It's getting hot in here!
It's getting hot in here!
Surviving hot flushes amongst friends, time agnosia and energy accounting for perimenopausal autistics.
Today I have been quite the autistic social butterfly, visiting not one but TWO friends in one day. You and I both know this may trigger a social hangover tomorrow, but I am willing to take the risk, since my Morning Friend kindly caffeinated me and then sent me home with chocolate. She was kind enough to suggest I share them with my family, but I slipped them discretely and gratefully into my pocket. Devoted mother and wife, I am going to selflessly take the dental decay for the team/family! (I am an autistic recovering chocoholic and I don’t like to share. Sorry not sorry.)
My Evening Friend has invited us all - my husband, both kids and I - plus mutual friends, in celebration of her son’s birthday. I am sitting on the floor while everyone else watches a movie, making myself look busy because I suffer from misphonia when it comes to “scary voices”. Basically, the voices/sound effects/growls/roars of any baddie in kids’ movies and TV shows will make me absolutely petrified and inwardly hysterical. Yes, I am living proof that Puss In Boots 2 is a horror movie. I have masked this all through my life quite unsuccessfully, and I am now too tired and self-compassionate to bother trying to hide it. So I am sitting cross legged on the floor typing away writing into Substack, AirPods playing plinky plonky piano tunes on the Calm app that will supposedly enable me to simultaneously relax and focus, ha! Little does Calm know I also need a Ritalin chaser to elicit any real level of focus!
I am here in the home of Evening Friend and am overjoyed her son has made it to 13, as it was very touch and go with a series of neurosurgery episodes to remove a benign tumour when our four boys were much smaller. Modern science is the best, isn’t it? Brain surgery for him + Ritalin for me = double yay! Obviously I am here also because there is birthday cake, and cake = Happy Sam. (Recovering chocoholic, okay? Not yet recovered.)
At Dusk tonight, I was in Evening Friend’s garden (not a euphemism) stripping her feijoa tree (not a euphemism), harvesting the overabundance of delicious sun-ripened floral-tasting feijoa fruits to take home and enjoy later. Photo below for the benefit of any non-Kiwi readers and/or those unfamiliar with this all too short seasonal glut we delightedly over indulge in down here. I first tasted feijoas through the medium of feijoa flavoured vodka in The Redback pub (if you know, you know) in Acton, West London back in 2007 ish, with a new group of friends nicknamed The Kiwi Mafia, which included my now husband.
Feijoas can be harvested in this Spring-feeling Autumn or whatever this season I am currently in. (Oh why does it even matter, time is nothing but a social construct! Why does everything need a label these days? Autumn, autism, aren’t we all a little bit Autumnal anyway..? Autumnists are just too sensitive/too insensitive/too loud/too quiet.)
Time agnosia is a significant element of my neurodivergent experience - I am wired to have no feeling of the passing of time, whether measured by hour or season. I could have “Sorry, I’m late” tattooed onto my forehead, and it would always be relevant to the reader, regardless of the context I find myself in.
Apparently it is Autumn here currently in May, which baffles me as wasn’t it just Easter? Easter in Autumn? I find the Autumn/Spring seasons very confuddling since I grew up in London, and experienced distinct seasonal shifts. Ageing in Aotearoa New Zealand, where the seasons are hemispherical opposite to those back in Blighty, and climate change is rapidly blending all seasons into one with some cyclones and other atmospherical crises thrown in for good measure, isn’t helping me either. Come to mention it, it isn’t really doing anyone any favours.
Oh! Although I think it is doing this local non-native tree photographed below some favours. This towering eucalyptus tree is in flower, which has delighted me as it was the first time I have seen eucalyptus flowers - beautiful vivid pink fronds stemming from gumnuts-to-be. The local Kiwi friends I asked had never seen a flowering eucalyptus either, so I returned to the tree to take photos to share with you. Isn’t it gorgeous? My unfounded theory devoid of any scientific backing is that we have had such a hot dry Summer in NZ that this Australian tree has been forced into bloom.
