Denial and threatening with a knife

There's a lot of misconceptions about Autism. And because of this, most aren't getting the help they need, just finding an unnatural state of being is compounded by trauma and creating unnecessary extreme levels of stress.

Have you looked at https://monotropism.org? It might be good to understand how to help her to a place where she feels physically and psychologically grounded and then she can start, as you say "facing realty". But from what I'm reading here, getting to this state will take some time. 

Autistics encounter severe stress and trauma from not just perpetually being misunderstood, but from sensory assault and most importantly from interruption - which is like waking a sleepwalker. Some become a shell of themselves from modern sensory elements which are not human-friendly and modern values, such as smash cut 'adapting'. The difference with the Autistic Being, is we are designed to be better connected to our physical environment. We can sharpen our senses to match engineering tools for calculation. But when these senses aren't shielded properly, and we're not taught how to reach our potential, we are harmed by them. It's important to recognise we cannot filter out unwanted signals the same as our non-autistic peers, so Reality is Too Much. 

It sounds as if her reality right now is constantly being invalidated, misrepresented and blocked - daily.This article explains how at a certain point unresolved matters and unrelenting stress can be toxic https://news.uga.edu/some-stress-is-good-for-brain-function/ it doesn't create resilience just resentment. 

Back to interruptions. These are probably one of the worst things you can do to your autistic loved-ones. It's difficult to understand because the Non-Autistic tends to enjoy surprises and new fast things to adapt to. But there's a lot of study on predictive coding and the salient network if you'd like more research to look at and better understand this polar difference. If someone who is designed to work better in a hyper-focused state is rarely allowed any matter to come to completion, start to finish, or allowed resolve, if they're constantly dealing with unexpected blocks and stops, they will completely lose it.

Imagine every time you sit down to eat, your dinner is taken every day somewhere between start an finish. Sometimes before you start. Or on a weekly basis appliances keep breaking, clothing sometimes falls apart when you pick it up - and you never know what day this will happen, but nothing is stable. Shoes fall apart. Your toothbrush disintegrates at random intervals. No one can live like that. And yet this is the reality Autistics are expected to live with.

Here's how to fix this: Set timers and schedule events. Become the most dependable person she has - never say No or Yes unless you are prepared to follow through. Be overly reliable. She needs a source of grounding, of time to get into a focused space uninterrupted. She needs to learn to think slowly through a process and help executing every thing to completion. You will need to reinforce her doing one task at a time to completion. Never overwhelm her with too much all at once, which is how she experiences the world. Teach her how to make lists and goal-setting. Schools are not designed for Autistic minds. We would thrive with 3 intense subjects or even just one over an 8-hour period or to master one week at a time.

The best advice I have for anyone follows: We cannot force a process and we cannot cut a process short.

My guess is she needs to learn to escape reality and properly recoup. This is a good article about the effects of school systems and Autistics www.psychologytoday.com/.../are-we-giving-autistic-children-ptsd-school

To add: if the screens are too much, buy a spirograph, buy art tools. Take her to the library for a full day and let her start to find authors or subjects she feels drawn to. Set a time per day to learn something new: gardening or whatever you can expose her to. Help her learn to type - make sure increments are something small. 15 minutes a day. If it's a chore but you know she likes it, those 15 minutes may turn into something longer. 

She needs things she can feel she might excel at. But if the first part of the day is designated for reading, continually learning one thing a walk or yoga and making breakfast or baking, things might start opening up for her. School isn't always the goal, rather, the desire for knowledge and craft-mastering is. 

I completely agree with you. Good reminder!

I completely agree with you. Good reminder!