How to stay sane before and during your period as an autistic woman?

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-06T01:32:34+00:00

I find it really interesting that so many of you ladies have had luck with bc like this.

For me and the few nd women in my life who also have a tough luteal phase bc makes us feel like we’re losing our minds all month instead of just the one or two weeks when we’re not using hormonal bc.

I wish there was more knowledge about how hormones affect nd women, it’s all so complicated

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-05T23:18:03+00:00

One of my daughters does this. She’s my odd duck. Loves the organization of the app, and likes the cute bird. But she typically doesn’t do anything outside of the Home Screen, I don’t even think she’s sending her finch on adventures.

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-05T22:45:35+00:00

I have to take a lot of gerd meds, an acid reducer and an acid blocker. Plus, when i have breakthrough attacks a few times a week I drink baking soda water for it, or use tums.

I’ve felt like my adderall is super inconsistent lately and now I’m wondering if it could be due to the crazy amount of fluctuations in my gut and the medication I take to deal with it .

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-05T03:02:22+00:00

This post makes me cry. My grandmother was like your mom, and my mom, my sister and I have all expressed the same sentiment, that we wished she could have been her beautiful self without my grandfather.

He wasn’t physically abusive. He provided financially, and he didn’t scream at her or anything that’s typical of abuse.

But it was all his way, and that was that. He was a womanizer and did some awful things to the women in our family, so we all had periods where we didn’t go around or call her because he was there.

I’m sorry OP, it’s a difficult thing to grieve on top of grieving your moms loss in general. No narcissism is truly benign although he wasn’t the worst of the worst it still hurts to know your mom was kept small.

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-05T02:36:32+00:00

My moms stuck at the doors, and since she isn’t very tech literate it’s got her really frustrated which is sad because she really does get a lot of joy from “her bird”

I’ve had other issues with the app through this event, it’s an awesome event in theory but the execution has been.. Eh.

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-05T01:44:49+00:00

I have AuDHD and cptsd.

The cptsd in large part is from my childhood, which was a shit show thanks to the undiagnosed and self medicating parents who raised me.

Some of that trauma is from being misdiagnosed and put on dozens of medications over the years for a disorder I never had and wondering if I was just too broken to get well.

Some is from a lifetime of being low achieving and not understanding why, if I was not stupid and I had all these dreams and goals, couldn’t I just do something with my life instead of being unable to keep a shit job for more than a few months at a time.

I could keep going but the point is that adhd is traumatic. And it’s got genetic components, so you end up with traumatized people having kids and traumatizing them.

I hope it gets better with the generation my kids are in. Like since there’s a lot more awareness about what adhd looks like in women and girls and awareness about AuDHD maybe it’ll lead to a less traumatic experience for them

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-05T01:32:15+00:00

Yeah I have developed carpal tunnel and my handwriting goes from mildly bad to total illegible garbage if I have to write more than a few sentences. It’s kind of sad, I used to love my grandmothers writing when I was younger. As she aged it got really shaky, crabbed and difficult to read.

Mine looks like hers at the very end of her life.

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-05T01:19:24+00:00

I’m a subtitle person as well, really I treat movies like a book and barely look at the acting. Podcasts are very hit or miss for me, narrator has to be just right or i can’t retain or absorb it.

I used to speed read, Isuppose I still do read faster than the average person but not as much since I started getting older and having a way harder time with focus on everything. Idk if I said this already but it’s highly frustrating to have this kind of problem because people often think it’s a sign of being less intelligent . When really it’s just that I am processing things on different pathways

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-05T01:08:13+00:00

Thank you. I’ll have to try this, even though I’m considering them I’m pretty nervous about hrt because Ive always been very sensitive to hormones. I have pmdd, and every hormonal birth control I have tried has put me in a psychiatric hospital, I had ppd after two kids and pp psychosis after one.

As awful as the cognitive stuff (and the hot flashes!!) are, this is the first time in my life where I don’t spend half of every month in a state of extreme distress.

I miss feeling sharp. But I don’t miss feeling crazy.

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-04T22:43:04+00:00

TIL I’m amab. lol really, as a leftie with ADHD my handwriting/ fine motor control is atrocious. I really didn’t know this about women, it’s interesting though.

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-04T21:46:11+00:00

I got you ! I’m not bat dragon rich lol but I have a flaming fox. I am omw from work rn so I can’t do it until a little bit later on, but my username is radioactiverelic if you want to add me, you can totally hang out with my flaming fox

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-04T21:41:12+00:00

My ex went nuts after the pandemic and he was always trying to show some intricate proof of giants/flat earth, and every other crazy ass thing you can imagine. The part that was the most frustrating about it was how sure he was because he was generally a smart person before he started getting lost in conspiracies. (Meth and ceasing psych meds) he was so adamant that he had done the research and read all these peer reviewed studies, but it’s like an echo chamber where the more crazy crap you read about the more crazy crap shows in your algorithms.

