There’s a schedule for these blog posts; I write them up in advance and schedule them in a particular order. This week though, I’m going to interrupt this schedule and write a personal blog post about the events of the last week or so, some long term issues I’ve been facing, and how today I’m regrouping after a lot of social and mental demands on my introverted, HSP neurodivergent being.
I’m hoping this blog post will give you some insights into my personal world, and give you some ideas as to how to regulate your own nervous system after it’s been scrambled a bit, or at least help you feel like you’re not the only one that struggles with certain life things.
It all started with the garage roller door…
The Garage Door Conundrum
Okay, so I’ve lived where I currently live for seven years. Five years ago, when the manual garage door was getting difficult to open and close and needed an upgrade, we had an electrical roller door installed.
Seemed fine at the time. But what I realised in the last couple of years was that the only way in and out of the fully enclosed garage was through that electric-operated roller door. Me being the worrying sort I am thought, but what if the power goes out and we can’t get into the garage? Never mind, I said to myself. The likelihood of that happening is so minimal it isn’t worth thinking about, we’ll get a door put in or something before that ever happens. I effectively intellectualised away my worries out of habit. Does this sound familiar to anyone else who has been talked out of their worries or had their concerns invalidated or dismissed most of their life? I still had my concerns, but buried them and just hoped the power to the garage door wouldn’t go off.
It did. Last Wednesday. The toaster tripped the safety switch that controls the kitchen bench power sockets, the wall that connects us to the internet (why my blogging has been thrown a bit out of whack), and the garage roller door. I worked out, from the list I made of what things were linked to what safety switch, what safety switch must have been tripped on the switchboard.
I should mention here that the switchboard is located in the garage with only the electric-operated roller door for access: there is no internal door from the house to the garage and no manhole connecting the garage to the house via the roof. Not even the lock would work, being merely a cosmetic display.
So we were kind of stuck. Mercury Retrograde anyone?
This is where the demands began.
PMDD & Menstrual Cycles
When I know I’m having some alone time while my partner is at work or out of the house, I plan how I’m going to best use that time to recharge and replenish. So on this Wednesday I had a plan, something of a schedule heading into what I call “Strawberry Week” (monthly bleeding/period/menstruation, whatever you want to call it) and planning my time in the Red Tent, which in a nutshell is me allowing myself to be a hermit and not leave the house for the duration of my period, giving myself permission to not answer calls or the door, and to say a strong no to any social or people demands while I deal with the pain, discomfort, and emotional turbulence of menstruation.
This is my time to reflect and replenish, my sacred time to go within and nourish and honour myself as a woman.
One to two weeks before menstruation my emotions start to go haywire. The closer I get to Strawberry Week, the stronger these emotions and physical symptoms get, until they reach a height. As soon as I start bleeding, my emotions stabilise, but by then there’s the physical symptoms to deal with. It’s not until I stop bleeding that I’m able to gather my wits enough to carry on and deal effectively with the demands of daily life. Until next time.
I’ve now been diagnosed with PMDD, which stands for premenstrual dysphoric disorder, a severe form of PMS (pre-menstrual syndrome) that has been described as “PMS on steroids”.
Already feeling incredibly emotionally fragile, physically exhausted and looking forward to my restful Wednesday (being two days away from the beginning of Strawberry Week), the roller door issue interruption meant people stuff. I was not in the f*cking mood.
It wasn’t about the minor inconvenience ‘first-world problem’ of not being able to get into our garage that overwhelmed me, but the expectation of ‘doing something about it’ which seems to be a common theme in this society – I mean yes we need to do something about things sometimes, but the urgency I felt to sort this out was out of proportion to the actual urgency of the situation. With my emotions and mental state already scrambled by PMDD, and my difficulty making decisions in general but worsened during certain parts of my cycle, I felt stupid, I thought about how other people would react in this situation, what they would do, and what they would think I should do.
Had this happened when I was in a different part of my cycle, I would’ve reacted, responded and handled the situation very differently.
What also overwhelmed me about the situation was the amount of calls and inquiries I’d have to make and the potential things I’d have to organise with other people – at the worst possible time in my cycle, on top of being a natural introvert.
