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
Hello, I’ve just seen your post. I have to say, it sounds remarkably like my own situation, or should I say, my daughters. Skipping school, issues at high school, eating problems, self harm, masking, shut downs, demand avoidant personality, psychotic episodes etc etc… Thank goodness lockdown stopped her going to school and sitting her exams (which she done very well in). She went to Sixth form, ended up leaving several months later as it all got too much. She has ADHD and Dyspraxia as well as Autism, so staying focussed was a huge problem. Then she got an apprenticeship. While she enjoyed the work, the 40 hour week was too much. Her mental health suffered and she had to quit. Then she got sacked from a new job. Now she’s at college, studying something more ‘hands on’, which is linked to one of her interests. It has more of an emphasis on coursework, rather than exams. The pressure has been greatly reduced. She’s at college 3 days a week.
All I’d say is give her time to explore her options. If she try’s different things, and decides it isn’t manageable, then she can change, no pressure. There’s too much of an emphasis children having to know exactly what they want at a young age. I don’t feel this is necessary. I feel they will gravitate towards what’s best for them with trial and error, and time. Have a chat with the support service at the school/college. Finds way that will help your daughter to achieve what she desires. Any small change they can incorporate to her day might have a big impact for her. Moving school can cause more stress.
I probably haven’t helped, but I just wanted to show you that things can, and do turn around for the better.
The other thing I agree with is that she will find her own thing if given the freedom to. I'm actually a house obsessive! It was there from the beginning but never was given a thought by my parents as a viable option for a girl but times have changed. I made homes and maps of towns for all my toys. The first was for my big plastic aeroplane and I can't tell you the pleasure at 4 years old of making a cardboard box into a house with windows and doors with wallpaper inside using extremely blunt scissors and glue! It was only when I bought my first place that it took off again (after having terrible experiences with rent a rooms.) I could shut my door and be alone which I really like. Then I discovered I could visualise spaces and taught myself to do practical things that I get real pleasure from. I now refurb and rent property and can live off this without too much people input. I have had several office jobs and in spite of excelling at data analysis and computer programming, the people element has never ended well. I accept it's something I can't do and I'm happier not doing it. The other thing I'd suggest is maybe getting some life survival skills for university. I found that having the don't mess with me attitude gave me protection from being taken advantage of or bullied. It's a good shield. Also try to cap any meltdown until you get back to your room, then switch music on and go for it! If you have some life skills like cooking or repairing a puncture in your bike you have skills which make you valuable / more acceptable to people. You'll have someone who will always want food or their bike fixing! Cooking was a horrendous disaster in domestic science but once the thought that it was oxidation chemistry was dropped in my brain I could work out how to do it!
Hi, that's great to hear about your obsession with houses that you're using as a job now. Is it your main career or are you still partly involved in plant cellular science? I do have hopes that my daughter might use her creative writing to become a novelist someday as an additional thing to her physics career. Yes, I've been trying to teach her some survival skills for uni... she knows how to cook well and will be disciplined not to be staying up until 3 every night. But I am concerned that if things go downhill, there's no-one there to make sure that she doesn't stop eating or start self-harming again... any advice? Also, do you have any experience making friends at uni? I'm hoping she'll get to meet lots of people like her, but she's had so many issues trying to connect with people, it would be good to have some advice any one might have. I'm not sure how much to encourage her to mask... too much comes across as fake, but neither is it ideal to be offending people (completely unintentionally) five seconds into the conversation with no mask!!
Thanks again