ASD mid life burnout

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I feel like I am circling the drain of a mid life burnout. Life's issues just keep stacking up with no end in site and each time it ratchets up, I feel my ablities to cope slipping away. Went thru the initial process of trying to find healthcare as it is mandated by the current person in the white house. Affordable my arse! Even with the discounts and tax credits I am able to recieve, its gonna cost me $1764 a year. And it has high co-pays and a high deductable should I need major health care. To not sign up for this plan will cost me just over $2000 this year as a penality for not having health care. If I was to divorce from my wife, loosing her income, I would qualify for free health care, including vision and dental coverage. Which isn't included for the $1764 a year plan. Lots of other stress both at work and at home is keeping me on the verge of a meltdown at times and usualy crashing down towards a total shutdown once I get home. The energy to keep myself from this happening has left me so tired that I am ready for bed not long after the early evening news. I do not normally have shutdowns, but meltdowns both mini and major ones. But post diagnosis and starting to deal with emotions I have never really tried to manage before has led to a couple of shut downs. The last one was a total shut down that I do not know how long it lasted. I usually break down crying in a ball on the floor/bed/couch, the world around me ceases to exhist and I end up so exhausted that I fall asleep. Its during these that I get suicidal sometimes. Afterwards it takes me awhile to regain my full strength. I fear the next one might take me months if not years to come back from. Its kind of like an earthquake, little tremors, but no big one. Then the big one hits without any warning what so ever. Thankfully I do see my therapist almost weekly, and that helps. For right now I just go to bed early, before I feel everything overwheleming me totaly, wrap myself in my weighted blanket like a cocoon and sleep. Its all I can do to cope right now. The total lack of support for adults on the spectrum in the USA is appalling IMHO. Every new program I see is for kids lately. Pretty sad in a country that is supposed to be a world leader. Mike

Check.

Mine is work oriented.
I've worked my butt off in self employment for two decades, and I've forced myself and pushed myself to get out there every day, but now I feel like I can't face going on. I'm no shirker and I once went fifteen years with NO vacations, just work work work. But seriously it's all BS and I wish to god I could retire or win the goddamn lottery. I'm burned out badly.

I went through a similar problem in my mid forties. Life events and stress wore me out and I needed to take a break. I was lucky and could afford to retreat from the world. Reducing stress helped me regain some balance in my life.

Good luck

I wish I could afford to just live on my own, without any help, be it from my wife or any other souce than my own income. I am much happier when I am alone these days. Dodger

Howdy! Maybe you should spend more time with your trains.

I encountered this sort of situation a few years go in my early 40s. I found I could no longer deal with or relate to the whole work/career thing, and the harder I tried with relationships and 'people stuff' generally, the more impossible and pointless it seemed.

Luckily I had a flat which had increased considerably in value over the previous few years, and I was able to sell it and survive quite comfortably on the proceeds. I'm now quite happy to live in isolation from the world and to communicate online only. I doubt very much whether I could get a 'diagnosis' for ASD or anything else - how can my social functioning be 'impaired' if I have don't have or want a social existence?