I recently embarked upon a relaxing vacation.¹ Being that I haven’t done anything like that for around three decades, the trip confirmed several things I already suspected. Unfortunately, now that I’m back home and again with sleep deprivation, I’ve returned to what caused me to need that experience in the first place. Because of that, exhaustion has already diminished my ability to explain details. I can tell my brain is deteriorating faster than it should be. That could be partly why I’m less able to write posts for my blog.
I’m tempted to quit writing altogether, but if I don’t try my best to use what I’ve got left of my brain’s capacities, the capacities that still remain will degenerate even faster. This negative progression is not mental illness. It is a natural physical aging that is happening at a faster than normal rate. It is being enhanced by post-menopause. Getting older is a fact of life and there is no such thing as reversing the aging process. All one can do is slow it down.
Most older women already know how diet and exercise play a vital part in protecting health, but few are aware of the other factors some people have which hinder even the simplest of tasks. There are a couple of reasons I’m bringing attention to this. The first has to do with what I was once told. It was, “Everyone has problems.” What I wonder is how many people realize that (generally speaking) the less obvious the problems are, the more they can cause problems. These kinds of problems come from those who like to judge others without personally being capable of knowing the challenges another person may have to deal with. We are all human, but we are not all alike neurologically.
The second reason behind me telling about my post-menopause experience is so other women can have an enhanced perspective to see their own journey on this path. Women tend to be interested in what others go through with pregnancy and the labor of child birth, so why not also that time of life when those events are no longer possible?
To balance things out, I’ll first briefly share about my two pregnancies and labor experiences. In a nutshell, they apparently were not typical. I especially know this now that my daughter just gave birth to my third grandchild just recently (May 26th to be precise). I had hoped hers would have been as easy as what I went through, but it wasn’t. What she went through to have her three children was more the norm for women who have natural childbirth. My children were both born at home with the minimal amount of prenatal routines. I don’t even know what it’s like to “push” in order to give birth or what “labor pains” are. Pardon the odd way of describing it, but I know no other way than to describe it as being like an upside-down regurgitation (minus the intense nausea). I’m sure having a full moon during each of those events, along with remaining upright (rather than reclining), had some influence.
Now things have flip-flopped. It’s as if what blessed me to escape the usual unpleasantries of child bearing has turned into a curse. To some, this might not make sense, especially since you’d think that a hyper-sensitive nervous system would be a recipe for enhanced challenges with child birth. I can only guess that it’s because of being hyper-sensitive those experiences for me were not difficult. I easily knew what to do versus what not to do. Number one on my list was to stay as far away from hospitals as possible at all times (which is what I do anyhow). A hospital (even if it’s a “child birthing center”) would freak me out. I knew long in advance I needed the freedom to be able to go walk off alone into the woods or a field, while in labor, and come back indoors when I was ready to deliver (in my way, at my time). I wouldn’t even consider Lamaze classes, because (to me) that didn’t seem natural or necessary; plus, it would have been a waste of my money. In my mind, giving birth didn’t need to be any different from how a wild animal deals with it.
Maybe it’s because I’m a human being living in a “modern” society that post-menopause is a curse for me? I’ve had hot flashes long enough to see a personal pattern evolve. Because I’ve become conditioned in two decades to respond the way I have to minor incidences like a cat vomiting in the night or juice being spilled by a child, I can no longer control the snowballing destructive chain reactions such things have on my body. Hot flashes have become like a personal bio-feedback machine to me. There is a direct correlation between adrenaline production and hot flashes. First comes the anxiety producing event, then immediately afterward an overwhelming wave of heat is triggered, usually followed by a major emotional disruption. The mood alteration sometimes is immediate, but often times it’s repressed and vents out later (e.g., the next day).
After having done research to learn about what is going on physically inside my body and why during post-menopause, I again know what to do versus what not to do. Again I know not to go the route most others may choose to travel (e.g., using pharmaceutical products). Being that I’m more hyper-sensitive now than ever before in my life, it is imperative my environment be as much under my control as possible. Being that people (including myself) are like chemicals which produce reactions, socializing must be done with caution when there is the combination of heightened hyper-sensitivity and post-menopause. It’s not just relationships that must be monitored closely. Sounds, lights, temperatures, tastes, smells, textures, etc., all have a strong impact upon basic bodily functions like sleep, energy, memory, thinking ability, muscular strength, etc.
It’s too bad that there is very little research in the area of post-menopausal Asperger women. The younger Aspies are, the more the medical community is interested. This is especially so for Asperger females. Since Aspergers isn’t something a person outgrows or “has,” but rather is what one may be, there are plenty of opportunities for us older Aspies to add to, and/or refine, the existing relatively crude information that already exists about Aspergers. For example, the article Asperger’s Syndrome and Unequal Reaction to Pain by Nelle Frances, contains useful information. It would be interesting to see how data like that could be related to what David Zava, Ph.D. says in his interview on How Cortisol Levels Affect Thyroid Function and Aging that’s published on the Virginia Hopkins Health Watch website.
¹Little did I know I’d be on another one four days after publishing this post! If you’re interested in nature photos, I have plenty connected to my vacation tag on my casual blog.
