i am currently going through a breakup – and suddenly struggling even more to focus than usual.

one thing is to mentally revisit all these conversations we had and reconsidering what i could have said or done differently to help the situation we were stuck in, and all the grief about the loss of the relationship i thought would be lasting until the end of my lifetime.

but the other thing is this kind of brainfog, low energy, and restlessness. in this state, it’s really hard for me to concentrate on tasks, and of course that includes my work. only sometimes i reach enough enthusiasm to sustain my focus and even hyperfocus.

several neurodivergent traits are tangled together in a breakup:

• rejection sensitive disphoria by not feeling important enough to my former partner to have changed certain things
• dropping out of a bunch of routines we had together, which gave me structure, predictability, and therefore safety
• the risk of making the breakup a hyperfocus, and thereby the need to actively distract me from it
• slow processing speed took me a week to actually understand what has happened
• collapse of executive funtioning, like getting out of bed or keeping on top of housework

being audhd brings extra challenges to breakups and traits even worsen.

i feel you!

i help neurodivergent people to feel understood by creating minimal, typographic, and querky graphics with small environmental impact.

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