Sorry, the Cats Are Fighting. Again.

Hi Team Auti Peri,How are things with you? Just a short video as I am too tired to write a long form post, but I wanted to let you know that I am thinking of you. In last weekend’s post I walked you through writing an Autism Adapted Suicide Safety Plan. I would love to know if you found it helpful?As you might expect, I am still on a low after that! This video post is a little lighter, in the metaphorical sense. The downlights in the room were blinding so I filmed it lying down to pretend I don’t have enormous under-eye bags. Which is a lie.My face in fact looks like this:💼 💼👃👄Sorry, I am in a weird mood…Anyway, the notes I was supposed to be referring to in this video read as per the following (is that even grammatically correct? I am so tired): * You are the expert on yourself.* You know your own needs better than any doctor or professional.* It can take us a while to decode our internal signals, but we have to trust our guts(?).* It has taken me two days to figure out that I am feeling (mildly) depressed. The cues were 1) not leaving the house in two days, and 2) eating cheesecake directly out of the non-Tupperware tub.* Functioning labels are often rejected by the autistic community because assigning a level to our (dis)abilities will never account for our fluctuations and regressions in functioning and support need levels. * Pre-autistic perimenopause I would have considered myself to have been a “gifted” thinker in terms of my processing speed, ability to articulate myself and to manipulate many directions of thought at once. * Mid-autistic perimenopause I have regressed significantly and am continuing to do so. * Autistic and neurodivergent people are dynamic beings in a world that wants to label us and put us in boxes. Which is ironic given that the “experts” tell us we are autistic if/when we label, categorise, line up and box all the things! If you take nothing else from this video, then please hear this: You should go and have a nice lie down alone for a bit. (But maybe turn off the downlights first.) 📝 Thank you for reading! 📝 🎧Thank you for listening! 🎧 📼 Thank you for watching! 📼 🐈 🐈 Please subscribe if you like! 🐈 🐈 Get full access to Divergent Menopause at samgallowayaudhd.substack.com/subscribe