Introductions, that I’m willing to share

This is a very new process for me. Although I don’t believe in self diagnosis, I do have a ton of “autistic” traits and am currently waiting for appointments regarding a diagnosis. My point is that life, and all its redundancies has always caused me significant burnouts, shutdowns and meltdowns. I’m 50 years old and lost my souls mate a year ago. I was with him for 10 years and married for 20 years before that. After his passing, I realized that these two men took care of a whole lot of the areas of overwhelm for me. Another thing that happened in my life was a complete shutdown, A total burnout, about a year before the pandemic shutdown. I remember this overwhelming thought that lived in the back in the back my mind EVERY SINGLE DAY. It was this “my clock is winding down. I am running low on energy and absolutely can NOT continue on even one more minute” and then I got sick. I was sick sick for two months and then ended up with multi-system damage that I’m still trying to regulate. Aside from all the trauma that went along with all this (losing jobs due to illness, no money food, a daughter who was sick too and now has autoimmunity also) I lost the use of my mind. I feel like it just shut down. It was brought to my attention that this all sounded like autistic burnout. As I began talking to my friends about this, I found out that many of them were diagnosed as autistic themselves. It’s almost a “bad” word in our society so they didn’t speak of it until I began running around like the mouthpiece I AM and shouted my questions from the roof tops. Anywho, my point is that I’ve never been given the opportunity to create and live a schedule of my very own. Because of this, I’ve never successfully managed ME, MY HOME, JOBS…. The only part I did get right was the raising of my children. But the only way I could do it was to ignore all parts of myself. It is like the neurological wiring isn’t strong enough to handle doing more than one major thing at a time in my life. I desperately need it a path to follow. That’s when I found Habitica. And Habitica guided me here! I’ve been on a two month streak of self care, home care, friend management, dietary management, chore management and time management… like, I really doing this this thing called life and in part, it’s because of spaces like this! Self discovery, and empowerment, combined with technology, is saving my life!!! Regardless of my diagnosis, it’s been through connecting to autistic communities, and apps like this that I’ve been able to rebuild (slow and steady) and validate the person I AM! Also: I’m a giant GEEK about fungi, photography, all forms of art and writing!! Like, Edgar Allen Poe style creative writing. So if you want a shitload of useless infor about mushrooms, I got you! And I’m so genuinely happy to be here!