The stress of a divorce and the rising tide of fascism have caused me to seriously regress in self care skills over the past few years. I am currently struggling with eating/“meal planning.” I am intellectually capable of understanding what is necessary to grocery shop/plan out meals, and used to be able to do so, but am struggling with executive dysfunction to the point where I cannot.
For the past two years, my diet has been fast food, chips, beer and candy. I had a few “safe foods” - specific brands of frozen meals that were reliable, but of late they are not working. Eg, I have been lying on the floor for the past five hours feeling absolutely famished, have considered going to the refrigerator and making one of the frozen meals that is usually “safe” - and am utterly incapable of doing so. I don’t think I could even eat it if I made it.
I’m guessing this is autism - I’m guessing I’m autistic - but there has never been any means for me to be evaluated. I have talked to my therapist about this, and have not really found the advice helpful.
The most effective thing has been stocking up on things like lunchables to at least get calories in. Sometimes even lunchables will stop being “safe” though. It gets harder to function when I’m hungry, so I get caught in a loop of lying in bed hungrier and hungrier. I know I can’t live off of gas station pizza and Monster, but there have been days where that’s all I feel capable of eating.
I think meal replacement shakes are really helpful when you’re stuck in a headspace like this. I’m talking things like Soylent, Huel, etc.
If you buy the powder in bulk it is much more affordable than fast food and quite easy to prepare.
People will argue that they’re worse than whole foods, which is true, but it’s still much better than nothing, lunchables, gas station food, snacks, etc.
Beyond that I think the best thing is to try and reduce the scope of what you want to accomplish so it doesn’t feel overwhelming. Instead of worrying about making food for 3 meals a day everyday. Try instead to make one meal and go from there.
The meal replacement shakes are a good idea. I should have thought of that.
I’ve fallen into basically a pattern of not eating all day, then getting home and then drinking/getting stoned to binge. I could see the shakes making the binging better.
It’s unbelievably frustrating. I fed three people, meal planned, cooked. Didn’t have problems doing dishes. Didn’t have problems cleaning up trash. My apartment should look nice, I should be able to feed myself. When I talk to my therapist she’s like, “you know what you need to do so just do it” - and I just fucking can’t.
Hey, AuDHD person here. Absolutely feel what you’re saying, been struggeling a lot with this again lately, sometimes the eating/grocery shopping issues are worse depending on my mental state.
Thought I would just comment on what you wrote here about your habit of not eating all day. I often do this too especially as I am not really hungry unil midday, or at least I cannot have breakfast as most people would. I noticed however, that I can eat a tiny amount of fruit, half an apple or banana, which then leads to me actually eating around midday more likely or me actually getting hungry a bit later. It’s basically what I learned to prevent me from skipping meals all day and its quick and easy. Maybe it helps
My safe foods currently are rice crackers with peanut butter, apples and instant noodels. I have a jar with a mix of nuts and dried fruits always on display as well.
Don’t pressure yourself too much with all the stuff you think you should do. Give yourself time and acceptance that you’re not able to do it right now. The more you think about it, the worse it usually gets. Not sure if this is good advice but if you can’t tidy up, don’t. At least in my case sometimes I can’t do these things well so usually, I just go with it and accept it, so I just have a few bad days and embrace that I have a few really fucked up days but it also usually changes after a few days and I’m sick of how messy everything is and my tidy side kicks in again. , so I can at least get back to normal level of clean and tidy and keep the extra-household stuff for when my depression gets better. Could be that this is a ADHD causing and Autism helping thing, not sure.
Maybe try wokring on a different strategy with your therapist. Obviously the current one doesn’t help but instead makes you feel worse, which isn’t ideal.
Maybe it’s also about place, so maybe a change in surrounding would be good. Maybe going out and eat in a park or in a restaurant would help, or taking a walk before trying to prepare foods. Maybe you need to change something in your apartment so you get in the mood to sit on a dining table again or being in the kitchen. Reading about your situation, I can imaginge those places are maybe the ones that make you feel very vulnerable and sad as they might remind you of your ex and kids. So maybe try to make your kitchen a happy place again, but your happy place. Put something to look at that makes you happy etc.
If you can, try and go outside for walks in nature and find joy in small things, a bird singing maybe. Find some new hobbies that make you happy. I know this is hard, as usually you lose interest in everything with depression, but it will help improve your well-being.
And if you can’t do all of this, accept it, maybe you’re not yet ready for it mentally. There will be a time for it however, so keep this in mind.
Besides that, hope you can find some inner peace soon. Not the best times currently, so maybe try to avoid everything that makes you downward spiral, esp. world news. It’s not likely that something too dramatic will happen that effects your life directly and drastically as this politics is nothing but a big shit show, so they can live without your attention for a few weeks.
The apartment is another factor. I don’t really have furniture. I’ve been making a “couch” out of scrap T-shirts.
I guess I’ve had politics affect me too much to ignore it. The attacks on education (my career), the attacks on trans people (my life)… I don’t know what will happen when I renew my drivers license.
The hobbies are helpful. When I had more money I went to a pottery studio a few times. A lot of the hobbies are practical right now - sewing the “couch”, fixing my clothes, making dishclothes that I hope will motivate me to clean. Thrifting. I was on a hunt for speakers for a while and that was motivating.
It’s hard to understand it as chemical “depression” when it seems like a rational reaction to the world. I was born the child of a severely mentally ill teenage girl who slept with a man much older than her. I’ve always been “off” in some way - whether it’s autism or ADHD or whatever - there just aren’t the professionals who diagnose these things here. Whatever it was it was enough to make me different enough to bully. The “help” I received was conversion therapy, the troubled teen industry, and my mother’s strange sexual fantasies/advice. I ended up in an abusive controlling marriage which left me financially devastated and effectively bankrupt, while my millionaire ex husband’s family happily supports his little group of prostitutes.
I don’t have friends. I don’t have a support system. If I died, all of my art and books and writing and knitting would end up in a bin somewhere. I don’t feel like I exist. I’ve never seen antidepressants as a solution to these things, and I’ve always reacted strangely to psychiatric medication anyway. There’s very little good quality mental health care here - we have LPCs who play Dr. Phil. I have PTSD from experiences in inpatient treatment.
I’m just supposed to look at this impossible situation, and deal with it. I got fired a couple of weeks ago from my full time job - I was starting on things like unemployment and food stamps, but they won’t be coming. I get through the day by imagining the night - that I can go home, get drunk and high, that food will seem edible or at least I’ll stop caring about finances and spend too much money on delivery.
Losing food is what is breaking me. It’s like the last connection I feel I have to my body, and it’s tenuous at best. The idea that I could get through a week and make myself something nice or go get sushi or something and enjoy it. The only thing I have a sense of “looking forward to” is the dream of the move North - living in a place where I could teach again, a place where I’m not wondering whether getting pulled over will have me arrested for the “wrong” marker (our city jail has killed multiple people - the federal government has been trying to shut it down for a decade) But the prospect of economic collapse is making that dream fade. And if I am here when people start shooting, I will probably die.
