Vulnerability is hard.

Hello fellow humans! Being vulnerable is HARD and I’ve been challenged to post here to help reduce some of the distress around it… so here we are. Post #1. I am 29 years old, married to my husband of almost 7 years and have two beautiful little girls, ages 2.5 and 6 months. I enjoy so many things like reading, being in nature, word searches, and pretty much any crafty hobby you can think of. After a lifetime of wondering, I was finally formally diagnosed with autism (level 1) in 2024 which has been such a blessing and has provided me SO MANY amazing answers for why I am who I am. It also has validated why so many things are harder for me than for others. I was more recently diagnosed with OCD after having suspicions around this since I was little as well which is why I am here! I have a few friends I regularly see but friendships have always been a struggle for me. Opening up to friends and sharing how I am doing or feeling is even more of a struggle. I often feel like a burden or “too much”. My family situation (husband and kids excluded) is extremely dysfunctional and even though my parents and sisters are close by, they do not help with the kids. My husband works quite a bit and I am alone with the kids with no help every single day from early in the morning to dinner time and sometimes later. I am so thankful for my life, for my amazing husband and our girls but it is HARD. Making friends and maintaining friendships is hard. Navigating family is hard. Living life with a lot of sensory sensitivities and other invisible (or masked) needs is hard. Living with OCD is hard. I am learning that it’s ok for things to be good and hard. There are so many beautiful parts to life and so much to be thankful for. But also life is hard. If you stuck around this long, thanks for listening. Not sure where exactly I was going with this one but if you are a mom or wife or person feeling lonely or discouraged or wanting to build better friendships or be a better person despite feeling like a lot is against you, please know you aren’t alone! We’ve got this.