Frustration with 2e/gifted child
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Anonymous
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I often come back on here when I've reached a certain frustration point and I am at my wits end. Our daughter is in 8th grade, and after a full school evaluation testing many different areas (including screening for autism and adhd), she has qualified for an IEP. They said that she fell just under meeting the criteria for both autism and adhd, so they do not believe she has either of these disorders, although she shares many of the same traits. She is gifted, and 2e, has major EF deficits, social/emotional delays, sensory issues, and comparative deficits in fluid reasoning and processing speed compared to her cognitive abilities.
She has been seeing a very expensive therapist for 3 months, and it's gotten nowhere so far. Most meetings she barely says a single word, and then announces to her proudly afterwards that she was able to not say a thing the entire session. She's 110% against accepting the IEP and the supports. DH and I want to accept the IEP supports. We have tried to talk it through with her, have scheduled meetings with our daughter and the school so they could walk her through as well, but she is still very adamantly against it. She has been making our home life hell. She has been extremely rude and disrespectful and just refuses to do anything other than school work. She contributes nothing to the family. If her room was left to her own devices it would turn into an episode of hoarders and a biohazard site. She seems unable to have a rational discussion and seems incapable of showing an iota of insight into her own deficiencies or limitations. She calls us stupid and a levy of other insults on a daily basis. She says the world would be a better place if I just went and killed myself. Her younger siblings hear all this horrible nonsense on a daily basis. She does not respond to any consequences because she literally does not care about anything. An hour after she tells me to go kill myself, and screamed insults at me, she will then act as if nothing happened, and then nonchalantly ask me do favors for her- she seems to have zero common sense in the area of social give and take. I've reached a point when I've given up on her making any progress at home. Up til now I have been trying to get her to work on things like cleaning up her own messes, eating meals on a regular basis, doing her laundry, and cleaning her room at least once a month. But I think I've realized that she is literally incapable of thinking of others and is truly self-centered. It's been so utterly exhausting working on these things with her and it I just end up getting crapped on by her whenever I do. From now on, I want to just LET GO and ACCEPT that she literally has a disability, and that for as long as she lives under our roof, I will need to clean her room, launder her clothes, prepare all her meals and put it in front of her, and take care of all the things she is incapable of doing. Because it's been over 10 years and nothing we have tried has worked. I don't believe she will be able to hold down a job - I don't know what the future holds for her. She says she is 100 percent not going to college, and she says she cannot wait until she gets away from us, and says she will not ever call or visit us once she leaves. The hardest thing is her stubbornness, and lack of ability to see her own limitations, or accept any help, and her refusal to treat me and DH like human beings. The hate she spews on us on a daily basis has gotten intolerable. I'm venting. But I'm also asking for advice on how to approach the IEP. At this point the only way she would receive the IEP is if we just force her to do it. I've tried everything to convince her that it would be helpful, but nothing has worked. I'm half listening to her right now proudly telling her younger siblings the gory details of all her dreams - they are all about killing, stabbing and cutting off people's heads - usually me or DH, or one of her siblings. I feel like she's been a terrible role model for her younger siblings, and it's starting to show. She simultaneously mistreats them and latches onto them because she has no friends that she spends time with outside of school. I know she's under a lot of stress and this is how she acts when she's under stress. She becomes miserable to live with. But I'm just so burnt out and exhausted with her behaviors and the hate. Not sure how to move forward at this point, because yesterday and today I feel like distancing myself from her and I know that is not healthy. |
Anonymous
| I just had a thought- could it be that she has a personality disorder and that is the real issue? |
Anonymous
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I recognize that belligerence and defiance in our asd/adhd child.
I would find a psychologist /psychiatry team to treat her as if we had both. Stop the talk therapy and change it to DBT. Are there boarding schools for kids like this? With all the self sabotage. Relationship sabotage. |
Anonymous
| Look up Davidson’s gifted forums. There’s one for 2e. They might be able to support you much better. Good luck! |
Anonymous
How is DBT different and why do you think that would be more effective? The issue is her stubbornness in ensuring that she will never cooperate with anything anyone else suggests. She needs to be the one who decides because “she knows better than anyone else”. |
Anonymous
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I’m an empath and this scares me to say it and also makes me incredibly sad- but I feel like I’m at the point where I am feeling a strong desire to just stop caring about her as my daughter. I want to treat her as just another human being with issues I cannot really help anymore. I feel like she’s toxic to me and to the family and I need to start focusing on the people who actually care. She has taken up so much of our emotional and mental and physical time and even space bandwidth (because she literally leaves a path of mess wherever she goes). And if she were willing to ever meet us 10 percent of the way, I’d feel it would be worthwhile to try, but she has refused to make any effort.
