I feel like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, or a damsel trapped in a castle tunnelling her way to freedom; I feel fundamentally changed for the better.
I am neurodivergent perimenopausal woman. Hear me roar.
My journey here is a long one and starts six years ago when the world was changing faster than it ever had before.
The pandemic changed everything. All those months of forced enclosure had made working from home the norm in many industries. That newfound inclusion meant I could get and hold a “proper job”.
It felt like a revelation. There I was, in the corporate world, able to affect real change. Able to advise and offer new points of view and to improve inclusion from the inside.
It all felt a bit magical. I wasn’t broken by being in the world of office workers because we were all online. No sensory hell, just my plants and a screen. No perfume, no background noise, nobody leaping out with small talk from any direction. I could work.
I learnt so much, I met so many brilliant people and I felt heard.
I took on more roles. I took on more work. Together we set our Neurodivergence Network in stone and I trained thousands of colleagues in the value of thinking differently.
It was all going so well until it wasn’t. What I didn’t know was that perimenopause was creeping up on me. I knew hormones affected neurodivergent people differently.
I knew perimenopause was a thing. But I had hoped to skip it. Just like I hope to skip so many things by just acknowledging their existence. If I know in person meetings will leave me headachey and exhausted I should be allowed to skip the pain. That should be how it works.
I hadn’t expected all my coping mechanisms, that relied on my autistic brain to do its thing, would collapse overnight and that I would be left with a feeling of despair and hopelessness. I hadn’t expected a fresh hell of anxiety that didn’t have triggers I could plan for, because the trigger was my own endocrine system.
Yes I was definitely doing too much and overstretched and juggling all the spinning plates and mixing all the metaphors. But that was how I worked.
A wise woman told me that I needed to find a new way to a sustainable life. A life with balance.
But there was so much to fix. So much to do. So much that I could help with. So I pushed on.
Then the messaging began to come from on high and the world changed again. It’s not wrong that it changed, there is nuance in all things. Office working was returning. My voice was heard too, those with need could still work from home as an adjustment, but…
There is a grieving that had to be done. It is hard to explain what it feels like to be included as standard. To be included alongside everyone else. To be a part of a whole virtual organisation.
I saw so many people thrive when no diagnosis was needed to have adjustments. No going to a greater being to beg to have your way of working allowed. Everyone together. Everyone normal. Everyone just getting on with the work at hand.
There are balances. It is harder to manage someone virtually because you have to rely on output not presenteeism, you have to consciously meet rather than rely on passing words. You have to make the effort. Many people don’t do that.
Many people – including many neurodivergent people – need the bustle of office life to keep them grounded. It is their ideal environment. Inclusion should always mean inclusion for all. Home-working is not everything to all people. It’s daft to think my ways of working are universal, but it was so glorious for a moment. For a brief moment in time I got to see what it was like to just be, without fighting for the right to it. Without a piece of paper to prove my oddities. Just existing and having needs met. What a luxury, how amazing to have that as your norm. How indulgent.
But with that shift to being the person on the screen in the corner of the room I felt myself shrink. My voice got a little quieter.
With the hormonal storm and the unsustainable life, and the sudden isolation of my difference being seen as a difficulty again, I shrunk more.
I tried really hard to find a way back, and I cannot fault the organisation for just how much it bent to let me stay, but then life taught me an even more valuable lesson; there is no work more important than the people you love. A new need appeared and the importance of that corporate world crumbled in a moment.
It has been a time of metamorphosis and learning. I have learnt much.
I have learnt that Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) is a godsend. All that anxiety and noise disappeared. I truly am a part of a system and not a brain sitting in a box.
I have learnt that we need a range of types of workplaces for all, and inclusivity is possible, but there is so much work to be done.
I have learnt that I cannot do it all, I cannot be all things to all people, and as a very wise woman once said to me, it is none of my business what other people think about me, all that matters is what I do. I’m not sure that this fits in here, but it was such a revelation for a mind that has spent her life trying to second guess what neurotypical brains are thinking about me. Turns out it’s none of my business and I should be getting on with living. Who knew?!
I have learnt that what is all-encompassing is not the same thing as what is nurturing and self-sustaining.
I have learnt that just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.
So where next? After years of letting my creativity slip I am back. Not in the virtual world, but in the real one.
Somewhere along the way I took up playing in clay and it turns out I’m quite good at it. Find me on Instagram at @glasceramics if you like that sort of thing. Come and say hello. I would really like that.
It is the only thing I have found to date that brings my whole self to something. I will write more about what it is to have sensory joy, problem-solving, novelty and routine all in one thing.
It is my sustainable life, I think. I miss people though. I miss the interactions. That’s something I still need to build.
I am Rhi. I am 46 and perimenopausal. I am autistic, and yes I probably do have ADHD too, but that’s neither here nor there. I still find it funny that I had to know for sure about the autism, but I’ve done nothing except procrastinate about the ADHD since it was suggested. My neurodivergence knows what it is doing.
If you want me you will find me – like so many perimenopausal neurodivergent women – up to my armpits in mud. Enjoying the power of my hands and letting my face fall. It doesn’t hold expressions for the clay. It doesn’t have to smile to influence. It is allowed to be what it is; a little bit funny looking and goofy, but beautiful in her joy.
I don’t know what the next five years will bring. There are more adventures on the horizon. But I will be bringing the joy and forging my own path. I will be spreading these new wings of mine and flying.
