Help! Are there any women in this Community with ASD

Oh good! Will look tomorrow. Yes I will try to have some soup or something tomorrow x

i have started a new thread btw if that helps with the scrolling....toast for breakfast and that chicken soup if you can ok tomorrow x  

Takes some doing doesn't it! Just keep being yourself and take time out if you need to. Maybe your diagnosis is a help as it not only explains things to you but to your son as well. I like the sound of Spottys soup. Anyway well done another week of term down and weekend commences. 

Positive vibes to you too! You are so talented and I hav3 a huge respect for you x glad your parking the gardening...so does that mean earning pennies with your art? Xx 

Hi Missy...managed to find you eventually. I didn’t realise that you were so poorly at the moment...all my love to you... surprised you hadn’t had children either...as you are my mother hen and keeper here! I have my son who is 13 but with my recent diagnosis...I feel that I am hampering more than helping at the moment...I need to dig deep and out if my comfort zone x 

And I'd like to have a go with glass and potters wheel. 

I quite fancy basket making too but not a group near me. Have you seen the craft programme on tv .. there have been some interesting ideas on it. Craft: I made this on demand 4. 

Unlike me not to eat.. sure it won't do me any harm not to. I'm drinking plenty of water. I think I've had the full range of thoughts ( including yours) on children, vso, foster, adopt, etc  part of me is thankful I don't have the extra worry.  being able to care for them properly came first and I don't think there was ever a time when I felt I could. Plus it will sound totally weird but I was always torn between thoughts of a life growing inside me being both wonderfully special and abhorrent which is quite a confession.

Im impressed / interested by your  range of craft skills. I borrowed a spinning wheel for a while and enjoyed it. I went to the local spinners weavers and dyers group but they were all so much more skilled than me. I have been to a couple of wool events which I enjoyed as like you said there is an instant connection. I started an Snb group but I found being in a group difficult and definitely couldn't stitch at the same time so dropped out but have thought about trying again but like you and your art the impetus to knit or crochet isn't there at the moment. Plus I have stacks of fabric waiting for me to sew. It's one of the things I've thought about retrying. I like the idea of upholstery but health and safety might be an issue with the tools! Sorry to hear you have damaged your wrist.. all that hammering strumming and pruning you've been doing. Seems as though it's helped the realisation you don't want to do the garden anymore. An alternative income source might appear soon instead. 

Oh no Missy, no food since Tuesday? Surely that won't help you feel better, chicken soup is supposed to help recovery, wish I could bring you some, sounds like you've got something horrible on top of everything else

I think the lack of interest/ research into the older ND population will come back to bite society but probably not in time to help  us!  It is sad to read that you are regretful about not having children, since I was a kid I've always said I would never have children and there was only a brief period of around a year that I kind of thought I might like to but I'm glad that passed.  Think I've got really cynical because when people go on about kids being cute and special etc. I always think 'well, they're just going to turn into more people and you/society aren't/isn't very interested in the people you've already got!'

I cancelled my gardening this morning because I've hurt my wrist somehow and I've realised that I really don't want to do it any more though the tiny income does give me a little autonomy.  If you ever get a chance I thoroughly recommend joining any kind of craft group, quite a few people have come and gone through the upholstery class as I've been going for two and a half years odd.  There have been one or two that I found challenging because they were a bit pushy but  most of them are really sweet in all different ways, it was the same when I learned dyeing and spinning and weaving, people that like to make things are generally good people.  It is a really good way to un-isolate yourself too, as you are doing something so there's no pressure to make conversation, you can join in or not as suits, it does exhaust me but in a happy way.

I really hope you feel better sooner than Monday Misfit, sending some positive energy your way. ()()xx

Me too. Just spent 5mins trying to find you! No wonder we started a new post. I just read there is very little research on 40+  ND's...and in asd there is no separate study of male or female.. lots of scope for new research! I started puberty early, had difficulties from then right through to menopause. What makes me saddest of  all is that I went through all that but no reward of my own children or grandchildren but though there are many families with asd etc My way of dealing with that is perhaps that wasn't meant for me and so a relief I'm not a bad mother and know rearing a family is far from easy but I know I have missed out. But maybe just as well. 

Morning Spotty. How's your day? Im glad the upholstery group was ok and accepting and that you decided to go. I like the sound of your stool. My mum went to upholstery class once upon a time. She had her tools in a cupboard jar of tacks and hammer etc. I'm a bit better but still in bed (not eaten since Tuesday)with whatever it is. Just quietly shutting everything out for now. I'm sure I'll feel much better by Monday. 

Hello and welcome to the bus.  None of us know where it is going but we've got on it and it is moving... I don't write things down anymore so my timeline gets a bit hazy but I know that I was 46 because I can still hear my head saying "I'm 46 and this is the middle of the menopause", I think anything to do with menstruation was always quite abstract to me, like something that happened to someone else.  I'm increasingly convinced that the hormonal changes are what has triggered my collapse from being able to behave and think of myself as 'normal' to being much more my true self and largely unable to cope with people and life.

