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...
It's so disappointing about the lack of support groups, though I feel very lucky to have access to this online community (Annie even came on here and read a few forums so she knows she's not the only one struggling). That's really great your daughter gets so much support and understanding at uni. I'm still trying to organise allowances like extra time and a quiet room for Annie for A-levels.
You are very welcome. The provision of support for autistic people, autistic adults in particular, is very poor. My daughter is getting accommodations at university, some free software and a microphone to record lectures, longer in exams and exams in smaller less-stressful rooms with fewer people. She also alerts her lecturers that, because of her autism, she may ask more questions and need greater clarification of what is required in course work than other students. She had two results of 99% in her recent exams, but still gets anxious about her preparedness and knowledge! So far, I have found no useful support group for adults in my area, which is sad.
After 34 years working in universities I would definitely say that autistic traits are more commonly found in the academic community than in the general population.
In going to university you do jettison the vast majority of bullies, and the number of people that you can have intelligent conversations with increases hugely. I found undergraduate life much more pleasant than school, though parts were still somewhat stressful, but you could always bail-out and have some quiet time in the library. PhDs might have been designed for autistic people, focusing on one narrow research subject and working with a relatively small number of people who fully share your 'special interest' was just wonderful for me.
Thank you, that's really encouraging to hear how your girls moved through their difficulties at school. I completely agree, school is such a difficult environment for autistics and it's such a shame that the system ends up messing with their mental well-being so much, especially as in theory they make up more than 1% of the population. I wish there was a way for more autistic people to meet and support each other in person, though I don't know of many local support groups around. That's really interesting to here about your own experiences at school. I am told many autistic people pursue careers in academia. That is Annie's ambition at the moment, and I encourage her a lot with that, not only so that she can study her passion but that in higher education she will meet more like-minded people.
We just gave our elder daughter time and space to reorient herself. In the end she started looking around for suitable courses, we had all come to the conclusion that A levels were definitely not suitable for her style of learning. Our younger daughter had always been musical and, with the example of her sister before her, she did not want to go straight into A levels, so she chose a music performance course that she would enjoy and would not be stressful for her - though she did get a qualification out of it as well. At the end of the year she decided that she wanted to work in research, and chose to start A levels. Both my wife and myself had gone up the educational ladder as far as it went and worked in universities. As such, we both had developed a rather jaundiced view of academic education as an end in itself, and never put any pressure on our daughters in that regard, though they both proved to be quite academically gifted.
I didn't have a diagnosis until earlier this year, so almost all of my parenting was undertaken not knowing that anyone in the family was neurodivergent, though in retrospect it should have been obvious. The only advantage I think that I had as an autistic parent, was in understanding the heightened anxiety, the pickiness over food, the desire for solitude, the revulsion for some sounds, textures and smells, and the occasional panics and meltdowns.
They both found post-school learning less stressful than school (once A levels had been avoided for one of them). For myself, I can say that I found school stressful and frightening and I hated it. I don't think that schools are a very comfortable environments for autistics. When I started school I was selectively mute for 3 months, and was again for shorter periods through infant school. I actively welcomed childhood illnesses, as they would mean a week or more off school and being ill was better than having to go. The 6th form was better, but that was largely because the classes were much smaller and the teachers started to treat you as a human being. University was even better and doing a PhD was just ideal.