"Depending on how you look at it, you are either very lucky or very unlucky!"

Or on how my autistic perimenopause has descended into a literal car crash.

It started just like any other Saturday morning. Oblivious to my son bowling a wicket in the opening over of his T24 cricket match, just as I was walking from my car to the boundary line.

“Howzat?!”

🏏 My Kiwi Kids’ Summer Christmas Cricket 🎄

As an AuDHD parent of a young, keen cricketer, I have to take supplies to keep me seated and try to seem engaged. In reality, cricket is a sport that I couldn’t be any less interested in. As I walked form my car, I was listening to New Zealand Samoan comedian Rose Matafeo, who was proposing a sculpted wax lettuce of all things as the starter for her dream meal on the ‘Off Menu’ podcast’s recent Christmas special. A more attentive and less distractible parent generously pointed my son’s success out to me.

I could see my son, but I wasn’t really watching.

I was burdened with transporting two camping chairs, an array of sunscreens (in case the sun broke through the clouds), and a collection of hoodies and jackets (in case it didn’t). Regulating my body temperature and protecting my drying frail pale skin from inevitable sun damage has become a full time job in midlife.

On my back I carried a backpack filled with liquids - chilled water bottles, and two insulated cups of hot soy flat white goodness. ☕️☕️

Sunhats, tissues, first aid kit, medications, a tiny once-white Swiss Army knife for every eventuality. I had the lot. My phone, my little recharging pouch complete with fully charged power bank, and all the charging cables I could possibly need for my laptop, phone, AirPods, and Apple watch. All brand compatible for ease of use, because I have no capacity for friction these days.

In a shoulder bag I carried my notebook, my journal, my calendar, a pencil case, a reading book. Maybe two reading books. One was definitely fellow neurowonderful Substacker

Anissa Ljanta

’s excellent new book, ‘Wild of Brain’.

In my family, I am laughed moaned at for being overly safety conscious. A keen amateur health and safety officer, I am always ready for all eventualities. Over prepared and under enthusiastic - that’s me! And that’s how I like it. Let everyone else have fun, I just want to stay safe.

Cricket dragged on as usual and precipitation refrained from stopping play…

Four hours later I drove the long way home so that I could refuel my car, spontaneously deciding also to have a drive through carwash at the petrol station. “Touchfree” versus “Softwash” superior clean, I was asking myself. My young tired cricketer stayed in the car, watching Youtube on my fully charged phone, oblivious to me. I could see him, but he wasn’t watching me.

The cashier inside the service station was pretty short in his responses when I enquired into the differences between the car wash options… Touchfree Superior, I resolutely decided.

My car has been through enough already this year - a neighbour’s trampoline flew over the garden fence in a storm and battered the driver’s side. As perimenopause was battering me at the time, I never got the panelling nor paintwork repaired. A prime example of the ADHD tax colliding with my autistic perimenopausal regression; my executive functioning is limited and I am in chronic survival mode.

And so my car, on Saturday, deserved the gentlest option. My credit card proffered, the cashier entered the amount I owed into the card machine. On the concrete path on the other side of the wall, engine revving, a sudden BANG! and the confectionary shelving was moving diagonally from the wall of the building, and into my right ankle.

“What the FUCK?”, the cashier yelled.

In the blink of an eye, an hour passed.

Chocolate bars, snacks, chewing gum littered the shop floor. The wall had caved in, and so had my ankle, under the force of an out of control car engine.

“Oh my God, I am so sorry! I have insurance! I can sort this all out! Did anyone get hurt?” yelled a panicking woman running frantically around the shop, head in hands. Seconds before she had seemingly pressed the wrong pedal. Revving the engine instead of braking, her car had narrowly fitted between the supposed safety barriers on the exterior side of the wall from the till.

Did anyone get hurt? I remember hearing the impact, looking outside to check - was it my car? Was my son okay?

“Oh my God, what am I going to do?” the woman yelled. I barely recall reassuring her: “Everyone is okay, it was an accident”. I assume it must have been an accident, but who knows?

I looked down at my foot in my favourite now-ruined sunflower yellow socks. A dark red patch oozing and outwardly encircling my ankle.

“I think I got hurt”, I said woozily. “Please can you get me a chair?” I put my arm around the driver who had made me a casualty, and requested her support. I sat down on one chair, and asked for another on which to elevate my leg, which was bleeding more heavily now. I was numbing out.

Frantically, I asked a staff member to bring me my son from my car. He was safe.

Thank fuck for that. Deep breaths. Breathing through the pain.

Calmly I had taken back my phone from my son, called my husband (no answer) and then my neighbour (not the one with the errant trampoline). In my head I was fastforwarding through possiblities, mentally preparing myself: an ambulance, a rushed trip to Wellington Hospital, hours spent zoning in and out in A&E, X-rays, a cast. Surgery?

My neighbour sent along my husband with our youngest to collect our oldest son from me.

They were safe.

Luckily the service station staff and a firefighter had their first aid kits. We were all prepared for the unexpected. Did that make anyone any safer? What if the car had hit my son, or a small child? What if I had been standing in front of the car on the outside of the building?

Catastrophising at the speed of light is my superpower.

The ambulance service never came for me. Police and fire fighters were on the scene, sirens blazing, somehow arrived unheard in my numb state.

Everyone praised my calmness, I was so calm.

"Depending on how you look at it, you are either very lucky or very unlucky!"

A firefighter in attendance philosophised.

So which one is it?

My son didn’t hesitate in telling me we should have just gone straight home after his cricket game. I am inclined to agree with him…

I know now that if a truck had gone through the building instead of a small car, it would likely have been game over for me.

So I suppose I was, I am, very lucky.

I have survived an impact that could have been the death of me.

Photo by Benjamin Voros on Unsplash

I am now sporting an ankle full of stitches, a moon boot and a pair of crutches, whilst I wait for the consultant orthopaedic doctor to review my X-rays.

I presented in Urgent Care as a very lucky woman who had had a good outcome from a potential catastrophe. In truth I was completely numb, dissociating and heavily masking. Like a cat hiding its injuries to protect itself.

On Saturday I was told by the doctor on duty that if I could walk, I hadn’t broken a bone. I limped out of there, lucky to be alive.

Several days on, having taken my sweet neurodivergent time, I have processed the barely manageable pain, accepted the swelling, and changed the dressing over the stitched up gouged mess that is my right ankle.

Thanks to my mother in law, I have returned to Urgent Care and been X-rayed. 💐

I told everyone all along - police, fire fighters, medical staff - that I am autistic and don’t react to pain in the accepted way. The neuronormative pain ratings out of 10 aren’t ideal for me.

I wish it were enough to say to a doctor, “I am autistic and I need an X-ray because I don’t know if it hurts or not”, and for that to be a good enough reason to receive necessary screening.

Considering the obvious impact of a car slamming all its force into my ankle and pushing against it in a diagonal motion, surely an X-ray should have been a given?

Either way, lucky or unlucky, I am very glad to have had the depth of life experiences to gain the perspective of everything 2024 has thrown at me: My beloved Dad’s unexpected death. My autistic perimenopausal suicidal ideation. My determination to keep advocating on this little known and crucial topic.

Growing our community here at The Autistic Perimenopause: A Temporary Regression has been a pivotal project amidst my ongoing midlife shambles.

Thanks for joining me on this wild ride in 2024! 💐

Fun fact: The Autistic Perimenopause: A Temporary Regression is fuelled by caffeine. If you would like to buy me a coffee, the button above will take you to my page. ☕️

I am so grateful to still be here - to still be writing! - and I want to take this opportunity to wish you and yours a happy, restful and ***SAFE*** festive period! 💕