Beany Brain: loving our jumping-bean brains!

Welcome to this issue of the Beany Brain! I hope today’s newsletter will bounce us up as we contemplate the upsides and challenges of being neurodivergent, a little beauty, some creativity, and just general yeehawesomeness.

Table of Contents

• Beany Brain: loving our jumping-bean brains!

  • Welcome to this issue of the Beany Brain! I hope t …

• Autistic Menopause

  • Ha Ha Haiku

  • Taking Up the Whole Pool

    • Yeehawesome!

    • Quote of the Week

  • Wonderful Wednesday

  • Today’s Beany-full Summary:

Autistic Menopause

I took 5 pages of detailed notes from one of the recent Meet My Autistic Brain podcast episodes about autistic menopause, hosted by The Autistic Woman. She interviewed Dr. Julie Moseley, a researcher and psychologist at Bournemouth University, whose “research centres on autism and the difficulties that autistic people often face in adulthood.”

Don’t worry.

I will not regale you with 5 pages of verbatim notes here (like my college statistics professor used to do in a darkened room on an overhead projector—you can imagine how well that kept me awake).

Stay awake, please. Especially if you are autistic or ADHD and dealing with perimenopause or menopause.

OR if you love someone who is.

I’ll just break it down into some bullet points and a quote:

• Dr. Rachel Moseley has done studies and research to write a new book with co-author Dr. Julie Gamble-Turner called Autistic Menopause: A Guide to the Menopausal Transition for Autistic People and Those Supporting Them. Of course I really want to read it now.

• Dr. Moseley and Dr. Gamble-Turner researched and submitted the first-ever papers on the challenges of autism and plus menopause together—they pioneered the field.

• Perimenopause = the years’-long time leading up to menopause. Menopause = not having a period for at least 12 consecutive months. Post-menopause = after menopause but you can still have the symptoms of menopause for years after.

• Menopause can affect you harder than average depending on your life experiences, lifelong high stress, genetics, socio-economic status, ethnicity, education, or inequality.

They found:

• If you are neurodivergent, you can develop new sensory sensitivities during the stages of menopause, develop changes in your attention span (harder to focus), emotions can be even harder to regulate, and you can become more hyper. {Raising my hand here for all of these, including an even stronger sense of smell, which can be nice or terrible, depending on the situation.}

• Neurotypical people going through menopause are starting from a higher baseline, so it hits neurodivergent people harder because they are already dealing with a differently-wired brain and regulatory system from birth. ND folks generally deal with alexithymia, or not understanding their own emotions, so this makes menopause even trickier.

• Menopause is a double whammy for ND people: if you’re already struggling with executive functions, memory, brain fog, etc., then it’s even harder.

• It’s extra exhausting for NDs.

• Masking: Less able to mask during menopause. ND folks also become less willing to mask!

• Of course everyone is different, so this might not affect every ND person the same.

• Important to give ourselves extra time for tasks, gentleness, grace, cancel outings if necessary, buy what we need to feel better (comfy clothes, supplements), spend time with other autistic friends for mutual encouragement.

• Positives of menopause: 1. No more periods! Periods can be really dysregulating for ND people. 2. Caring less what other people think/unmasking. Feeling freer to be ourselves (more direct; more saying no). Freer to do what we want to do.

You can find Dr. Rachel Moseley’s work on her website, www.scienceonthespectrum.net.

And I just noticed that her website now says that as of October 2026, she goes by Dr. Rachel Moseley-Braund, so it seems as if congratulations are in order!

Ha Ha Haiku

A funny haiku for you every week in every newsletter, whether it’s one of my own or one I curate for you. HA. Ha. Haiku.

Taking Up the Whole Pool

Bliss is

Taking up the whole pool

On a weeknight

When all the kids are doing homework

And I’m working on the work of

Unmasking

In the water

Floating and breathing

Hearing my breath

Being a mermaid

Bliss is

The pool shut for a month

Its annual inspection and cleaning

And not having to shave my legs

Yeehawesome!

Yeehawesome! is a happy-brain roundup in each issue of Beany Brain. What’s happening that’s good in brain land? What’s bringing me joy?

1. 50 cozy, hygge, mostly-ND approved things to do for fall. 

2. Dopamine menu + decluttering. 

3. Need something beautiful to look at when current events are too dark and unsettling? Irish artist Lucy Doyle’s work.

Quote of the Week

Frances Perkins is one of my heroes and the first female presidential cabinet member. I highly recommend the biography The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience by Kirstin Downey.

Here’s another Frances Perkins quote:

Beany Brownie Points and Extra Bonus Funniness

Wonderful Wednesday

Wonderful Wednesday was a day once a year in college when they would suddenly and surprisingly call off all classes and we’d play all day. The cafeteria provided special fun food and we’d do stuff outside like slip ‘n slides and jello wrestling in sumo suits. This segment of Beany Brain is dedicated to that memory of silliness and fun—no words, just a photo from the week that I’ve taken or found that reminds me to let the joy in. Since Beany Brain is published on Wednesday every week (at least, Wednesday in Japan), I hope you enjoy this Wonderful Wednesday.

Today’s Beany-full Summary:

• Menopause can be a double-whammy hit for people who are ND.

• I wrote a little something about being a mermaid called Taking Up the Whole Pool.

• Go forth in Beany joy. What will help you feel yeehawesome this week?

Thank you for reading this installment of Beany Brain! You’re very welcome to hop on by any old time.

If you’re enjoying Beany Brain, please share with a friend or seventeen at www.beanybrain.com. Cheers big time!