And I honestly feel like if I stopped caring, she really would not even care one way or the other. She will just use that to demonize me. She literally does not care at all about anyone or anything. I also feel pretty confident that she would never even shed a tear if I died tomorrow. She has said so many times and for all these years I didn’t believe her, but I realize now she actually means it. She says that when she is perfectly happy and calm as a matter of fact- it’s not something just said out of anger. All the family members, teachers, friends who have been so generous with their time, money, and thoughtfulness with her- she has said she doesn’t care about any of them and she doesn’t need them or want to spend any time with them or see them, let alone be a friend or thoughtful person towards them. She is self-centered and literally cannot see past her own desires. |
Anonymous
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If you don’t already have one, you need a therapist for you who can help you work through your own emotions around this and figure out responses to her. I am a rational, sympathetic person and it took a long time for me to recognize how even so I was contributing to my child’s triggers. It has helped. Detachment is part of it, but not in a giving up way.
One thing that jumped out at me is she doesn’t have the right to decide about her IEP. It’s not her decision. She can refuse at school but some things can happen regardless of her desires. |
Anonymous
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Also, sorry to say this but 13/14 is rough, end of the school year is rough, transition to HS is rough. She sounds very hungry to feel loved and valuable and is expressing this in counterproductive ways. Has her therapist suggested a more intensive program? Is she on meds? Is she self harming?
I would want to hear from the therapist (without your daughter present) about what she thinks. Therapy is for sure not magic with kids like this and I’d keep expectations low but a trusting relationship with a therapist is good. |
Anonymous
| Also have you read The Explosive Child? If not, recommend. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
One more thing! You can probably tell I’ve been through stuff 
This is in no way a criticism, my heart goes out to you, but truly—try not to think about things like whether she’ll be employable or not someday. Or whether you’ll have to do her laundry for the rest of her life. It’s hard not to spiral sometimes but it is way too early to know what her future looks like. People continue to grow and develop even in adulthood. One day at a time. |
Anonymous
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Hugs
From 12-14 can be really challenging ages. It gets better. I had a couple of ideas: 1- Family therapy. Everyone. All together with a new therapist, just so everyone feels it’s fair. 2- Your daughter needs to meet with a psychiatrist. It worries me the way she is talking. And, a psychiatrist can prescribe mediation and it seems like she may need that. 3- The doctor & psychiatrist need to write a list of medical disorders that can cause behavior like this. You might want to take her to an endocrinologist or autoimmune specialist. For example: Hartnup disease causes one of the B-vitamins to be very low from malabsorption, and a Pellagra & acting out can happen. Certain types of Porphyria can cause psychiatric symptoms. Make a list and have her tested, just to be sure. I have read stories of people committed & then a test gets done and they recover. That doesn’t mean your daughter has a medical disorders, but it’s worth looking into because it does happen. 4- It sounds like you don’t like your daughter. You are human, and she’s acting out, but try to stay calm. Kids can tell which parents like them or not, and if you are her Mom. Feeling unliked by your Mom hurts. (I know.) Maybe set up something once a week for a hour or two that’s fun to do together? 5- Is there an away camp this summer that she would love to do that you can afford? This would give you both a break from each other and a chance to reset. Plus, if she really wants to be at the camp, she’s going to be motivated to clean her room, show up for meals, show up for activities, ect… Hang in there OP. |
Anonymous
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Agree with the poster who said you should get therapy for yourself (and possibly your other children) - to learn how to protect your physical and mental health while living with your 2E daughter.
Also agree she should not be in control of whether or not she gets an IEP. You're the parent - she clearly needs all the help she can possibly get. |
Anonymous
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If she’s smart, maybe she just needs a 504?
That would give her standard accommodations like extra time, quite place for test, ect…..without the peer stigma of other students knowing she was an IEP? I don’t think there should be a stigma, but kids talk. Is there something at the High school that IEP kids do, like mandatory one period is study hall or tutoring, that indicates she has an IEP? It could be other kids figured out she had an IEP in middle school and teased her about it. For work or college , they just give 504 accommodations anyways. |
Anonymous
She will not be the only smart kid with an IEP. Social stigma sounds like the least of her issues. She is in crisis and doesn't get a vote in what services she needs. |