Vanessa Moon

The human behind the replies at Yoni Pleasure Palace community!

There's a real person on the other end of every response in the Yoni Pleasure Palace group.

I know that might sound obvious however lately it feels worth saying out loud.

I've been the sole moderator of that community for over five years. The only person replying to every single post, every question, every vulnerable share that lands in there each week. Just me. Thousands of replies. Thousands of women who deserved a thoughtful response, not a copy-paste brush-off.

For a long time I did it all manually. And it nearly broke me.

Two years ago I started using AI as a tool... to protect my voice (not to replace it). Because the alternative was burning out quietly and disappearing from a community I actually love showing up for.

Here's what that actually looks like in practice. I voice-note my answers. I've spent two years training the language to reflect how I think, what I value, and how I naturally speak. I build specific prompts. I fact-check everything. And then I filter every response through my own judgement before it goes anywhere near the group.

As someone with AuDHD, having a consistent and structured approach to how I show up there is actually one of the things I'm most proud of. It means you get a reply that's been thought through, not dashed off in a moment of exhaustion.

So yes. AI assists me behind the scenes.

So yes. AI assists me behind the scenes.

What you're reading is still me... a 47-year-old woman who has spent years developing the knowledge and skills to show up well in this space. That's come from training I've sought out for myself, from lived experience, and from genuinely caring about the quality of what lands in your feed. Some weeks are busier than others. But every reply gets the same level of thought and care.

AI is a tool. The same way a calculator is a tool. The same way spell-check is a tool. Using it makes my work more sustainable, more consistent, and honestly, more considered. (It doesn't make my words less mine!!!)

A few questions I want to answer directly:

*Is AI writing your responses?*
AI assists me. My words, my values, and my lived experience shape every single reply. I fact-check everything. Getting it right matters to me.

*Why use it at all?*
Because burnout is real. And this community deserves consistency and quality... not a version of me running on empty.

*Are you actually reading our posts?*
Every single one. 💛

*Can I talk to you directly about this?*
Always. My inbox (DM me) is open, and so is my email: [email protected]

I'll keep showing up here the same way I always have... with care, with honesty, and with a real human heart behind every word.

That part has never changed, and it won't. 🙏

Are you fussy about taste and smell, or do you push through it? (AuDHD or not I'd love to know!)

My ADHD said buy the new shiny sleepy drink - my autism had other plans.

So I did a thing. I let Instagram convince me to buy a sleep bundle (a hot chocolate and a maple cinnamon blend) because the packaging was beautiful, the ingredients looked great, and my ADHD brain was fully on board with the novelty of something new.

My sleepy drink situation has been on my mind for a while. I've been using the same one for a long time, and I love it .... but I could feel it becoming less effective. Like my system had recalibrated and I needed more of it to get the same result. Not cost effective. Not sustainable. Time to find something new!

And this is where being AuDHD gets genuinely interesting (whilst also genuinely frustrating at the same time). The ADHD side of me was all in. Something new! Something shiny! Let's go! And then the autistic side showed up and went: wait. This is unfamiliar. We don't know if this is safe. These two parts working against each other is a very specific kind of chaos I'm still getting used to.

I tried both drinks with coconut milk (the only milk that works for me) or straight or with honey. Multiple attempts. The hot chocolate smelled incredible when I opened it so I genuinely thought I'd finally found one that tasted like an actual hot chocolate. Unfortunately (for me), it did not taste like an actual hot chocolate. Both drinks had a taste and awful aftertaste that my whole body rejected.

I've lodged a refund request under their taste guarantee. We'll see.

But the bigger thing I wanted to share is this ..... I spent a long time believing that being sensitive to taste and smell meant I was being difficult. Fussy. Precious. And the more I sit with my AuDHD diagnosis (since March 2025) the more I understand that these are real, valid sensory sensitivities. I don't have to push through them. It's okay if something works for everyone else and genuinely doesn't work for me. That's not failure. That's just how I'm wired.

If you've felt this way: you're not alone in the fussiness. I promise.

AuDHD and loneliness 🔁 are they basically a package deal? I think so. What's your experience?

Something I want to be transparent about...

I've been asked a few times recently whether the replies I post in my communities are AI-generated. It's a fair question, and it deserves an honest answer.

The short version: yes, I use AI as a tool...

HOWEVER it's not doing the thinking for me!!!

Over the last few months, I've trained it using voice notes of my own replies. It's learned how I speak, what I value, how I like to hold space for people, and what I won't compromise on... including everything I absorbed through The Science of Pleasure training I did not too long ago. What you read in my communities is genuinely me, just formatted for flow and clarity.

The reality is that I respond to a huge volume of posts and questions every week. AI helps me show up consistently without burning out. Every reply still gets filtered through my own words, tone, and values before it goes anywhere near a thread.

So no, it's not "fully AI." It's more like AI handles the formatting while I bring the heart 💛

I think transparency matters, especially in spaces built on trust. So there it is. :D

That dîḻdø you bought, used twice and shoved in a drawer? Someone out there wants it. 💜

Adûłt tøys are expensive. Reselling them is completely normal, totally valid, and way more sustainable than letting good quality products gather dust.