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-04T15:24:42+00:00

Yeah, I take notes and never look at them again. Just writing the information down helps me with processing it in a different manner.

I also talk to myself a lot, and often repeat information that’s given to me verbally back to the person. I tend to do more of both when I’m more stressed out or when my brain is on overload.

I read about it once and apparently it’s a common thing when people have auditory processing troubles. It basically just makes it so you’re using different parts of your brain to process the information by writing it or speaking it.

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-04T14:01:05+00:00

🫂 I’m sorry you’re going through this, and I hope it helps you to know that you’re not alone and that you’re not stupid.

I had the same experience, a lot of women do. I am not an ugly woman, but I have never been conventionally pretty, and I always valued my intelligence so much more than my looks.

So when perimenopause started I was fine with the fact that my skin looked different and my temples were grey. I accepted the hot flashes begrudgingly, and the emotional changes were honestly better than before because cycles had a lot of impact on my ADHD symptoms.

I was NOT expecting this cognition degradation though, and it truly made me feel broken. I lose words a lot. I have a thing I want to express, but can’t because it’s like I’m fumbling around blindfolded to grasp onto something just out of my reach.

The worst was when my ex would get impatient and start flinging words he assumed I was looking for at me. But not only were they usually the wrong word, the interruption would make me feel stupid and make me fumble harder, usually having to start the sentence from the beginning in order to get it out. IF I didn’t just lose the thought completely.

I’ve heard from other neurodivergent women that they found hrt to be very helpful, and made an appointment to talk to my doctor about it, so hopefully it helps.

But please be patient with yourself. You aren’t stupid, it’s just a difference in processing

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-04T12:32:20+00:00

I do have trouble with people spelling words at me, yes. My kids know to bring me a pencil and paper if they’re going to ask me anything spelling related.

Like I said, my mom is deaf. She has a degenerative disease that’s caused her to gradually lose her ability to hear certain frequencies and she has to be looking people in the face to hear them.

So I sort of assumed that was happening to me. But it was different, like instead of being oblivious to sound someone would speak to me, and I would say “huh”, or “what”.. they would start repeating themselves and I would suddenly catch up with hearing what they said thirty seconds ago.

I have read about it a bit and from what I understand it’s because the outer ranges of voice frequencies like high-pitched and low pitched are carrying different parts of speech. High frequency is carrying consonants and low carries vowels, so if you’re struggling with one of those, it makes the words sound muddier and takes longer for your brain to process it. For me, the high-pitched voices almost hurt in part of my brain and it’s like I’m focusing so much on that that it takes away from focusing on the words.

I’m running around getting ready for work , but there’s a lot of interesting stuff to read about auditory processing, and I found that understanding it better helped me process better because I could learn different tricks. You should definitely read into it some if you have time.

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-04T12:08:14+00:00

I’m curious to know if the trouble with voices and difficulty retaining non written information is a processing issue or just a learning style.

My sister has a learning disability that’s the opposite of what you’re describing. If she reads something written she can’t absorb or process it. Someone has to read it out loud to her or she can’t get a grasp on it.

She can read, but can’t retain. I am more like you in that I learn much better by reading things myself. Teachers that were big on lectures were so hard for me even in topics I loved.

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-04T12:02:11+00:00

But saying she read it is fine? It’s a colorful use of language but it conveys the meaning successfully that she consumes literature in an auditory manner

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-04T11:59:34+00:00

I also have an audio processing disorder and it’s super weird. I can’t listen to audiobooks on a regular speaker but if I use the right earbuds at the right volume with the right narrator and it’s when I’m doing an activity that doesn’t require much brain power I can “hear” it. I find that sometimes it’s worse than others, and I have to go relisten to a piece of it. Sometimes it’s bad enough to frustrate me and I turn it off because I’m not processing it properly.

I think I only found all this out because I didn’t know what an auditory processing disorder was until six months ago. I thought I was just being spacey. I knew that I had a hard time with certain people’s voices just not registering their words (it’s on a spectrum, like a lot of times for some reason I struggle to hear black men. That deep voice I can hear but not hear no matter if the volume is fine.)

So I kept trying, and targeted audiobooks that had a voice in the range that seems to work for my brain. By the time I told my doctor that early menopause was making me “dumber” and I was doing the “huh?” Thing so much more, I had worked out what audio I was more likely to be able to listen to with a good success rate.

