New country, sudden severe absent-mindedness

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Hi everyone, I'm looking to see if anyone has a shared experience.

I've always considered myself a very careful and organized person. I'm not the type to lose my belongings or forget important things. I've always been an overthinker, constantly in my own head, but this never affected my daily executive functions.

However, two months ago, I moved to a completely different country and started a new life. Since then, I've become extremely absent-minded and scatterbrained. I am constantly losing things or forgetting simple tasks in a way that feels nonsensical and not like me at all.

This change is really bothering me because my baseline "carefulness" is gone.

I'm wondering if this is a common autistic experience when dealing with a massive environmental change? Is this a sign of autistic burnout starting, or just extreme cognitive overload?

Has anyone else experienced a sharp decline in their "real-world" functioning like this after a major life change, even if you were high-functioning before?

Yeah I have
I recently found my biological parents and my mind hasn't been the same since

I think it was to do with the sudden stress and shock of it all and plus it didn't go well so that took it's toll

I think just looking after yourself and taking your time will get you back to normal but I'm no expert

Best of luck with it all

Some of us are known for remembering a lot of details normal people miss.
Logically it may take some time to process all of that.

It may be related to your routines changing. I'm more forgetful when my routines get disrupted.

A new environment can make demands of our mental processing such that tasks we were used to have done automatically or as a matter of routine can suffer. You may find as you adapt to your new environment that your automatic processing becomes more reliable.

I think sustained cognitive overload often leads to burn-out. I hope you will manage it as proactively as possible.

It has happened to me after major life changes, including that of moving to a new country. It took me from high functionality to 'severe functional impairment'.

I struggled very much to accept the way my responses had changed, so I tried to push myself out of the foggy-headedness; and I burnt out each time. It was the 'attempting to push through' that led to the burn-out, not the overload itself, in my case.

Burn-out truly is to be avoided at all costs. It is very destructive to both physical and cognitive health.

If it helps, take it easy, take it slow, keep your environment as calm and controlled as possible. Please don't tell yourself that your mind should be sharper or more switched on: it's making the best possible use of the resources available to it.

Your natural attentiveness to detail will return when your brain has rebuilt its cognitive energy reserves, which I hope will be soon. (...though if the problem persists a long time, maybe try to see a specialist?)