I've created a private, judgment-free Facebook group where you can buy, sell and rehome intimate wellness products safely -- with honest listings, body safe standards, and zero shame.

18+ only. Private group. Good vibes only.

Join us 👉 search Body Safe Finds & Resale on Facebook

Know someone who'd love this? Tag them or share this post 👇

Send a message to learn more

The night of. And day one.

Gabby died on May 1. Samhain. The full moon. The night the veil between the living and the dead is said to be at its thinnest. I didn't plan that - I chose the date before I knew. But when I found out, I stopped doubting it entirely.

It was the most right it could possibly be.

The ritual

I'm not going to name any gods or goddesses here - this is my own quiet practice, and yours will look different. But the night before, I set out an empty plate and a vessel of moon water - water left out overnight to be blessed by the full moon. An open invitation for her soul to stop in before she crossed the Rainbow Bridge. To have a drink. To have an eat. To rest for a moment.

I engraved her name on a candle and lit it. I said everything out loud - all the things that needed somewhere to go. I smoke cleansed the space with a herb bundle. It wasn't elaborate. It was just mine, and it was entirely for her.

Grief still came. Hard and messy and alone. But the ritual gave it a container. And that mattered more than I expected.

Day one

The void of the morning was its own particular thing. Just - she wasn't there. That was the whole of it.

I kept as much of my normal routine as I could manage. Even small pieces of it. The body needs familiarity when everything else has shifted.

I used the moon water to cleanse the house - flicking it across my bed, through each room, over the cat carrier and the kitty litter after I'd physically cleaned them. I smoke cleansed the whole space. It was a way of clearing the energy of loss while also honouring that she had been here. That she mattered. That this place was hers too.

Then I did a somatic yoga practice for grief. Slow, gentle, intentional. I'd barely moved in 48 hours and my body was holding everything. It wasn't exercise - it was just movement that let the emotions pass through rather than stay stuck.

And I was gentle with myself. Moment by moment. That's genuinely all day one asks of you.

The plate and the vessel are still out. Empty. I'll keep refilling the water and let the moon bless it while I wait for her ashes to come home.

There's still a ritual to complete when her ashes arrive home on Friday.

I didn’t realise until now. And somehow, that makes it okay.

I’ve been deep in anticipatory grief this week. Exhausted, heartbroken, running on not enough sleep and too many feeding cycles. Gabby is not okay. I know this. I can see it. And I’ve chosen May 1 as the day I become her death walker.

What I didn’t realise until I started building a ritual for when I come home afterwards - something to hold me, to give me space to grieve and honour her properly - is that May 1 is Samhain.

A little bit of context if you’re not familiar

Samhain (pronounced sah-win) is a sacred Celtic and pagan festival that marks the midpoint between the autumn equinox and winter solstice. In the Southern Hemisphere, that falls on May 1. It is the night when the veil between the living and the dead is said to be at its thinnest - a time to honour those who have passed, to sit with what is ending, and to hold space for transition. It is also known as the Witch’s New Year. This year, it also falls on the full moon.

I’m not changing the date.

In a strange, freaky, beautiful way - it’s the most right it could possibly be.

The AuDHD observer brain

Here’s what I’ve also been noticing. The analytical part of me - the neuro-spicy observer - has fully stepped forward this week. I’m tracking everything. How many times I’m feeding her (five to seven times a day right now - chaotic and draining). How her energy shifts. How mine gets worse as the day goes on, every transition interrupted by another feed. I’m watching and logging and analysing, and I think that’s just how my brain copes when it can’t fix something.

There are moments where I doubt the decision completely. I just want to keep her. But those moments always come around feed times - when I can see clearly how much she’s struggling and how hard her body is working just to get through the day. That tells me everything I need to know.

What happens on May 1

We’re going to the vet. I want them there. I want nothing to go wrong, and I want her handled with care through Pet Angel, the pet crematorium. Individual cremation. Scatter box. I need her ashes back to complete the ritual.

I have words I’m going to say to her during. And something small to say afterwards, just for me, to help me land.

I know there will be residual trauma in my system from being there and watching. That’s not something I’m naive about. The rumination will come - it always does. But I’d rather be present with her in that moment than not.

I’ll be dropping some links below. If you want to reach out to me about this, please watch those first. They’ll give you the context you need.

Gabby. My girl. May 1.

*Grief hits different when you're AuDHD - and there's a reason for that*

I'm in anticipatory grief right now. That's the grief that comes before the loss - when you know something is coming and you can't stop it. It's its own particular kind of heavy.

And it's making me think about how much grief has been a constant companion across my whole life. Not just the big, socially acceptable losses - though those too - but all of it. Every house move. Every new school. Every pet. Every transition I didn't have language for at the time.

I didn't get my AuDHD diagnosis until March 2025. But looking back through that lens now? So much makes sense.

