I'm struggling at the moment - really struggling. I'm awaiting assessment for both ASD and ADHD and have started down the route of trying to figure out how to manage my symptoms.
Prior to having my children I now look back and realised I coped through a combination of trying to control my environment, overcompensation and avoidance of triggers.
Common triggers are:
- Sound (Misophonia type triggers, overall volume and also multiple streams of audio vying for attention)
- Touch (Hugs/contact, vibrations from people walking around, nails scratching me, dry or dirty hands)
- Smell (certain strong perfumy smells)
- Lack of predictability (poorly kids, getting to work onat a specific time, being woken up in the middle of the night)
- Social (particularly in person)
So it's basically a constant onslaught daily. As daft as it sounds I had no idea any of this was in any way weird or unusual and before having kids I actively managed to avoid a lot of it. If I had a bad day I'd have plenty of time to de stress away from all the things that overwhelmed me. I've been back at work for 7 months now and I'd say I was more or less coping whilst on mat leave with DS2, but it's got remarkably worse since having that additional demand of work on top. I used to do a lot of my mental processing of the work day in the evening but I'm completely burnt out now so that's not an option.
Does anyone have any practical tips, tricks or resources you found helpful as a parent/at work to cope? At the moment I have noise cancelling headphones for meals but I try not to use them too much as it's not practical/comfortable.
Other than that I've not really got any coping strategies. Right now I just withdraw to mine and DHs bedroom on my own once the kids are in bed. I lay in the dark with the TV on super quiet and/or on my phone just passing time until bedtime because I just cannot face any more input. I've tried googling but I'm struggling to find much practical advice to try out. I'm always on the back foot and despite being and organised person (everything goes straight on a list when I think of it, events on the calendar and phone reminders) I'm forgetting really important things. I forgot my 3 year olds pre school HV visit 🤦 she turned up and DS1 obviously wasn't here, luckily I was WFH but it's not exactly ideal 😕. I've considered taking a bit of annual leave to give myself some breathing room but that seems quite short term. 😕
Hoping the MN hive mind can help 😄