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:

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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.)

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