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.

(Because of our schedule this week, you’re getting this a couple days early!)

Table of Contents

• Beany Brain: loving our jumping-bean brains!

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

• Falling Through the Cracks

  • Peace Pollination

    • Yeehawesome!

  • Today’s Beany-full Summary:

Falling Through the Cracks

As you have probably gathered, girls are better at masking and trying to fit in socially than most boys, and as a result, are more likely to fall through the diagnostic cracks.

According to the Autistic Girls Network (a UK-based charity):

Doesn’t this sound typical? The entire medical field has been tested and geared toward males for too long. Males are still the default subjects in most medical research.

I’m not saying neurodivergencies are necessarily a medical problem to be solved. Au contraire.

I am saying that research is focused on males.

Personally, this has meant that I have disappeared in labels like “shy” or “quiet” or “depressed” or “too sensitive” when in actuality life would’ve made a lot more sense with the real labels of “autistic” and “ADHD” and “generalized anxiety disorder.” (Back in my day there was no concept of or language around diagnoses and support for girls who didn’t fit the “norm.” Not only was there no structure back then for this, but even now some women are incorrectly diagnosed with bipolar disorder when it reality it’s autism.)

I don’t mind these current “labels” and actually find them quite liberating!

It means that I finally realize that my brain just works differently than a neurotypical’s and that there’s nothing wrong with me.

Because I’m a girl, I worked extremely hard at trying to translate life around me for so long that it has caused extreme exhaustion.

I worked extremely hard to fit in.

I worked extremely hard at mimicking and masking.

Now I’m a grateful woman as I’m learning to unwind in many senses of the word.

It’s breakthrough and breakUP through the cracks time!

Peace Pollination

The closing greeting I leave most often with my close people almost always involves the word peace, I’ve noticed.

“May you feel God’s peace today.”

“I hope you can experience some unexpected peace today in the midst of that hard thing.”

“That sounds so rough. I pray for some peace to shine in.”

Even right now, at 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning as I’m checking my son’s flight via a flight tracker (he’s on his second flight of three, somewhere over Utah, headed toward Haneda where he’ll have another layover and then see us in about 13 hours from now, if you wish to know—I do, which I why I woke up at 04:30), I’m listening to the rain coming down and taking peace from that sound.

(Yes, it’s connected to the typhoon, but so far it’s calm here and I can still hear insects over the pitter-patter of the raindrops. This is not to minimize the damage that this typhoon is causing right now in other parts of Japan. I am cognizant of this and praying for this situation.)

When I wake up in the night or my GAD (generalized anxiety disorder) kicks in whenever and wherever, here are some Brave Beany Tips for coping and ushering in some calm:

1. 4-7-8 breathing: Breathe in for 4 counts, hold for 7, breathe out for 8. Dang, this works a treat.

2. As Lynn Lyons, an anxiety expert, says on an ad for her podcast, Flusterclux, “Anxiety doesn’t stand a chance when we’re laughing.” (Now I really want to listen to her podcast!) This totally helped the other day as we were waiting for my older son to fly in, and my younger son and I watched one of my favorite (Irish) comedy films, “Waking Ned Devine.” A barrel of laughs! I was concentrating so hard that I didn’t have time to overthink about other things.

3. Music and dancing! Shake that beany thang! And I don’t mind if you go search for my “Groovy Joy” playlist on Spotify. That’ll get you moving and get your fast-moving anxious brain in a happier spot.

Whatever you’re doing, wherever you are, whatever you’re experiencing, I pray now for peace for you. I want to be a peace pollinator.

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 strategy of pairing. Have you heard of it? I learned about this from the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast. One pairing that helps me is listening to a podcast, music, or prayer app when I have to swallow a pill or vitamin. (Other things that have helped me with this are posture exercises and imagining that I can swallow pills with no problem.)

2. Fidget toys! “Fidgets are small, tactile objects that allow a person to move their body while staying in their seat. Fidgets could include exercise balls, stress balls, rubber bands that are stretched across the legs of a chair, putty or clay, or fidget cubes and spinners.” That quote is from this study from the National Center for Biotechnology Information, but you don’t have to read the whole techy-sensei-talky thing if you don’t have time. Basically: Some fidget spinners seem to help some students who may be autistic or ADHD to maybe sit still at their desk instead of getting up to do big motor movements and interrupt other neurotypical students in the process. The fidget spinners may or may not produce higher scores on assignments and tests. So there you have it, fidget spinners definitively help or not. For me, they help me stop doing other stims that are negative for me, such as twirling my hair (not good for keeping my hair intact on my noggin). When I’m in a Zoom meeting, they stop me from feeling like jumping up and walking away. Boy, oh boy, I could’ve used these in school! My body has always had the urge to move around and the only thing that kept me in my seat was embarrassment or shame. I masked hard, which was why I was exhausted every day after school! So for me, fidget toys are wheely wonderful. (In the above photo, you can see an old spinning top that the boys used to play with. It had a string, but no longer. Also displayed are my magnetic rings and a blob of blue tack that help keep me calm. I also love to touch smooth rocks, which I keep in my apron pocket and purse.)

3. “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris”! Yes, she does. Thank you to my friend Sarah for this Netflix movie recommendation; it was superb. (Spoiler alert: Leslie Manville, who plays the oldest Princess Margaret in “The Crown,” plays Mrs. Harris and there are some fab Easter eggs about the princess in “Mrs. Harris”!) This is a feel-good film, but also explores issues of deep pain, disappointment, and poverty. Of course as an autistic person I then had to go research the movie. I didn’t know that it was a remake of an early 1990s movie called “Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris” with Angela Lansbury and Omar Sharif! Methinks I need to get access to that one somehow too. This could be a deep (fun) rabbit warren, folks.

Beany Brownie Points and Extra Bonus Funniness

Today’s Beany-full Summary:

• Girls are better at masking and less likely to receive an assessment and diagnosis for neurodivergencies than boys.

• Receiving an assessment and diagnosis can actually be liberating.

• Anti-anxiety tips: 4-7-8 breathing; laughing; music and dancing.

• Fidget toys can be really helpful if you have a fidgety brain and/or body.

• 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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