Shutdowns, meltdowns & masking... advice??

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