What mid-life figurative melt-down is this?
May 13, 2023 5:05 PM Subscribe
I want to know 1. How did you get help with your adhd, autism, depression, anxiety, ocd to help you parent better. Meds? Specific types of therapy? Strategies you came up with or heard about?
2. Also if anyone has filed ADA accommodations at work for these things or for depression and anxiety. Was it helpful?
3. Please throw at me any resources: groups on FB, websites, forums, books etc..
I don't really know where to start. This might be scattered and cover many topics but are inter-related.
I'm in my mid 40s queer non binary who I think (check with GP next week) has entered menopause (no period for a full year).
And I've noticed that my general functioning around "productivity" like meeting deadlines at work, doing administrative type things at work, any financial issues for my household, have gone way down.
I have diagnosed clinical depression and anxiety. Medicated.
I have some small traumas that might have contributed but also general trauma of the pandemic, single parenting a toddler.
I am better now than I was even 6 months ago or a year ago as far as running a household. During the pandemic, my house became a clutterfuck, and it got so bad I had to throw dirty dishes away.
Now I have a biweekly cleaner and I am better about dishes but it always feels like I am on the edge of slipping back to that place of overwhelm
There seems to be a tipping point for me. If I keep my sink clean, things don't get bad. But if my five year old gets the outside of the sink or bath wet I may lose my cool and completely melt down. (who I haven't figured out what to do about this issue yet, suggestions welcome). We have worked on not throwing empty food wrappers on the floor, etc. Because that too would melt me down.
Sometimes I get grossed out by a wet floor or overwhelmed with a spilled drink and I literally can't function. My coping strategy usually is to just go lie down in bed. Sometimes I have to leave it until the morning. Because these things usually overwhelm me in the evening.
I have sensory overload a lot and it effects my functioning. It's worse when I'm stressed.
Is this just life with a toddler? Is there something I can do to help?
Please be kind. No judgment please. In my previous asks 5 years ago there were always cruel comments around being a single parent. Hopefully things have changed.
I don't really know where to start. This might be scattered and cover many topics but are inter-related.
I'm in my mid 40s queer non binary who I think (check with GP next week) has entered menopause (no period for a full year).
And I've noticed that my general functioning around "productivity" like meeting deadlines at work, doing administrative type things at work, any financial issues for my household, have gone way down.
I have diagnosed clinical depression and anxiety. Medicated.
I have some small traumas that might have contributed but also general trauma of the pandemic, single parenting a toddler.
I am better now than I was even 6 months ago or a year ago as far as running a household. During the pandemic, my house became a clutterfuck, and it got so bad I had to throw dirty dishes away.
Now I have a biweekly cleaner and I am better about dishes but it always feels like I am on the edge of slipping back to that place of overwhelm
There seems to be a tipping point for me. If I keep my sink clean, things don't get bad. But if my five year old gets the outside of the sink or bath wet I may lose my cool and completely melt down. (who I haven't figured out what to do about this issue yet, suggestions welcome). We have worked on not throwing empty food wrappers on the floor, etc. Because that too would melt me down.
Sometimes I get grossed out by a wet floor or overwhelmed with a spilled drink and I literally can't function. My coping strategy usually is to just go lie down in bed. Sometimes I have to leave it until the morning. Because these things usually overwhelm me in the evening.
I have sensory overload a lot and it effects my functioning. It's worse when I'm stressed.
Is this just life with a toddler? Is there something I can do to help?
Please be kind. No judgment please. In my previous asks 5 years ago there were always cruel comments around being a single parent. Hopefully things have changed.
Response by poster: Oh, I should have added this important note and I'll stop chiming in. I am sober because of health reasons including cbd and thc ( I would use these if I could but even cbd makes me very ill).
I don't want to add more load to my liver with prescription meds either but if I am indeed adhd or autism or ocd, I could consider the risks.
Last time I checked with my psychiatrist he said my issues were trauma based at the time. I have had one emdr session that helped with the recent trauma. But now this stuff I write about is newish
posted by AnyUsernameWillDo at 5:28 PM on May 13, 2023
I don't want to add more load to my liver with prescription meds either but if I am indeed adhd or autism or ocd, I could consider the risks.
Last time I checked with my psychiatrist he said my issues were trauma based at the time. I have had one emdr session that helped with the recent trauma. But now this stuff I write about is newish
posted by AnyUsernameWillDo at 5:28 PM on May 13, 2023
Best answer: If it’s menopause, try hormone replacement. If you got postpartum depression that’s a clue that you’re hormone sensitive. I’m not there yet so can’t testify, but this is the treatment I’ll want for myself when it happens to me.
I’ve done lots of things that have helped. A parent group, so you feel less crazy as a single parent. An occupational therapist, for organizational and coping skills. Structured group therapies - I took CBT which kind of sucked, but you could do DBT or art therapy- for daily coping. rTMS - to raise mood floor. Do one thing at a time - it’s a lot to process.
