My life is falling apart

Problems 💔

So, I’m about to be 40 years old and somehow I am a less capable adult than I was 15 years ago. I am undiagnosed but feel very confident that an AuDHD diagnosis would fit my experience. I recently moved out of the house I share with my husband and children and am renting a studio apartment across town. The purpose of this move was to remove all internal and external pressure to “perform” and figure out who I am when I’m allowed to just exist. I took a two week sabbatical from my high functioning/high stress job and spent almost all of that two weeks in isolation. Just existing. Now my nervous system (that was stuck in perpetual freeze mode) is working right and I’m actually experiencing anxiety for the first time in my life. I’m experiencing my triggers. I’m experiencing all these things that were just a constant hum in the background. My digestive system doesn’t know what’s going on. I’m can only function at half speed at work because any more than that and I’m going to have a full nervous collapse. I’m the breadwinner and sole provider for my family so I can’t just quit my job. My relationship sucks because he and I are pretty incompatible in every way but I’m just now realizing it. I still don’t know who I am or what I want or how my life needs to be set up to support me and my executive functioning. I’m pretty sure everyone thinks I’m making it up. I’m reading unmasking autism and I got to the part that talks about designing your home for your functioning instead of how it “Should” be. There’s a list of questions to ask the first one being:

“What are some textures that ground you or your senses?”

How does one even know this? As a person who has spent her whole life masking without knowing it, socially mirroring to gain acceptance without realizing it, and being completely oblivious to the reality of the how different her mind works and being utterly confused by humanity as a consequence, how do I even begin to start to know the answers to what I need or like or am comfortable with? And how am I supposed to keep my life together while I figure it out?

Posted Mar 6, 2026, 8:53 PM UTC

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