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Daughter 17, getting a bit desperate.

NAS90881

She was diagnosed very late at 16. Crashed out of A levels 5 months later. She sees an NHS psychologist frequently. She’s in burnout.

After 8 months of fighting we’ve got an EHCP. She’s refusing to engage with any of it. Won’t discuss it. Won’t discuss anything, she never has, it’s always been a struggle. She just wants to stay in her room or hang out with her parents. She has no friends. Doesn’t do social media. We’ve tried fluoxetine but it made her exhausted. Melatonin did nothing either. We can’t afford to pay privately anymore, and please don’t suggest  CAMHS. It’s an 18 month wait list, and they were useless anyway.

She wants to go to university. I don’t know how she’ll integrate. She wants to do A levels at home, but we want her to go to a HF ASD school. She’s refusing to look round or talk about it.

Shes becoming more and more withdrawn and bad tempered. Her sleep is rubbish. She sleeps from about 3am until 2pm. Any attempts to change this are met with refusal.

Just lately l feel so angry I’m struggling to speak to her. She was a friendly chatty child. I know this was masking, but she’s fallen so far l feel so lost, bewildered and depressed, we’ve got a the help but she just won’t engage.

Parents

  • Hi, sorry that you are struggling. I’m autistic and I have experienced burnout several times and it can take a long time to even start recovering and you can’t really force this or control the speed, at least not without ultimately heading for burnout again. Change can be very difficult for autistic people and at least for me if I feel pressured to change something (often i can obsess over an issue) it just makes the problem worse- I wouldn’t worry about the sleeping at 3am and waking up at 2pm- this is something that will most likely fix itself as she regain energy and maybe has more things going on in the day. Also why can’t she study A levels from home? That seems like a good option especially since she is keen on going to university! Maybe look into what support there is available for her to successfully do her A levels from home. As her parents the best you can do is probably to be there for her and listen and not put on more pressure. I pushed myself through for years and was forced to resume work or studies while still burnt out (mainly due to financial reasons or wanting to move on etc or not wanting to loose my job or university place) and that is not a good thing to do as I essentially never regained my energy and never worked out good coping strategies so this set off a cycle of pushing through and then burnout which has gone on for years.

    I don’t think ‘she has fallen so far’ - she has probably pushed herself too much for years and this is now a good opportunity to recover and figure out how to avoid burnout in the future and the answer to that is probably not to go back to doing things the same way as before. 
    I don’t know your daughter and I am no education or medical professional but since she wants to do her A levels from home why not start by supporting her in doing that- it might be the right thing! And if it doesn’t work out, then you can always still consider alternatives. Having a goal is very helpful and she has said she wants to do this and go to university- I think this is very positive and you can help her achieve that.

    i think the key to leading a happy life as an autistic person is to accept that it’s ok to do things differently to other people - a major cause of burnout is masking and constantly trying to fit in with societies norms.

Reply

  • Hi, sorry that you are struggling. I’m autistic and I have experienced burnout several times and it can take a long time to even start recovering and you can’t really force this or control the speed, at least not without ultimately heading for burnout again. Change can be very difficult for autistic people and at least for me if I feel pressured to change something (often i can obsess over an issue) it just makes the problem worse- I wouldn’t worry about the sleeping at 3am and waking up at 2pm- this is something that will most likely fix itself as she regain energy and maybe has more things going on in the day. Also why can’t she study A levels from home? That seems like a good option especially since she is keen on going to university! Maybe look into what support there is available for her to successfully do her A levels from home. As her parents the best you can do is probably to be there for her and listen and not put on more pressure. I pushed myself through for years and was forced to resume work or studies while still burnt out (mainly due to financial reasons or wanting to move on etc or not wanting to loose my job or university place) and that is not a good thing to do as I essentially never regained my energy and never worked out good coping strategies so this set off a cycle of pushing through and then burnout which has gone on for years.

    I don’t think ‘she has fallen so far’ - she has probably pushed herself too much for years and this is now a good opportunity to recover and figure out how to avoid burnout in the future and the answer to that is probably not to go back to doing things the same way as before. 
    I don’t know your daughter and I am no education or medical professional but since she wants to do her A levels from home why not start by supporting her in doing that- it might be the right thing! And if it doesn’t work out, then you can always still consider alternatives. Having a goal is very helpful and she has said she wants to do this and go to university- I think this is very positive and you can help her achieve that.

    i think the key to leading a happy life as an autistic person is to accept that it’s ok to do things differently to other people - a major cause of burnout is masking and constantly trying to fit in with societies norms.

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