Midlife Crisis?

I recently read about how the term "adulting" is a way to infantilize women.  Then I read a book called "Discovering the Inner Mother" which talked about how we internalize patriarchal values and how these cause us to limit ourselves. This comes on top of the ongoing anxiety I have about my hubby's health and the fear I have surrounding what I would do if God forbit he weren't there to take care of all the things (bringing in income, arranging for bills to be paid, interacting with people for these purposes).  Oh, and there's the international move abroad that we're counting down the days to.

I shared my concerns in several online groups.  One, for neurodivergent homeschoolers, really got me and a lot of insights for futher thought came through.  The first one is this: autism really is a disability.  The reasons I'm doing relatively well in life is because I have various accomodations in place in the form of my husband being in charge of them.  This leaves me the time and mental space to focus on my contributions to the family, which center on educating our children at home.

Perhaps the first thing I have to do is to accept that my normal will not look like the normal of a neurotypical, independent, empowered, 40-something woman whose personality stands in stark opposition to patriarchal expectations.  I will never be that woman.  It's not that I need to try harder.  I simply don't have the capabilities to juggle the number of tasks needed to successfully make it happen all on my own.

I should be grateful, not wallowing in self-pity.  My husband gets me.  He supports me.  He understands me (as much as is possible for an allistic guy to do so).  

Autism is an invisible disability, which is what makes it so darn difficult.  People don't see it, so they don't know to make allowances for what they expect of me.  And then I internalize those unrealistic expectations onto myself and feel badly for who I am.

Here's my plan of action to get out of this rut.

1. Figure out the worth of my contributions to the family and request an "allowance".

2. Use this "allowance" to pay the bills.  Perhaps it makes more sense to set up automatic bill pay, in which case I need to be sure to gather the info I need to do this and then do it.  I cannot let my husband just sign us up for all the bills at our UK destination.  I need to go through doing it myself so I know I can do it again in the future as needed.

3. Look for a marketing person I can partner with who would market my books without me going broke.  I have to be willing to take an initial loss, something I'm comfortable with, say $100, to give a person a chance.  Then a different person if need be.  Reassess strategies if that still isn't working.

4. Make journaling a regular part of my life.  List things I'm grateful for, things I've accomplished each day/week, and one small goal that I'm working towards.

5. Start making videos of my various thoughts, and separating them into more manageable sections, and publishing these in sections to keep the videos short enough to garner interest.  Think how I like to view my videos - they don't need to be fancy visuals, just engaging content.  And shorter is better, as I rarely click on much longer videos, but often end up clicking on multiple videos in a row.

6. Decide once and for all what the meal plan will be.  What are the healthy parameters of our eating habits?  We CANNOT DO ALL THE THINGS!  

7. Meditate.

8. Listen to music/sing/dance.

9. Be in nature (meditate, journal, hike...)

10. Make a list of books to read about autistic women and read them.