I’ve filed accommodations when I went on disability and had a graduated return to work schedule. This helps. I have also had accommodations to work outside the office environment- this also helped with concentration. An occupational therapist is the right person to work with you to find useful accommodations.
posted by shock muppet at 6:08 PM on May 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
I’ve done lots of things that have helped. A parent group, so you feel less crazy as a single parent. An occupational therapist, for organizational and coping skills. Structured group therapies - I took CBT which kind of sucked, but you could do DBT or art therapy- for daily coping. rTMS - to raise mood floor. Do one thing at a time - it’s a lot to process.
I’ve filed accommodations when I went on disability and had a graduated return to work schedule. This helps. I have also had accommodations to work outside the office environment- this also helped with concentration. An occupational therapist is the right person to work with you to find useful accommodations.
posted by shock muppet at 6:08 PM on May 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Here's some information from the UK's National Autistic Society on autism and menopause. TL;DR: menopause makes the usual autistic sensory sensitivities and executive function difficulties (and other things) more difficult. I'd assume that the same would apply to ADHD executive function difficulties but I haven't read up on this specifically.
What I've seen about hormone replacement therapy seems to indicate that it helps if the main problems are hot flashes and resulting sleep disturbances, but it doesn't seem to help with the cognitive aspects of menopause. Fortunately what I've read also seems to indicate that the cognitive effects ease off after you're fully through the transition and things have stabilized hormonally.
I can't address 1 or 2 because I'm not a parent and not in the U.S. The general thing I would recommend to help with 1 is to try to start accommodating for your sensory and other stress triggers -- this may mean things as simple as wearing earplugs and/or sunglasses when you go out. I've recently gotten a copy of Niamh Garvey's book Looking After Your Autistic Self (I'm still only on chapter 3) which has a lot of really great concrete advice on this.
posted by heatherlogan at 9:22 PM on May 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
What I've seen about hormone replacement therapy seems to indicate that it helps if the main problems are hot flashes and resulting sleep disturbances, but it doesn't seem to help with the cognitive aspects of menopause. Fortunately what I've read also seems to indicate that the cognitive effects ease off after you're fully through the transition and things have stabilized hormonally.
I can't address 1 or 2 because I'm not a parent and not in the U.S. The general thing I would recommend to help with 1 is to try to start accommodating for your sensory and other stress triggers -- this may mean things as simple as wearing earplugs and/or sunglasses when you go out. I've recently gotten a copy of Niamh Garvey's book Looking After Your Autistic Self (I'm still only on chapter 3) which has a lot of really great concrete advice on this.
posted by heatherlogan at 9:22 PM on May 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I came back to add that autistic burnout may be a factor here.
posted by heatherlogan at 9:40 PM on May 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by heatherlogan at 9:40 PM on May 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
I had some trouble with managing difficult parenting-related feelings a few years ago, and I found therapy to be helpful. I was looking for someone in the ACT space, but wound up with someone trained in DBT instead, and that worked pretty okay. The two share an emphasis on distress tolerance, which seems relevant here.
posted by eirias at 3:56 AM on May 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by eirias at 3:56 AM on May 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I came back again to add that very severe stress can also cause your menstrual periods to stop. So if your doctor does the blood test for follicle stimulating hormone or whatever and finds that you're not in menopause, that's probably an indirect sign that your stress levels are well past emergency alert stage.
Because the word "stress" is thrown around so much that it can mean practically anything, I found the more technical physiological terms "allostatic load" and "allostatic overload" more fruitful when digging up information to understand my own situation.
posted by heatherlogan at 5:23 AM on May 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
Because the word "stress" is thrown around so much that it can mean practically anything, I found the more technical physiological terms "allostatic load" and "allostatic overload" more fruitful when digging up information to understand my own situation.
posted by heatherlogan at 5:23 AM on May 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
Best answer: There are some factors that can be confounding or compounding, and it’s worth looking into the various conditions to increase the chance of effective treatment and a manageable life.
- ADHD in women is often overlooked or diagnosed as depression/anxiety, though of course one can also have all or subsets of these conditions. You could do some self assessments.
- Perimenopause and menopause can exacerbate or mimic the symptoms of ADHD when it comes to executive function and memory problems. So you could think back a few years and to when you where a child even, and see if these problems were there or if not, whether they were not there because you had a lot of compensation strategies. If executive function is a truly new problem, that would exclude ADHD.
Whatever the diagnoses, what you’re going through sounds very hard and I hope things get easier again soon. I’d also recommend the podcast “Strugglecare”, especially the episode on executive function, and the book by the host to make it easier to keep house.
posted by meijusa at 8:54 AM on May 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
- ADHD in women is often overlooked or diagnosed as depression/anxiety, though of course one can also have all or subsets of these conditions. You could do some self assessments.
