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! 🐈 🐈
