I can't say any of this out loud - or really string many sentences together...but writing it out seems to be ok at the moment.
It seems to have started over this weekend. I haven't moved much at all, simply led down. There are so many things I needed to do this weekend but instead I've barely moved, stared into space or watched videos online (usually things I've seen before so I can just stare at them).
It feels like I really want to withdraw, not look at people and just be on my own. I'm really scared I'm having a shutdown but I'm not entirely sure, or it could be something else (I might have used the wrong term here!) - and I don't know what to do about it.
For context, I work full-time and go into an office 2 days per week, the rest of the week I work from home (I hate the office environment - an attack on the senses!). I only got an official autism diagnosis at the end of last year and only recently told a few colleagues (who have been great up to now, but I don't think they fully understand or know what to expect from me).
I think I had a shutdown (or whatever this is) a few years ago, a couple of months into the pandemic, and I think it was triggered by a number of changes in quick succession (moving house, new job, and working from home/loss of structure through the lockdown). At the time, I didn't know I was autistic and thought I was doing something wrong, and I craved the structure of work, so I tried to carry on working throughout - a mistake in hindsight as it only prolonged things, but I think I just about (poorly) managed to do it as I was working from home and could hide a lot of issues and limit who I spoke to.
I can see a lot of similarities between the experience a few years ago and this one now, as I started a new role at the start of January, got the autism diagnosis just before that and also had a very rocky Christmas break which didn't give me time to organise myself before the New Year as I'd planned.
Now that it's Sunday evening and I've got work tomorrow in the office, I'm really wondering what I can/should do. I don't want it to seem like I'm using my newly diagnosed condition as an excuse for anything - if people would see it that way but equally I'm not sure I can cope with a full day of interacting at work. My autistic traits have been heavily(? if that's the right word) masked and my diagnosis has been a shock to some, which has made it difficult to try and unmask in most situations. I certainly don't want to draw attention to myself any more than I probably have done in the past. I also struggle to identify and then articulate my emotions to people so it would be very difficult to explain to a manager or anyone what's going on, especially in a way that they could possibly understand.
I'm really at a loss...
