For those of you who don’t know me I am Cass, and for many years I've been an Event & Me Time Retreat Planner based in Hartley Wintney, Hampshire. I’m 44, a mum of 5-year-old twin boys and I was diagnosed a few years ago with Peri Menopause, ADHD and Autism. 

...so you can see my journey, my struggles, the ups downs and learnings, and how my journey has impacted the direction of my business. 

So, where do I start...

After struggling to conceive for a numbers of years during my 30's, we ventured into IVF using a very high level of hormones. Unfortunately both rounds failed, leaving my body feeling like a complete mess.

At this point, I was told I had zero eggs left, aged just 38, and that my only options were adoption, surrogacy and egg donation.

One year later we took a chance on egg donation.

Two embryos went in... and to our utter delight, I became pregnant with Twin Boys! 

However, the pregnancy wasn’t plain sailing… I was told I had lost one of the twins several times between weeks 5-7 but at 8 weeks they confirmed both thriving babies were growing inside me. 

These early worries caused a very anxious pregnancy, constantly fearing I wouldn’t reach full term. My anxiety grew during our 20-week scan when we were told one of our babies had a very complex form of cleft lip & palate and would need numerous surgeries in his first year and various operations thereafter. 

The stress of having a multiple pregnancy as a 39-year-old (apparently geriatric) woman was hard. I went into overdrive with worry over the complexities of my son’s condition. My depression and anxiety spiralled, and compounded by Pelvic Girdle Pain I ended up on crutches. My anxiety was treated with a CBT Course and by the time I had my boys I was thankfully in a much better headspace. ...most of which I just thought were part and parcel of motherhood at the time, and the fact my hormones had been in turmoil for the best part of four years. Now it seems the doctors believe that this whole peri-menopausal journey actually began whilst I was pregnant!

My peri-menopausal symptoms crept up on me and it wasn’t until two years later that I realised I had so many symptoms (enough to cover an A4 page) that I needed help.

From cystic acne, skin dryness & hair loss to monthly migraines, horrendous mood swings & anger spikes... I felt like my body was no longer my own.

My cycles would be erratic and the waves of anxiety, overwhelm, and depression would cripple me. I kept saying to myself these things would pass once my hormones settle down, but they never did. 

I decided to look for a private menopause doctor, and they were able to treat me online using blood tests sent to my home. They confirmed I was starting the peri-menopause, and I was put on a low dose of HRT (Bio Identical Progesterone) along with a series of various natural supplements to address my many deficiencies of B12, Iron, Folate and Vitamin D. Deficiencies which are actually common amongst with those with ADHD. 

After six months the symptoms settled, and I came off HRT because I was feeling so much better. 

Fast forward just one year later though, and all the symptoms came back, bringing friends with them.

It was only in that year I would say that I really felt like I was losing the plot. I  thought I was suffering with dementia, and having had various family members go through dementia this terrified me.

I would leave the washing in the machine for days, I would leave ovens on for hours, I left lights on in the house when we went on holiday for 2 weeks as you can imagine... my other half wasn't best pleased with the electric bill!

Getting out with the twins was difficult enough, but it would take at least five times to get out of the house with everything I needed.

I would often forget words & trains of thought, and conversation became a real struggle. 

The thing I struggled with the most was the brain fog and lack of focus. It was like being stuck in a thick, heavy cloud that I just couldn’t clear, and I had no motivation for anything. It was soul destroying.

I was reliant on monthly Bach remedies to keep me from going back on Anti-Depressants. Hundreds of emails would get ignored, both personally and in work. I struggled to keep on top of the small amount of client work I had at the time and as for social media, that went out of the window for months. 

It was around this time when I was doing a lot of research on peri-menopause that I realised that many peri-menopausal symptoms were similar to those of ADHD. I also discovered there were a lot of things I had struggled with throughout my life, not just since peri-menopause and now wondered if I was indeed neurodiverse. 

I remember one day my husband came home with an ADHD symptom questionnaire he found in a magazine. All my answers came out with a glaringly obvious sign that I was probably neurodiverse and there I started my diagnosis journey. 

It was then that I started to meet other women too, in their mid to late forties talking about their late diagnosis of ADHD & perimenopausal symptoms.

So, I started to try and make sense of what was perimenopausal and what could be related to ADHD. 

Women display symptoms of ADHD very differently to men, but they are often worsened during significant periods of hormonal change as it impairs the cognitive part of the brain, and can become particularly heightened in the earlier years of motherhood. I think the lengthy pregnancy process, quickly followed by peri-menopause compounded my symptoms due to the extreme hormone imbalances I was experiencing. 

Looking back on my younger years, during puberty I found it hard to focus in class... You'd often find me daydreaming. I experienced bullying, didn't fit in, avoided after school activities, avoided crowds & busy spaces, and really struggled with my memory during homework and exam time. 

Anyway, fast forward 6 months from that ADHD questionnaire my husband found, and I’m truly grateful I was able to get diagnosed with Inattentive ADHD and High Functioning Autism privately. Suddenly my whole life started making sense to me. So many light bulb moments were going off and I started to accept that my differences were not because I was weird, or didn’t fit in anymore, it was just that my brain functions differently to a neurotypical brain. 