On Wednesday I had a meltdown. I could no longer function. I was reduced, by this stupid garage door situation, to a sobbing angry mess on the ground.
I decided that today was not the day to do something about it.
On Thursday we had a go at breaking into the garage, and I think the meltdown the day before got some things out of my system. The ways we tried to get that roller door open were creative, but ultimately didn’t achieve our aim. Visits from all our neighbours with their suggestions were heart-warming and I was grateful for them, even if I would prefer people to leave me be because I find people interactions generally exhausting.
By Friday it was Strawberry Week day one and I was feeling tired, overheated, and experiencing mood swings and mad cramps that made me feel like I was going to vomit. But I made some phone calls and my partner, bless him, kept trying to break into the garage by hooking the emergency release cord to the outer side of the roller door to then be pulled down to release it and allow it to be pulled up manually (which actually can be done if you’re ever in a similar pickle, but unfortunately the cord was such a brittle fibre that it frayed and snapped and became unusable from the outside).
It seemed like there was nothing that anyone else could do, and we needed to reassess the situation.
Suspected Neurodivergence
On that Friday I had to repeat the story so many times, explain to a variety of people what had happened, the situation, the ridiculous setup of our garage door, and what we’d tried so far, and liaise between people.
Like the safety switch that tripped by having too much of a load to deal with, when I have too much of a load to deal with, my nervous system trips, and a meltdown (and sometimes shutdown) ensues.
During this week, I signed up for and thoroughly enjoyed the 2022 Autism From The Inside Online Summit (finished now but here’s Paul Micallef’s YouTube Channel, Autism From The Inside), where the more I heard autistic individuals express themselves, and joined an online autistic group myself, the more I believed that these are my people, this is where I fit, and I’m probably autistic.
I won’t go into this in this post, but stay tuned for my personal stories of OCD, navigating life with my autistic traits, and my journey to getting an official autism diagnosis!
How I’m Regulating my Nervous System Now
By Saturday, we had a plan and my mood had stabilised, whether because of no social demands or because of my PMDD fading into the background for another cycle, or a bit of both, I’m not sure. But this day was a day of rest that I needed to regulate my frayed nervous system (like the emergency release cord), an essential activity for everyone, but especially for the introverts, HSPs, and neurodivergent folk among us.
Here’s a list of things that helped me regulate my nervous system on that Saturday:
- A cup of herbal tea outside in the sunshine. Sitting on the edge of my herb garden watching the bees buzzing around and the caterpillars doing their thing was a balm to the soul.
- I journaled things out and also used this time and Mercury Retrograde to reassess my projects, simplify things, and get things that were in my mind taking up space out onto the page to be more easily processed. I felt lighter.
- With Sophie settled on my lap and me settled in an armchair covered in a cosy knitted blanket and crocheted floral cushion, I read Phosphorescence by Julia Baird, which I found very inspiring.
- I opened up all the windows to let in the fresh air. I breathed deeply and fully, and took the time to smell the freesias, the lavenders, and all the herbs in the garden (oh my thyme).
- I ate nourishing foods, enjoyed some fresh fruit that was hydrating and nutritious, but also let myself go and ate biscuits and chocolate without guilt. This is my body after all, and my Strawberry Week in the Red Tent. Biscuits and chocolate allowed.
Final Thoughts
And with all that, I hope it was helpful in some way.
What are your experiences with anything I’ve mentioned in this post?
I’ll be back next week with the usual content so don’t worry. But I do have to practice what I’m all about, which is authentically embracing the slow living lifestyle and going at your own pace taking breaks when necessary, so thank you for allowing me the space to talk about this in this personal style blog format.
Much love from me,
P.S. Sunday was the day that we finally did it. My dad and my partner’s dad came around with their skills, knowledge and tools to go up through the house manhole, cut through the ceiling to the garage, have my partner drop through the hole in the roof and restore power to the roller door. So now we have power, a working garage roller door, and a lovely manhole in the garage with a view to getting a door installed for easier access in the future. My take-away wisdom: If you’re going to have an electric-operated roller door, make sure you have another access point, whether it’s an internal door or a manhole.
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