Reply to 19yo DD failed her freshman year and now is at home refusing to work or go to school

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]She is self-medicating her insecurity and shame with alcohol, OP.

Also, perfectionism, anxiety, mental rigidity are all red flags for mild autism. In girls specifically, autism sometimes doesn't come with the social deficits one often sees in boys. At minimum, your child has significant anxiety. She could also be on the spectrum if she exhibits high levels of rigidity.

She may need meds for anxiety or depression, OP. You need to get her to a psychiatrist or do another evaluation at a psychologist's office. You'll have to see whether she functions better on ADHD meds plus anxiety meds, or if she only needs anxiety meds.

But you really need to explain to her the link between her drinking and her feelings of inadequacy. She can be either in a downward spiral, like she is, or in an upward spiral: going to community college, transferring to her local state college, and feeling much better about herself. For that to work, she needs to control the drinking, especially since she will be taking meds that don't really go with alcohol.

You really need to insist. There is no car or phone or money if she cannot be responsible.
And please don't kick her out, for her own health and safety, unless she starts becoming dangerous. Otherwise in the state she's in, she's going to hit rock bottom in a way that might be terminal. [/quote]

Me again. I mention mild autism because ASD almost always comes with ADHD and anxiety. It's a package deal. A lot of kids with ADHD only have that diagnosis. But kids with autism usually also have comorbidities. The combined diagnosis might explain why she's so stubborn. My ASD/ADHD son could only be diagnosed with a combined diagnosis when we repeated the evaluation while he was medicated for ADHD, because he was so inattentive that the ADHD was masking all other diagnoses.

[/quote]

She doesn’t have autism. She has a boyfriend and “had a great year socially.”

She doesn’t have ADHD. OP relates that her “grades slipped suddenly” in HS.

Something else is going on and these misdiagnoses just show the danger of lumping all kids into two fashionable categories.

To me she sounds basically irresponsible and immature, and possible with a drinking problem. I think therapy to help her accept what she did wrong in school and decide on her next steps is important. But I think it is even more important that OP stop enabling. [/quote]

You're so OFFENSIVE and IGNORANT. We're not blindly following "fashionable" categories. I have ADHD, never diagnosed, but my grades started slipping in high school when demand for focus and multi-tasking sky-rocketed. I was a star student before that. My kids have ADHD as well. Only one was diagnosed in primary school, because his version is unfortunately severe. [/quote]

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