This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
.
Dear Sara,
What I am about to share is the result of us having to cancel last week, and postponing our call.
If it had taken place at the moment we intended it to, I probably would have written you that I would have loved to have a conversation about the conflict of interest between creativity and art, and business and entrepreneurship.
Because I did recall you speaking about it, offering very profound insights, and offering to pick it up in our next call.
I was eager to hear what you had to say.
If we had had our call last week, I am almost certain I would have asked you to let me know what wisdom you had, that I had not.
I usually do not get any further than being jealous of non-creative people, because at least they CAN build a business, without constantly knowing that-it-is-not-THE-work!
That the business is just there to support our creative endeavors, and to give us a place in the world.
Even in the age of social media, the art studio and the writing desks are still the loneliest places in the inhabited world.
For us, pretending to be normal, run a business, and see a fellow human once in a while, serves many purposes.
But there never seems to be the option for us, to only do one thing. We’re constantly torn between the lonely, creative purpose work, and the hobbit-like joy of having a business.
However that whole topic was completely blown from my radar, when the bomb of bombly insights dropped on what the f* has been happening with me over the last four to six years or so, when I definitely lost my mojo.
Now, partially, it will probably require a series of specialists to check me out for neurological problems, eye problems, and a sinus problem which has made me wake up feeling horrible, every day, year after year.
At least I think it’s a sinus problem, that is actually also new information through an article a friend sent me.
But the sinus problem is of course not the bomb of bombs.
No, the big revelation is that my autism, of which I still do not have the official diagnosis (which is probably a good thing, but more about that later) but I do have a psychologist who helps me analyse the havoc my life has been, through the lens of autistic burn-out-ish / high-sensitivity gone wrong;
That this may be directly connected to going through menopause.
I effectively wasn’t autistic, until my hormones dropped.
I was unbothered, by a lot of things that do bother me now. Not bothered by the subtle things, like the mood swings of others, nor the big things like sensory overload.
My senses hardly ever, got overloaded, until a few years ago, and now my thoughts are OUT LOUD.
Well, at least they are in my head.
Together with other memories: Music, dialogue from film, conversations.
I hear them all together, and often with visual images too.
And at night when I close my eyes, I see visions, cartoon-like or AI- generated movies that never happened, and of which I see nothing that is based on my actual life.
However, none of these things were familiar or known to me in the years prior.
So I started Googling and found that although it is very new, pioneering research with massive hiatusses at places where we would have preferred some hard data;
Women not being diagnosed until menopause floors them, is a known phenomenon.
And one with a very simple explanation:
Progesterone, a hormone that starts to drop before oestrogene even does, is the hormone that dampens signals from outside.
It is, in short, the hormone that makes life bearable for women.
In my opinion progesterone taking the edge off your sensatory experience, also explains why women seem less “autistic” than men.
We’re on drugs 😉
Or at least we were, until menopause hit.
So in other words, this whole story has convinced me to go all in on getting hormone replacement therapy.
I will also give it my all on clean eating, because chocolate, coffee and sugar, do rob you of your final woman strength (and worsen hot flashes);
But as an autistic person, I simply need a lot of additives in order to get things done.
Writing you this letter, required a cup of chocolate and sugar coated peanuts!
And writing you is something I LIKE DOING!
So although I totally understand why medical professionals in the Netherlands, need you to clean up your diet, and step on it with regard to exercise and so on;
I am going to play the autism card here, that I need many of those things just to survive.
Which is not a lie.
For comparison;
They point out how (instead) women should seek solace with each other and take massages.
I find few things as stressful as being in a group of women, but taking a massage would be one of them.
Just saying:
For the neurotypical woman it might be feasible to go clean but I need my coping and my comforting, and I will not be shamed for failing to be perfect in that area.
Nor wait asking for supplements.
In particular not because I found out something shocking, related to this as well:
Contrary to other women, I have always done better, when I was on the pill.
My most violent panic attacks were when I was 15, before I was on the pill. And second half 20s, when I quit.
I had that last one pinned, I immediately blamed coming down from 10+ years of being on the pill, for the heavy backlash of panic attacks.
I felt god awful and couldn’t even sleep alone.
However, what I failed to see then, was that it was not the backlash of quitting with the pill;
It was me getting back to my natural state, which I had also had at 15.
Looking at this from this angle, you could say that autism or not;
I have never felt as good as when I was on the pill.
And the same thing is happening now;
My menopause is not causing anything, any more than stopping with the pill was the cause of anything.
Whether it is because I need more sedation, as an autistic person;
Or whether it is that I didn’t create enough progesterone from myself, to get the natural sedation any and every woman needs in order to survive;
I have a history, of thriving on artificial hormone supplements.
And being totally lost, without them.
Maybe if I had not gone on the pill so young (I was 16), and had not stayed on it for so long (over ten years);
And maybe, if I had gotten proper help those tough years after I quit;
I would have taken this menopause more seriously, a few years down the drain sooner.
I thought I could handle it, I really could.
And even the past couple of rotten years, I only blamed menopause for the hot flashes and the hot nights (but not in a good way).
I didn’t see that since 2018, I have had every possible sleeping disorder linked to menopause.
I didn’t see I could no longer bear seeing old friends, with many whom I split up.
I didn’t see that my bitterness and disappointment in life, and also the grudge that I had to think soo deeply about economic and social structures, in order to find my way through them;
That it was all because I was going through menopause.
Up until then I just closed my eyes and winged it!
Basically, I feel I have already lost half my life.
With reading all these articles about menopause and the need for proper bedtimes, and no coffee, and no sugar, and no benders, what else is there to say than that you are already with one foot in the grave?
Even the message to non-autistic women is in my opinion a horribly bleak one.
I no longer know if I am an autistic woman, or a non-autistic woman. And in my opinion, it isn’t even relevant anymore.
But I am happy my psychologist is waiting with her final diagnosis, because now she can include my findings.
Because I do know this:
I have always, done so much better with artificial hormones, than without.
And I am not just going to do whatever I have to, to get them;
I am going to hold on to them.
For dear life.
.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living
Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara, and my 1999 diary.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.
Books
My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.
The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.
Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld
Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/