I got angry on your behalf just reading this.. :D I am usually slow to anger, but not when it comes to doctors invalidating and not listening to the patient.
This kind of attitude is actually the exact reason why I'm not even trying to get (most probably) AuDHD diagnosis, because I already know that I'm just going to be invalidated every step of the way and besides, having an official diagnosis is not going to help me anyway.
I just have to keep going and figuring out on my own, what works and what doesn't. The only tricky part is, yes, I don't really feel my limits properly, so I can end up white-knuckling through years of burnout and not even realise.
The curious thing about masking that I just realised recently.. we were talking with mom about pain, and, you know how doctors ask you to rate pain on a scale from 1-10 and I said I can never answer to that because what even counts as pain..? And then I thought about it some more (being in pain at that moment), and I realised my scale.. 0-5 I straight up ignore, anything 5 and below does not count as pain to me. At six I might fail to ignore the pain, but not yet start to mask it, so I can come off as short-tempered, antisocial or mean, but I'm not likely to tell anyone that that is because I'm actually in pain (unless it's family, I've now started to matter of factly admit), At 7-8 that is when I actively mask the fact that I'm in pain. At 9 I'll start laughing and cracking jokes as a coping mechanism for failing to mask (this is where people usually say - "well it can't be that bad if you're laughing and joking", and this is how I've mastered getting doctors to let me out of hospitals sooner, works like a charm). At 10, if possible, I'll lay down and 'meditate on pain', answering in a robotic emotionless tone if prompted with questions.
A bit off-topic, but thinking about masking, this illustrated to me how I mask, because that was one of the things I couldn't quite get my mind around about what constituted as masking even and how would I know if I've done it all my life.. That is still an active question I have, but now at least I have an example that I can refer back to.
For sleeping.. have you tried weighted blankets?
~Josie~