- Perimenopause and menopause can exacerbate or mimic the symptoms of ADHD when it comes to executive function and memory problems. So you could think back a few years and to when you where a child even, and see if these problems were there or if not, whether they were not there because you had a lot of compensation strategies. If executive function is a truly new problem, that would exclude ADHD.
Whatever the diagnoses, what you’re going through sounds very hard and I hope things get easier again soon. I’d also recommend the podcast “Strugglecare”, especially the episode on executive function, and the book by the host to make it easier to keep house.
posted by meijusa at 8:54 AM on May 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
There's a Facebook group called Neurodivergent Cleaning Crew - you don't have to be diagnosed, but it's a big group that is great at figuring out accommodations for sensory sensitivities.
E.g. there might be something in particular about wet things like a spilled drink that is overwhelming you? And people are stressed out by *different things*, which means that solutions people have offered you in the past may not have worked for *your* sensitivities.
Maybe it's touching something wet, or having something sticky touching your hands that is so stressful.
Maybe the problem is that fixing it involves 'too many steps', eg pulling out a mop, water, cleaning them afterwards.
Maybe it's particularly that keeping things that have touched the floor separate from things you use in the kitchen. Maybe you got yelled or abused as a child for normal accidental spills, and it's now actually triggering you because you feel on some level that spilling liquid = life threatening *danger*.
Depending what it is, you can find a solution.
Maybe it's having some disposable kitchen towels and disposable cleaning wipes *right there* eg stationed *everywhere*, so it's easy to clean up, and you don't need to beat yourself up about throwing them away afterwards, it's ok to do things differently to the way you grew up with.
Maybe it's touching things, in which case maybe you have several sponges on little handles, so that you don't have to touch it.
When I was helping look after a baby and a toddler, we just had a massive stash of old school cloth nappies, which we didn't use as nappies, but just had for all the other things that a large piece of absorbent cotton is good for - just throwing them at spills, using as extra cot sheets, swaddling, putting down on chairs or anywhere a baby or toddler was going to eat and make a mess. Tons of them, easy to use, and could be washed and bleached as necessary. Because yes, toddlers and mess are two things that go together.
If you realise some of these things are from your own childhood triggers, then reframing that *you* are the parent, and are going to keep your child safe, and that it's normal for a toddler to spill things, until it feels real, can help.
Or even when you're calm, practice deliberately flicking some water, then using your new cleaning method, so that it starts to feel routine and automatic what to do to clean it, instead of overwhelming.
And related, for some people, if a noise is overwhelming them, it's less overwhelming when they make a noise, so if there's a spill, strangely it can help some people to flick a few *more* drops of water at the spill (themselves), and somehow it's less frustrating to go into cleaning it up then because then, who knows, maybe because it's your mess too? This is firmly in the brains are weird category, but it works for some people.
These are all strategies for one particular type of sensory overwhelm, but it's something you can do for each situation that is causing stress - you don't have to do things the way 'other people' have done or do them, you can find ways that cause less stress.
There's other tips on those groups, like using flare or calmer ear plugs to reduce background sound overwhelm, etc.
posted by Elysum at 5:16 PM on May 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
E.g. there might be something in particular about wet things like a spilled drink that is overwhelming you? And people are stressed out by *different things*, which means that solutions people have offered you in the past may not have worked for *your* sensitivities.
Maybe it's touching something wet, or having something sticky touching your hands that is so stressful.
Maybe the problem is that fixing it involves 'too many steps', eg pulling out a mop, water, cleaning them afterwards.
Maybe it's particularly that keeping things that have touched the floor separate from things you use in the kitchen. Maybe you got yelled or abused as a child for normal accidental spills, and it's now actually triggering you because you feel on some level that spilling liquid = life threatening *danger*.
Depending what it is, you can find a solution.
Maybe it's having some disposable kitchen towels and disposable cleaning wipes *right there* eg stationed *everywhere*, so it's easy to clean up, and you don't need to beat yourself up about throwing them away afterwards, it's ok to do things differently to the way you grew up with.
Maybe it's touching things, in which case maybe you have several sponges on little handles, so that you don't have to touch it.
When I was helping look after a baby and a toddler, we just had a massive stash of old school cloth nappies, which we didn't use as nappies, but just had for all the other things that a large piece of absorbent cotton is good for - just throwing them at spills, using as extra cot sheets, swaddling, putting down on chairs or anywhere a baby or toddler was going to eat and make a mess. Tons of them, easy to use, and could be washed and bleached as necessary. Because yes, toddlers and mess are two things that go together.
If you realise some of these things are from your own childhood triggers, then reframing that *you* are the parent, and are going to keep your child safe, and that it's normal for a toddler to spill things, until it feels real, can help.
