00:30I'm seeing every trunk, every branch. I'm seeing the connections between them. And then, I see the leaves. I can see the slightly different colours, slightly different shapes, any damage that's been done to them.
00:43As a naturalist, this is enormously beneficial. But sometimes, all of this, the visual part of my world, is simply too much.
00:55It becomes utterly overwhelming. And that's because I'm autistic.
01:03In 2017, I first shared my autism diagnosis on television. Since then, I've been astonished by the thousands of letters and emails I've received from other autistic people.
01:17Some telling me the programme had helped them connect with the people around them. But others telling me they're lonely, miserable, even suicidal, because they feel the world doesn't understand them.
01:31For me, these letters reveal a hidden crisis. Because estimates suggest there could be as many as 700,000 autistic people in the UK.
01:45And I think that the wider world still doesn't really understand what it means to be autistic.
01:53And this is a problem for those of us who already feel excluded, different, like we don't fit in.
02:01In this series, I want to do something about it. Working with top filmmakers, graphic designers, animators and musicians, I'm giving four autistic people the chance to bring their experiences to life.
02:22That's it. By creating short films that reveal to their friends and families how they're really feeling inside, I hope to give all of us a better understanding of our autistic minds.
02:40For much of my early life, I felt completely misunderstood, like no one knew what was going on inside my head, how different my world was.
02:52If I can now change that for just one person, then my work here will be done.
