had to go into work every day and be around people and I, it was so hard. I'm much better at it now, but especially when I was younger, it was so, so hard. It made my life so much more difficult having to be in the office environment, having to be social when I didn't want to be, having to mask all day long just to fit in for my job. And I'm so, so happy that my kids don't have to do that. They, they get to be who they are from home and work online and occasionally have to go to an office. So I think just for their mental health and just for their, their energy levels, I definitely think that that is the biggest positive from one of the most tragic and horrific times in my history of being a human. But yeah, drive safely everyone. And if that in a BMW really wants to push in, just let him because it doesn't really matter. At the end of the day he's always going to be an asshole and you're always going to be the person who gave way. So you're the good person. And that is my most advice to how to drive off to Covid. Just let them be dicks.

[Simon Scott]

Yeah.

[Jordan James]

Keep away and buy a dash cam.

[Simon Scott]

Stay in the left hand lane, get a dash cab and just watch everybody else fucking figure it out. Couldn't agree more. Well guys, thank you so much for being with us once again for this week. Remember, there's a hot topic coming tomorrow in your feeds and as always, start your week with purpose with Ashley Bentley's Mindful Mondays. We will be back tomorrow. Can't wait to see you there. Take care of yourself, be kind, be safe.

[Jordan James]

Bye nightly. Bye.

[Simon Scott]

Thanks for tuning in to the neurodivergent experience. We hope today's episode sparked something for you. Whether it's a new idea, a bit of validation, validation, or just a moment of connection. Remember, new episodes are every week, so be sure to join us for the next one for more conversations and insights into the neurodivergent experience. If you've enjoyed this podcast, help us grow. You can do that by rating and reviewing this show. Your support makes a huge difference in helping us reach more people who could benefit from these conversations. You can connect with us on on social media, find us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. Just search for the neurodivergent experience. Thank you again for listening and until next time, take care of yourself. You're not alone in this journey.

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