Many of my symptoms had been masked and internalised, so even my closest friends and family had not realised how much I have struggled over the years. When I look back at my life in the corporate world I realised I was trying to fit into my surroundings, working late to avoid the chaos of a busy work office.

I would surround myself in post it notes and hundreds of notepads, but struggled to make sense of them. I’d avoid awkward social situations and keep to familiar surroundings with those I was comfortable around. I would take way too many projects on which eventually led to a mass burnout. 

Looking back at myself as a business owner I was constantly taking on too much work, too many clients, unable to say no, people pleasing and constantly looking for the next exciting project to get that dopamine hit.

I would lose things all the time, I would be missing appointments regularly. Anything that required a lot of focus or attention and often the tasks I found hard or boring would be left until they completely fell off the radar.   

My comprehension has always been pretty poor, along with my ability to take new information in as I would be constantly distracted, and I always wondered why I could never make sense of my note taking. Then I realised it was because I would only remember 3 words at a time. 

In case you haven't gathered already, I am an over sharer! Social situations would increase my anxiety, but I would learn to mask by being this seemingly overconfident, chatty person who would take over conversations and talk over people, not on purpose but for fear of forgetting the point of the conversation. If the topic of conversation was outside of my comfort zone, I would find myself disappearing to other groups of people to avoid any awkwardness. I would be overly empathetic taking on everyone else's emotions to the extreme, and would find too much socialising utterly draining.

I find myself hyper focussing and creating the most amazing content and ideas for my business, and at times juggling the craziest number of tasks, achieving more than a neurotypical person might in the same timeframe, but then I struggle to complete or follow up the simplest administrative or number related tasks. I always knew I was great at working to tight deadlines, never realising that I needed deadlines to function, as without them I would be a mess. 

Without the self-awareness and the lack of boundaries, I would regularly end up frazzled in a pile in the corner unable to function. Any routines I had of healthy eating, or batch cooking would go out the window often ending with takeout or microwavable meals.

I’m still coming to terms with what my autism diagnosis means for me – but I crave familiarity. I am a stickler for routine, I hate change, have a high need for verbal context, have difficulty reading social cues yet crave organisation in my life... but struggle to execute it.

One the one hand, I like to make spontaneous plans, but am then upset when those plans get changed because they were perhaps not practical in the first place.

I can struggle to organise my home life, but have a strong need for order and organisation to be able to function.

I love impulsive buying, but on the other hand can take an age to make a decision when buying the simplest of products.

I struggling to be on time myself, yet get upset when others are late.

I forget the steps in a plan, but need a plan to execute a project perfectly.

I'm enticed by novel foods, but hypersensitive to texture, taste & smell.

I’m get easily under-stimulated, but also easily over-stimulated especially by light and sound.

I struggle to retain new information, yet I love to learn.

I'm forever interrupting others when they're busy, but despise being bothered when I'm in hyper-focus mode.

I crave new experiences, but need the comfort of sticking to familiar surroundings.

Easily Distractable, Emotionally Dysregulated, Impatient, Impulsive, Passionate, Creative, Generous, Empathetic, Authentic, Kind, Friendly, Positive, Resilient, Resourceful, Imaginative, Inspiring, Intuitive.

To me, its all about understanding the struggles but also accepting the many amazing qualities I have too that make me, me!

I am so grateful to have visited the Women’s Health Clinic in my village and get a formal diagnosis of Peri Menopause again. There are over 40 symptoms of Peri Menopause, so if you think you are struggling with a lot of symptoms, then reach out for support, its not all about blood test results, they need to look holistically at the whole story and if you aren’t happy with your GP ask for a second opinion, a referral or if you're able find a private clinic.  

Now 6 months into my HRT and Oestrogen journey again, and I am feeling so much better. HRT isn’t for everyone but for me it has turned my life around.

I am able to function a lot better, I remember more than I did before. I am still very forgetful, and my ADHD/Autism symptoms are still there but they do seem more manageable and overall I notice I am much happier. I am still working out if I go down the route of ADHD medication, but I wanted to see what was left once I settled the hormones. 

I sought my ADHD diagnosis in order to get support from the government’s Access to Work programme and the support has so far been amazing. I've had coaching to help me through my ADHD struggles and to form better coping strategies, alongside a range of equipment and even an assistant, to help me be more productive in my business & work.

I sought my Peri Menopause diagnosis to get my life back and feel like my old self again. 

However it was my mental health, my neurospice, and peri-menopausal journey that has brought me to where I am today...

The wellness landscape often overlooks the unique struggles that arise when managing a neurodiverse mind during the menopausal journey. This intersectionality demands a more nuanced and specialised approach, which is currently lacking. And that is, hopefully, where I come in. With everything I've learned along the way, everything I'm still learning, I hope to fill this gap... Please have a read here of exactly what Unwind The Mind is all about & how I can help you.