Hello everyone
Like a lot of peri-menopausal women, particularly neurodivergent ones, I’m not ok. I will be ok. But right now? I’m struggling.
And this is after a lifetime of struggle. I remember, a few years ago, reading the final chapters of The Lord of the Rings aloud to my son, and finding that I was sobbing uncontrollably at the part when Frodo is struggling up Mount Doom. I am aware that people may think I am being over-dramatic or am exaggerating when I say this, but I wept because it was how I felt, almost every day. Even back then, each day felt like climbing a mountain. To be fair, I wasn’t also carrying the jewellery of ‘an evil vagina eye’ (see the video below), so I guess I had less to complain about than that whinging hobbit.
Anyway, yes, much of my life has felt like those last minutes of a challenging exercise class, or the final mile of an arduous hike. But with no end in sight. And with a confused sense of ‘is everyone else finding life as incredibly hard as this?’ I still don’t know what the answer is to that, by the way.
Every time I think I have found out what the problem is and got help, the improvements in that set of symptoms end up uncovering another set of (slightly less obvious) symptoms. Treating my complex PTSD, with EMDR and Internal Family Systems therapy, made my ADHD symptoms more prominent. Treating my ADHD, with stimulant medication and behavioural changes, uncovered my autistic traits. Since realising last year that I had probably been dealing with fluctuating perimenopause symptoms since William died (thirteen years ago) and getting HRT, my joint pain and tiredness (and oh so many other symptoms) have improved, but… hang on? Why do I always feel like I am getting one flu-like virus after another in the spring and summer? Oh, that will be the hay fever I didn’t realise I had developed.
I’m so tired, everyone. Apparently it is common, even usual, for perimenopause to cause functioning struggles in neurodivergent women, even in those with long-standing diagnoses, and who had previously figured out how to live well with their different brains. There is also, I am learning, a phenomenon called skills regression, which most people associate with young autistic children, but that affects autistic adults too. This certainly seems to describe the major struggles I am having with things I used to do more easily, like preparing meals and cleaning the house and remembering to brush my teeth. I mean, I was never a great cook, and I’ve always been messy, but *looks around* this is another level entirely. No matter how much I want to do these things and no matter how hard I try, I am not doing them as well as I would like.
So, I am lowering my standards. Again.
I guess I am hopeful that this lowering of standards is a temporary strategy. That, over time, I will gradually start to understand how my brain and my nervous system work, and to be able to work with them, rather than always trying to contort myself into a facsimile of ‘a normal person’. And my source material for ‘a normal person’? Mostly books. Turns out, using fiction to figure out how to be a human being isn’t terribly helpful. However, I am hopeful that using stories, other people’s real stories of how they are working all this shit out, will be helpful. I think it already has been.
I fear this is a rather miserable newsletter. I want to reassure you that I am okay. I really am. I am mostly happy. I have a wonderful son, an amazingly kind and supportive partner, and friends and family who are happy to listen to my nonsense (and to read it here!). But, I am so, so tired. And frustrated. I feel like I have spent most of my 48 years working so hard, trying to do the right things and trying to be ’normal’, and I am finally realising what a mistake that was. I fear I have made things worse for myself, not better. Dammit. Here is a funny picture to cheer us all up!
And, just to reassure you, this isn’t any kind of oblique request for help. I am managing. I will continue to manage. But any stories of how you have handled difficult circumstances or any practical tips on how to function in this world would be welcome!
Whatever else you do this weekend, don’t try to learn how to ‘people’ from your childhood fiction reading!
Emma xx
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Bye for now! Emma
As another audhd person to another - big hugs. I don’t know if it ever really gets easier for us, even when we have diagnosis or self diagnosis. Watching women in my life cope with perimenopause & menopause fills me with dread honestly - being even more at odds with my body and brain. But one thing I’ve noticed about neurodivergent people is that we have an immense resilience & capacity to cope in the long run (even if it looks like failure from an outsider’s perspective at the time). However we have to cope, we do it, because we’re kind of a baptised with a lifetime of coping, despite everything. I’m sorry that it sucks right now, and it will suck for a bit. Give yourself all the grace to be messy and rubbish at everything, if resting is not an option!
Oh my...this is a real struggle. I know this one, though some parts of my experience are different. I have seen a lot of posts lately about women trying to explain what their perimenopause and menopause is doing. I could write a book about this and I keep thinking about it. We lack the social support that I think helped women know what to expect. Most of our mothers were given early hysterectomies. I can't imagine. They can't advise us or remind us or help us go through that decade of physical change, if they are still here. It would be helpful if we could re-establish that natural line of knowledge. I understand the physical and mental struggle. I gutted it out to my own detriment, but I can tell anyone what I experienced and how I dealt with it at the time. I've recently gotten some help from a doctor as the exhaustion was ridiculous and my life requires physical energy. My brain was tired. I couldn't write. It was not a good way to live. All that to say, if someone needs some coping tips, some expectations shaped, I'm here. Simplify in every way you can. It could take awhile. This is an interesting time because the struggle pushes you into the stage of life that is free from that younger self's self-flagellation over the stupid stuff. For real. That, coupled with that soothing slide into social invisibility is a load off. ;) Strange, but true.