Down here we celebrate Halloween - a famously dark festival - in Spring, which I find disconcerting as it is a family tradition in our household to put a notice on the front door with some reason beginning with “Please no trick or treaters” and hide, should we indeed fail to deter them altogether. A few Halloweens back, they showed up early and in broad daylight because it was Spring, not Autumn! By the time we all ducked down to the floor and pretended nobody was home it was already too late. We could hear them shouting, “We know you’re home, we can see you!” As mentioned above, I don’t share “treats” because Autism, and luckily they were nice neighbourhood kids who didn’t share “tricks”. Note to self: I really must put up blinds in the kitchen before Halloween returns this year…
I am busy putting off rescheduling another friend who I was going to meet for a walk tomorrow. Seeing THREE friends in one weekend could well escalate me well beyond a social hangover and into a total shutdown. And I have declined another social get together this weekend, sending the following explanation, which would make a great generic out-of-office-auto-reply for any shameless autistic in response to any social invitation: “Thanks for the invite and apologies but I can’t people tomorrow. But if I could people, I know you’d be safe people for me to people alongside. Have a great time 😊”
Luckily I can confidently unmask with my true friends, perhaps to an unnerving extent from their perspective, since autistic perimenopausal unmasking isn’t just stripping off my social mask and letting my face do it’s contorted-joy-thing without worrying if the facial muscles are conveying the feelings. It also means when I start to overheat and have a hot flush, they also have to put up with me stripping off my clothes at their houses too. Fortunately, I managed to get my dress back on before Morning Friend’s husband got back home. My meltdowns can be triggered by my inability to regulate my own body temperature, which this days has a broken thermostat that is running to the current alarming trajectory of global warming.
Whilst I am feeling very aware and glad in equal measure that my hormones seem to currently be at an even keel, perpetual hot flushes aside, I have learnt the hard way the need to guardedly monitor my energy expenditure. Energy accounting is an amazing tool for neurodivergent people. Think about all the jobs you have to do, people you need to see, self-care tasks and other responsibilities. Which of those give you energy, and which of them drain your energy levels? Think of your energy as an accounts book (so analogue, I know, but I am no digital native) that you need to keep balanced. Assign a numerical value to the planned events:
Puss In Boots has just declared it’s the quality, not quantity of life (lives?) we have that matters, which is my cue to conclude this and get my kids home.
Let’s do the Math(s): My eyes are getting dry (-80), I am getting hangry (-90), trying not to eat ALL THE CAKE and I have a sore hand from typing (-60). I calculate (see the Withdrawals column above) that at negative 230, which explains why I am too overwhelmed to edit this into a tidy essay that draws a useful conclusion. Let’s put this piece (of writing, not cake) down to creative expression. Let’s call it a stream of consciousness because I want to go home now and watch Taskmaster (+20) under my weighted blanket (+60) with my cats (+20), which equates (using the Deposits column) to positive 100. Hmm, I am still overdrawn energy wise. *Dons soft clothes (+80) and thick socks (+20). Tops up chocolate intake (+40). Listens to generic British indie rock circa 2007 (+50) and zones out. *
A social hangover awaits. But it will have been worth it!
PS: I was too busy masking through Maths lessons at school to learn anything, so my calculations may be way off. Forgive me, for I am not Rain(wo)man. We can’t all be maths savants, especially not when all that chocolate consumption and Taskmaster viewing requires my energy.
Ooh, that was instructive - thank you! As someone who has only just (at nearer 70 than 60. Much nearer) recognised I have lifelong undiagnosed ADHD, I am recognising SO many of those characteristics, though at your young age I was doing a helluva lot more masking. Had to, then...
Love your accounts book, may I adopt/adapt it?
Not sure about the caffeine intake though...tends to send me waay off into hyper-spin, and then dump me horribly.
Have a great day - spring and clear skies here on the wild west coast of Wales. The sea is blue and my giant white lurcher is awaiting her walk (+60)
Xx
Just figured this out (fast learner😝) needing to go to the loo when I'm out is a major energy accounting withdrawal. But having to find a loo is too much. And using someone's loo out of the question. Answer - camping loo in van.