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 …

• Gameshow RSD

  • Deficits or Bounty

    • Yeehawesome!

  • Wonderful Wednesday

  • Today’s Beany-full Summary:

Gameshow RSD

Let’s play a game.

What’s your favorite show?

Now, what’s your least favorite episode in that series?

Why do you think that is?

For me, my favorite series would have to be Frasier, and my least favorite episode is “Roz, a Loan.” Have you seen that one? Roz and Frasier are both out of work, hoping that their radio station, KACL, will hire them back, and then Roz borrows some money from Frasier to keep her going.

Suddenly it looks like she’s buying luxury stuff with the loan money.

(The reality is different, but you’ll have to watch it.)

Frasier gets his panties in a wad and confronts her, and it’s just embarrassing all around.

The reason I mention this is because I get embarrassed easily, and even watching scenes that are cringey or embarrassing actually make me feel personally embarrassed.

Of course, you could argue that Frasier and Niles are cringey horses’ patooties in the whole series, but for some reason that episode really gets to me.

As you know from previous newsletters, I did not have specific diagnoses for neurodivergencies until two years ago when I was 47, and I didn't have a framework for how weird I felt. Because I was undiagnosed, I just swam through life without the words I needed to describe my own thought processes and feelings. In fact, I had trouble even realizing or naming my feelings.

But there’s one thing I’ve known forever: I am easily embarrassed. And it’s painful. And I can ruminate for years about one embarrassing moment.

As I’ve studied and researched more about my three diagnosed neurodivergencies, I’m getting to know myself better.

RSD, or rejection sensitive dysphoria, explains so much. It’s not a neurodivergency, but it can go hand in hand with some of them.

Here’s a definition of RSD from the Cleveland Clinic:

The same article also says,

Check. Check. Check. Check. Check.

Does any of this resonate with you?

I find it very difficult to deal with, and I am in the people-pleasing and perfectionism boats.

However…

Maybe it’s my age.

Maybe it’s my hormones.

Maybe it’s my therapy showing up and the hard work I’ve put in to that.

Maybe it’s because I can now name it and claim it.

There is a lessening (somewhat) of the intensity.

It’s still there. It’s still frustrating.

But I know what it is now.

That makes a GIHUGIC difference.

Take a gander at those flowers in the above photo. A neighborhood granny likes to display various beauties from her garden down at the foot of her driveway in a plastic blue bucket.

Are the flowers embarrassed about this vase? I don’t know. They never tell me. Maybe they’re the type that turn their feelings inwards.

Do the flowers still look gorgeous? Do they still bring and share joy?

Is the container just fine and dandy?

You bet your bucket.

Deficits or Bounty

There’s a grandma in the neigborhood with two different gardens: one veggie and flowers and one fruit-tree plot. I was driving by the fruit trees the other day and had to be careful not to drive into a ditch; Grandma, who must be in her late eighties or early nineties, was carrying a ladder toward her tangerine tree! All by herself. No spotter. (No, I didn’t stop. She’s strong and would’ve felt insulted and inconvenienced by my offer of help. Cultural differences are…different here. It’s Japan, not Florida.)

I think it was the next day that I was walking to the neighborhood post box to send a letter when I passed by her veggie and flower plot. She was there and I said hi on my way by.

Grandma asked if I eat hakusai (a leafy cabbage), and I said yes. The next question was whether I eat daikon (a big white radish). Yes.

Somehow I ended up with cabbage, daikon, two peppers, and a bag of tangerines, which she insisted on driving to my house around the corner in her little silver kei (small-engine) truck so that I wouldn’t have to carry everything. (And I consider those tangerines precious commodities—after all, she risked her neck for them.)

A truckucopia of delicious riches.

It got me thinking:

Do I live out of deficits or out of bounty?

Do I focus on the challenges of my neurodivergencies or the gifts that come with them?

I’ve decided that I’m all of the above.

I can’t separate everything out all the time. Life is tiring enough.

So I’m grateful for my creativity and skills of noticing, and I’m frustrated by my hypersensitivities and feelings of overwhelm.

Do we have to decide if we’re grateful people or people with challenges?

Can’t we be full of mazes and amazement too?

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. The Jacquie Lawson Advent calendar app - every year! This year’s theme is Paris, and it’s fun to see the daily videos, find a daily hidden Santa, decorate your own living room (the colors in the screenshot above are more muted for some reason than they are in the actual app), and play games. I buy it for myself and a couple of them as gifts every year, and this year a kind friend (who didn’t know that) bought a gift one for me! She said she thought I would like it. Boy, was she right. (And I think she was able to roll it over to another friend.)

2. Cooking for a friend who also can’t have dairy. For some reason, I felt so happy to do it—probably because I understand how it feels and how frustrating it is to figure out substitutions or workarounds. I have a lot of empathy for folks with food sensitivities and allergies. I am one of them! Anyway, we had a great lunch together and I introduced her to some of my non-dairy faves.

3. Getting out the kids’ Christmas books from when they were little to fan out on the coffee table for this season. I’m gonna read through them again, of course.

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:

• RSD is rejection sensitive dysphoria. It can go together with neurodivergencies and mean that someone with RSD can be easily and painfully embarrassed, experience intense feelings of rejection, and can resort to people-pleasing and perfectionism.

• Do we have to decide if we’re living out of deficits or out of bounty? We can just be complicated and nuanced people.

• 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.

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