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.
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