I've always felt grief more than the people around me seemed to. More visibly, more expansively, more persistently. For a long time I genuinely wondered if something was wrong with me - if I was being too much, if I should just be over it already.

Here's what I know now: I wasn't being too much. My brain was doing exactly what it was built to do.

The science

Research on AuDHD consistently finds that emotion dysregulation isn't a side effect - it's a core feature. The duration and intensity of grief in autistic people can be significantly greater than in the neurotypical population. Not because something is broken, but because our brains process and hold emotion differently.

Then there's rumination - that loop. The thing where your brain gets stuck on a thought or a feeling and will not let go. In AuDHD, this is a documented neurological pattern linked to overactivity in the default mode network. Grief feeds it like fuel.

And here's the piece that doesn't get talked about enough: we struggle with transitions. It's in the diagnostic criteria. But grief IS a transition. Every loss - a person, a pet, a home, a routine - is a fundamental shift in your world. Our nervous systems were never built to take that lightly.

The losses that "don't count"

We live in a death-phobic society. We have a very narrow idea of what's considered real grief.

But research confirms that for AuDHD people, non-death losses trigger genuine, significant grief responses. There's even a term for it - "loss on loss" - the way secondary losses stack on an initial one and compound everything.

I didn't have one childhood home. I went through three or four primary schools. Moved cities. Changed high schools. Every time, the expectation was: adapt. Move on. I did adapt. But I grieved too. And nobody really saw that - including me, for a very long time.

Then there were the pets. My own, and later the ones I cared for through professional pet-sitting. Real attachments, real grief, rarely acknowledged. Most recently, Maurice the pug, who died in August 2025. He wasn't technically mine. But he was here constantly, and I was his second mum in every way that mattered. That grief was large, and it didn't fit the space the world tends to allow for it.

And now I'm in anticipatory grief again. Living in the before and the after at the same time.

Grief is carrying, not curing

Researcher Dr Lois Tonkin talks about grief not going away - instead, you grow around it. You expand. It takes up less of your whole existence over time not because it shrinks but because there's more of you around it. That maps exactly onto my experience.

There is no timeline on grief. There is no too much or too long. Grief begets more grief - sitting with one loss tends to open the door to others not yet processed. That's not a sign you're doing it wrong.

You're not broken for still grieving something from years ago.
You're not broken for grieving a move, a pet, a routine, a version of yourself.
You're not broken for feeling it more than other people seem to.

Your grief is yours. It goes at its own pace. And it's real.

Send a message to learn more

I was never too much. I was just undiagnosed.

I am a Xennial, that sweet spot between Gen X and Millennial, and I didn’t get my autism Level 2 diagnosis until I was 46 and perimenopausal. Forty six years of being told I was weird, too much, too loud, and not once did anyone think to look deeper. Now I look back and I genuinely cannot believe how many signs were right there the whole time.

Every Saturday morning from around five or six am, I was planted in front of the TV watching Rage on the ABC. For those who don’t know, Rage played the Australian top 40 music videos from number 40 down to number one. I would not miss it. I danced through most of it. And if Rage changed their format or I missed it for any reason, I was off for the whole day. I know exactly what that was now. On top of Rage, I would go to music stores and get the printed Australian chart sheets every single week. Albums and singles. I had them memorised. Ask me what was at number 33 that week and I could tell you. My autistic side loved the patterns and predictability of the charts. My ADHD side loved the novelty of a new list every week. Both of them completely hooked. How did no one see that for what it was?

Then there was year eleven and twelve, attending a Christian school, when I developed an intense hyper focus on demonology, all in service of a screenplay trilogy I was writing called Lilith’s Child. I still have the research folder. All of it done without the internet. I once got bed bugs from a work trip and researched so thoroughly that the pest control company’s actual bed bug expert told me I knew more than he did. The research was always the thing. It still is.

In my twenties I worked in adult entertainment for several years. Looking back I can see it so clearly now. I relied on scripts heavily in the clubs because without them I was a fish out of water. I would circle the room and get a vantage point before engaging with anyone. I found clubs where I could disappear to the dressing room and put headphones on between sets, close my eyes, and sink into music until I had enough capacity to go back out. I also researched my rights as a self employed contractor so thoroughly that I stood up to management over an illegal policy and won. Typical.

Through all of it the words that followed me were always the same. Weird. Too much. Too loud. I developed a comeback early because I heard it so often. “At least I’m not boring.” They always agreed. I held onto that because I had to.

Having the name now brings grief first. Always grief. The suffering, the trauma, the decades of not knowing I was disabled and trying to think my way out of something that is neurobiological, not a mindset problem. There’s frustration too. And relief. And understanding.

But mostly this. I love labels. Labels give me clarity without needing a million questions answered first. The label of autistic, of ADHD, of AUDHD, allows me to name what’s happening, ask for accommodations, and communicate who I am. It doesn’t fix anything. It was never going to. But it gives me language. And for someone who spent 46 years being called too much and too weird, having the right language finally feels like coming home. 💜

Send a message to learn more