Or even when you're calm, practice deliberately flicking some water, then using your new cleaning method, so that it starts to feel routine and automatic what to do to clean it, instead of overwhelming.
And related, for some people, if a noise is overwhelming them, it's less overwhelming when they make a noise, so if there's a spill, strangely it can help some people to flick a few *more* drops of water at the spill (themselves), and somehow it's less frustrating to go into cleaning it up then because then, who knows, maybe because it's your mess too? This is firmly in the brains are weird category, but it works for some people.
These are all strategies for one particular type of sensory overwhelm, but it's something you can do for each situation that is causing stress - you don't have to do things the way 'other people' have done or do them, you can find ways that cause less stress.
There's other tips on those groups, like using flare or calmer ear plugs to reduce background sound overwhelm, etc.
posted by Elysum at 5:16 PM on May 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding your timeline, but it sounds like you had some past issues related to trauma, and then the big pandemic overwhelm and this new set of meltdown triggers. I want to gently suggest this new set of triggers could very easily also be trauma from your experiences during the pandemic. Some of the sensory overwhelm mitigation techniques Elysum mentioned seem like they could also work to help make spills and mess now feel different from how it felt when it was out of control.
I don't think there's much by way of meds for sensory overload and meltdowns, by the way - some for ADHD but if you're spiraling into panic at seeing a mess start my gut would say to try interrupting that panic, rather than deciding the problem is that you aren't putting enough energy into cleaning.
posted by Lady Li at 11:19 PM on May 14, 2023
I don't think there's much by way of meds for sensory overload and meltdowns, by the way - some for ADHD but if you're spiraling into panic at seeing a mess start my gut would say to try interrupting that panic, rather than deciding the problem is that you aren't putting enough energy into cleaning.
posted by Lady Li at 11:19 PM on May 14, 2023
Response by poster: Thanks everyone. I marked some best answers that really spoke to me and give me something to work with.
I used to be in the Neurodivergent cleaning crew fb group, but it became too triggering for me to see other people's messes. So I had to leave. I can't do a lot of the things Elysum mentioned like rags on the floor. That means messy rags and unless I throw them away right away that's a bigger sensory issue as well. The group was helpful during pandemic overwhelm but I've managed to deep clean my place with outside help and now little things trigger me because I'm traumatized by how easy it was to get into an inhabitable situation. So I'm trying to manage my feelings more than how to clean up the actual mess, really. Sort of like, how do I calm myself down so that I can begin to tackle the mess. Because right now when I hit a wall in the evening I have to leave it.
Part of the issue is needing to find strategies for parenting my 5 year old in partnering with me to keep the place clean. It's just the two of us. I haven't had the energy to sit down and do a plan. That might need to be another Ask question once I can tease the difference between it being my emotions around the mess and how much is it something that I can make a structured routine with my kid to avoid this....
One thing that I've changed and has helped when i have energy re: messes is having to just accept the fact that the best way for me to clean messes is to do it immediately. If it's clutter, I have to pick up one thing at a time. (I have done ACT therapy in the past and have workbooks)
This doesn't help with end of day exhausted time where I have to just lie down for the night. Hence my question here.
Thanks everyone. Still open to resources if any more come up!
posted by AnyUsernameWillDo at 11:10 AM on May 15, 2023
I used to be in the Neurodivergent cleaning crew fb group, but it became too triggering for me to see other people's messes. So I had to leave. I can't do a lot of the things Elysum mentioned like rags on the floor. That means messy rags and unless I throw them away right away that's a bigger sensory issue as well. The group was helpful during pandemic overwhelm but I've managed to deep clean my place with outside help and now little things trigger me because I'm traumatized by how easy it was to get into an inhabitable situation. So I'm trying to manage my feelings more than how to clean up the actual mess, really. Sort of like, how do I calm myself down so that I can begin to tackle the mess. Because right now when I hit a wall in the evening I have to leave it.
Part of the issue is needing to find strategies for parenting my 5 year old in partnering with me to keep the place clean. It's just the two of us. I haven't had the energy to sit down and do a plan. That might need to be another Ask question once I can tease the difference between it being my emotions around the mess and how much is it something that I can make a structured routine with my kid to avoid this....
One thing that I've changed and has helped when i have energy re: messes is having to just accept the fact that the best way for me to clean messes is to do it immediately. If it's clutter, I have to pick up one thing at a time. (I have done ACT therapy in the past and have workbooks)
This doesn't help with end of day exhausted time where I have to just lie down for the night. Hence my question here.
Thanks everyone. Still open to resources if any more come up!
posted by AnyUsernameWillDo at 11:10 AM on May 15, 2023
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CBD oil has worked wonders for my anxiety, depression, overwhelm and insomnia. THC can have some benefits too, but for a couple of different reasons I am waiting until I add that to my regime.
posted by kinddieserzeit at 5:15 PM on May 13, 2023