Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi there,
I was wondering if people had any advice or experience to share regarding my 16 year old daughter. She was diagnosed with high-functioning autism / ASD / Asperger’s a few months ago.
Annie has always struggled at school - we went through phases of her being quite bossy, aggressive, demand-avoidant, with frequent meltdowns as a small child to becoming the studious girl at the back of the class, polite, quietly confident and getting top grades, but still quite isolated from her peers.
Things at secondary school didn't work out great… the environment was completely overwhelming, though she kept her chin up for a long time. Long story short, she became extremely low (talking/planning suicide), completely withdrew in class from any sort of friendships she had with people, started having anxiety attacks / meltdowns every Sunday evening at the prospect of returning to school. We decided to scrape the funds together and put her in private school (this was halfway through y10). Problems seemed to solve themselves for a while - Annie loved the teachers and environment and everyone was really nice… then lockdown hit! The lockdown itself was bliss for Annie, but the transition back to school was very difficult. I think the fact it was GCSE year helped her hold it together - she made it through the year and smashed the exams with straight 9s, but the complete lack of structure of the summer triggered a mental breakdown and rock-bottom depression which had probably been waiting to happen for a while. She was having frequent meltdowns, controlling her food, self-harming and had zero motivation to do anything. This got even worse going back to school for sixth form, though they are very understanding about her needs/diagnosis, but she is finding it increasingly difficult to attend.
At the moment, she has been off school for the last week (and things are continuing to spiral down), staying in bed all day in her imaginary worlds. She seems to oscillate between reclusive shutdowns where she won’t speak more than a few words to me for days and manic episodes of hysteria (where she stammers and talks nonsense and seems to be seeing things that aren’t there, I suspect more imaginary than hallucinations).
Was wondering if anyone had any similar experiences to share? She is a very bright girl and has her heart set on studying physics at Oxford, but right now the pressures of the school day drain all her energy and she’s falling behind in class.
We don’t know whether to move schools, homeschool, take a break and repeat a year, or keep pushing through with things as they are… any thoughts? From what I’ve heard Annie is a typical Aspie girl in the way that she masks to cope with all sorts of challenging social and sensory environments, but this results in severe depression, shutdowns and meltdowns. Does anyone have any methods of tackling this, as well as the other issues mentioned?
Sorry for such a long rant! Any advice or second opinions would be so much appreciated.
Thanks,
Carly
Both my daughters are neurodivergent (ADHD and ASC) and I'm autistic. Both of them found school challenging but were very bright. My elder daughter started A levels but had to drop out. She stayed at home for the rest of the school year destressing, then applied for non-A level courses at other 6th form and FE colleges, she graduated from university with a First last July, in Acoustical Engineering. My younger daughter had been very stressed through her GCSE year and had a year on a music course, really just for her enjoyment. She then went back to A levels and got straight A*s. She is now at university studying Chemistry. I think having a break from the stress of the academic treadmill was very useful for both of them.
Thank you, that's very interesting to hear your daughters' experience about taking a break from school, and it evidently worked well for them considering their subsequent achievements. Were there any particular things you did in that time to restabilise their mental health / construct some coping mechanisms? We've thought before about pulling Annie out of school when she has described it as a toxic environment, but my husband I are worried that it would just cause her to withdraw even more, and in moving away from all the social / sensory struggles will not help her conquer them. Any thoughts on this? I would also be interested to here about your experiences as a parent on the spectrum yourself. Neither my husband or I are on the spectrum, and it's been a real struggle trying to make sense of her unusual behaviour at times, particularly as her autism traits remained hidden for so long...