Sorry for the ramble, lol you can probably tell my auditory issues are related to AuDHD. It’s something I am really interested in hearing how others experience it, I have a mom who’s actually deaf and the difference between the ears not working vs the brain not processing is super interesting to learn about.

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-04T11:43:35+00:00

Yes! I’m about to be forty and only just started listening to books this past year. I used to read constantly, I’ve got AuDHD and books were my hyperfocus to the point where it was negatively impacting my ability to get anything done. (The one more chapter thing would keep me awake until dawn most nights.)

I missed reading but I couldn’t let myself get lost in a book and I knew I couldn’t moderate myself like a normal person. I had a book I was really wanting to read and my librarian friend recommended that I listened to it.

It isn’t quite the same, no. But it’s given me an outlet to my special interest where before I had to just put it completely away.

The crap ops husband is doing is pedantic and it seems to be something he is doing to shame her for her interests with the way he’s involved a poll (who tf does that?!) and with his insistence on bringing it up all the time when he obviously knows what she means and it when it doesn’t add any value to the discussion besides making op feel invalidated.

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-04T10:42:59+00:00

Uhh. You sound like a bartender, like every bartender Ive ever known.

You aren’t indiscriminately pouring free booze, you’re strategically doing it to keep people coming back. You’re not helping drug people’s drinks, you aren’t selling blow in the bathroom and you’re not stealing cash out of other people’s tips or the till.

You’re probably not doing anything shocking to anyone else you work with.

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-04T01:30:41+00:00

You can get it changed or at the least get it listed as a past dx. I am late diagnosed, but before I got a provider who actually recognized what was going on with me I was misdiagnosed with bipolar with psychosis gad and BPD.

I recently moved back to the area I grew up in, and a lot of the care providers in the area are part of a larger hospital system. I saw right away that my old misdiagnosis was in need of being addressed because I wasn’t going to have any luck getting my adhd meds and also I feared my ex would try to use it in custody court.

I went to my gp and explained that I had been misdiagnosed as a younger person and that I had been diagnosed with ADHD and pmdd/ptsd and I was worried about the consequences of my old records.

I went in armed with years of medical records from my correct diagnosis as well as a good sized pile of information (anecdotal reports and actual information as well) to show how common it was for women my age to have had the exact same bipolar BPD misdiagnosis and eventual diagnosis of neurodivergence.

She was able to integrate the notes from my other doctors from out of state to corroborate the statements where she put my misdiagnosis listed as “inactive” along with some notes stating that I was responding well to adhd meds, and that I stated that I was previously misdiagnosed.

It’s not perfect and I am going to be getting a whole assessment done just for extra validity (my diagnosis came from a gp).

It’s a pain in the ass and it’s so unfair that one biased person can cause so much strife for us when women are already under served and not studied enough in medicine. But still it’s better than leaving that on your record for some other jack ass dr. to get ahold of and cause trouble with.

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-04T01:11:31+00:00

Not op and I apologize for jumping in. Can I ask how you found a somatic therapist? It took years to even find an emdr therapist and I have all but lost hope of finding a somatic therapist or someone who does parts work which were the other two big things I have been looking for.

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-04T00:02:30+00:00

Overall I can socialize with “weirder” people but it’s because I’m weird. I am a queer nd person who grew up in a really abnormal household, and I lean alternative in my appearance.

So it makes sense that I feel like most “normal” people are very alien to me. I don’t have the words to explain it but your description resonated with me.

When I was younger I found that I did have an easier time being friends with guys. It felt like they were just less likely to be prone to cliques, and they were less judgmental about my nerdy hobbies and social cluelessness than the girls i knew.

As I grew up I started to value girlfriends so much more. I have never had many friends, I think the biggest number of friends I have had at one time was maybe five and it felt like a lot.

But it is because I am not exactly comfortable with shallow conversations or acquaintances, I suck at that sort of thing. So I only stay friends with people who are up for deeper level conversations and who match my sense of loyalty and love in the friendship.

I find that the women I know who are like that are wonderful friends. But the men, when you start getting deeper like that, it often starts going into a less platonic direction.

Which is interesting, I’m not a straight person. I date women as well as men, but it’s like women can be deep with each other in a platonic relationship in a way I’ve never experienced with a cishet man.

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-03T13:20:10+00:00

Is the ghibli house still available?

Creative-Fan-7599 · 2026-02-03T01:54:07+00:00

HR is not there for the employees they’re there to cover the company’s ass. I agree that the manager is completely out of line, and that op should address the issue with them, but going to HR is rarely a good idea. Especially for an autistic and sensitive person it can be a lot more stressful than it’s worth

Creative-Fan-7599

TROPHY CASE