Like Misfit though I strongly suspect that I have ADHD as well and maybe that is more affected by hormones, who knows and is anyone interested in researching it to help us?  I really feel for you with 11 years of hot flushes, I had a horrible time with those but they are mainly gone now though my temperature regulation is altered and I do still get them sometimes but I think it is stress related too now.  I hate it, I was someone who was always cold, never took their coat off, always wore a load of layers of clothing, buried myself under the duvet etc. now I have to wear clothes that can easily be unlayered and sleep under the thinnest, meanest duvet because I'll suddenly be much too hot for no reason.  Did I say they'd gone away?  Think I'm kidding myself, ho hum, it's like there's this whole pile of problems that ASD suddenly explains, which like you say is both a relief and a nightmare and then your body decides to conspire against you too.

Happy Friday and I hope you can find your way around this confusing place.  Maybe you could give yourself a name in your profile, top right of your screen?  I find the numbers terribly confusing.

If you are not very computer literate you have done well to join and post on the forum. A few of us hadn't been on a forum before so we had teething issues so don't be embarrassed to ask how to do things.I don't know if other women on here found the same it's just my own experience or not but it certainly affects my adhd. There isn't much information about asd and peri menopause. Just talking to immediate family and people on tills is just about what I do too my world has shrunk considerably (but believe not the same for everyone) . And like you I do fear the future in terms of self care support and finance as I live alone and my family live away except my dad in his late 80's. But it's a big thing to find out late in life about autism and a lot to adjust to. So as with any transition we have to allow time to become accustomed to the new information about ourselves and then hopefully try to live our lives with more understanding. 

Hello and thank you!  This is such an interesting place. I've been going through this thread and your analogy about standing in front of a locked door and not knowing how to ask for the key wasreally interesting. Lots to think about, for sure.

Thanks for your welcome, and for the info. You're certainly right about the amount of reading material out there! I'm not very computer literate and am still finding my way around this site. I read Laura James' book, which was a real eye-opener. Also I have a young relative with Aspergers and I gradually came to see how alike we are in some respects. I wasn't aware that the menopause is affected badly by asd, so that's interesting. I'm sorry you've had problems. I think it has made me much more withdrawn - the only people I talk to now are immediate family, including lovely husband, and ladies on shop tills. Mainly this is quite a peaceful way to live but it does make me a bit anxious for the future. But perhaps I just need to take things quietly for now. I'm probably rabbiting on - thank you for responding.

Hi you! Welcome to the crew!

i'm a 42 yr old elephant....self diagnosed....everyone is lovely here so welcome aboard and I hope you'll find it a good place to be x 

Hello there. Welcome. Yes there are several of women in our 40's and 50's on the forum. This is the first thread I joined in with too. It was such a revelation to find other women who knew about asd in their family or themselves. Yes it is both a shock and a relief to recognise this is "it" that explains so much about our lives.  It takes quite some working through. The reading and finding out takes quite a while because the more you read the more links there are and connections to other conditions. On here there are formally diagnosed and self diagnosed but we try to support each other as we can. I'm 55 and through the menopause slightly earlier than the norm so I recognise that 11 years of hot flushes is a challenge. I have read that females with Neurodiversity asd adhd etc go through the female lifecycle puberty, menstruation, menopause differently to those without that. I'm not sure how they record such things but mine has caused problems throughout. And yes because of hormonal changes it does affect our brains and it does for some exacerbate traits or difficulties. I have particularly read about this in connection to adhd. So yes a lot of what you are saying I identify with as Im sure it will with others. I think I read to reread this thread to remind myself what everyone has said. There is a lot of information in various threads and if you are interested in particular things you can use the search at the top of the page. 

Hello there. I am new to this but having seen your question about the menopause felt I had to reply. I have recently realised, at the grand old age of 58, that I may have asd. I've been doing a lot of reading. I've had bad hot flushes for 11 years now which do not respond to any sort of treatment. Not only is it exhausting but I think it's one of the reasons I use to justify avoiding people as it's so embarrasing. I also have hearing difficulties and tinnitus (and get 'sensory overload' pretty quickly). In reality I'm just hopeless with other people as I'm never sure how to respond to them or how I'm coming across. I'm very glad to have found you ladies! At the moment I'm veering between feeling enormously relieved to have an explanation for the way my life has gone, and swamped - my brain seems to be on a mission to catalouge every example of aspie behaviour/thought/feeling that I've ever had! Anyway, I look forward to hearing from someone.

Hi, I'm a female with autism, and I struggle with empathy. It feels like I'm selfish because I can't seem to understand how others feel, this makes me stressed to be point where I feel so guilty for not understanding. I only know how I feel, so I end up being selfish because I don't know how to take others feelings into consideration. I'm not being mean, i do care the problem is I care too much.  If someone is ill or really sad about something  for example I don't know how to behave. To them point where I am overly fussing over them and trying to make things better, but always getting it wrong.

p.s. How do you manage as a teacher ? I want to be one but I'm scarec because of my anxiety and confidence and meltdowns. I also have very small confidence. 

Thank you 

Spotty. Ditto as well. Besides we need you to talk about yourself as part of the process of understanding ourselves because it's where other people understand what we're saying! 

Limegreenwelly Like and agree!