Struggling with work and everything else

[Pinklake]

I'm late forties, diagnosed with ADHD and also pretty sure I'm on the autistic spectrum.

Basically I'm struggling with everything in my life at the moment, just having to juggle it all. I separated from my exDH at the beginning of the year. I'm still processing everything emotionally re our marriage and the separation. I'm still in the family home with our two dc (both in their teens). The house needs a large amount of work/ renovations done.

I am finding my job really stressful. I only work part time, 3 days a week, and I work in the field of mental health. I am finding the clients are getting more and more complex. I do one to one sessions with clients and although some are lovely, some project all their anger, trauma and stress onto me. To be honest, I'm exhausted after work. But I don't know what other job I could do - in every job I have had, I have burnt out after a while, either due to the pressure, the amount of time required to interact with colleagues or clients, or general stress.

I feel so hopeless and don't know what to do. I feel like I'm just surviving, not living. It takes 3 days for me to recover from work, and during that time I'm beating myself up for not getting on with the house renovations.

My dream would be to give up work. I could then get on with the house renovations but I just don't have the energy to do both, as well as being there for the dc. I would have to get another job at some point, but god knows what. I feel I'm useless, as there are many jobs where I start off enthusiastic and full of energy, then end up exhausted and burnt out.

I would love to just go and live on a desert island somewhere but obviously that's not going to happen! Don't think there are any answers really, but just wanted to get it off my chest. Thanks for reading.

I don’t really have any useful advice but I know exactly how you’re feeling. I’ve reduced my hours at work but still feel
completely overwhelmed with work and trying to hold things together at home. Seriously thinking about quitting my job to try and get things together at home and put my energy into a creative side project. I listened to a podcast recently, an episode of the late discovered club, where the guest had quit her job to just slow things down for a while and it really resonated with me. But… money.

I haven’t actually put it into action but I got a book from the library called autism working which is basically a workbook of finding out what your work challenges are and developing strategies. Would that be helpful?

I don’t really have any useful advice OP, but just to say I absolutely relate to this. I quit FT work as I couldn’t cope with the demands and was in a cycle of burnout. I’m lucky enough to have a PT role almost entirely WFH now but it’s only temporary and I’ve no idea how I’d cope with a more formal set-up again. A lot of ND people are unemployed or under-employed — often we’re brilliant workers but we simply don’t get the support we need, so our potential isn’t fulfilled and our MH suffers. Try not to be so hard on yourself — you’re doing your best under what sound like very stressful circumstances.