Anonymous wrote: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 wrote:I'm back again - so it's been about a week. There are 2 issues that are coming up for me with my new approach.

1) Younger siblings, who were at first cooperative with helping out, even though older sibling has not been helping out at all, are now refusing to help out when the older sibling is getting away with not helping out around the house at all - even though they are older. So now I'm picking up slack for everyone.

2) This is worse because I'm sick this week, but I'm already getting and tired and resentful about the kids not helping out. I don't mind picking up their rooms, and making their lunches and breakfasts and dinners. But I do mind when my daughter threatens to kill me for going in her room. And I do mind when she complains about the lunches I make for her. And I do mind when the younger siblings just flat out ignore me when I ask them to do something. And I mind when they literally leave trails of mess as soon as they get home from school. And in 3 years I still haven't been able to figure out how to get them to put their bookbags away and unpack their lunches without nagging them 5 times daily to do so, so this week I've given up and am doing it myself.

Anonymous wrote:If she does not want an IEP then you shouldn’t pursue it, she is old enough to make this decision. Some schools really do single out kids that need accommodations. Like taking tests away from their peers, or the extra attention from counselors. Communicate how it can benefit her but if she doesn’t want it do not pursue it. She is angry and anxious, and this pressure seems to be making it worse.
In terms of cleaning her room, take steps, make small goals. Nothing on the floor, put 4-5 things away after school, etc. nothing overwhelming. With laundry, have her fold, or deliver to rooms. Small tasks that turn to regular chores, and build on it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lady, she’s autistic. She’s not a sociopath, she sounds like a textbook autistic 14 yo (living horror is so common) and is behaving like autistic teens behave when they are under supported and incredibly anxious and feeling out of control. Others have successfully walked this path before. You have gotten some pretty good advice on this thread - a strong IEP, DBT therapy, a neuropsych evaluation for her, a psychiatrist for meds. Also therapy for you. You seem resistant to some of the good suggestions offered - I realize you are tired overwhelmed but take some baby steps. Good luck.

We have already approved the IEP. What would YOU say makes up a strong IEP for an autistic 14yo? I'm trying to find a path forward that makes sense with where we are at now. I can talk to DH about the possibility of a neuropsych evaluation, but frankly I don't feel I need to rush that step. We had already consulted with someone for one several months ago. But we decided that we would follow the path for doing the free school evaluation first and see where that led.

She has been seeing a therapist for 3 months. I have done about 3 years of therapy which I ended about a year ago - it helped a lot with the parenting struggles, the relationship struggles, learning healthier communication skills, coping strategies, and my building my self esteem.

All that to say, I'm not in denial or refusing to take any steps. I don't want to make decisions that are counter-productive. And I have an entire school team who literally spent several weeks evaluating her through many tests and classroom observations, and teacher interviews, telling me that our daughter does not meet the criteria for autism or adhd. They acknowledged she shares many similar traits. But there were certain markers that were missing in her which are needed to actually meet the criteria.

Does not meet criteria for educational autism. Yes, the schools will gaslight you into saying she’s not autistic but they only mean in the educational sense. If you don’t want to know and prefer denial, then say so but she has not been evaluated properly.

Help me understand in depth what I will get beyond what we already have (IEP supports) for doing the additional testing. The testing costs $5-6k which is a lot of money to us.

Anonymous wrote:I'm back again - so it's been about a week. There are 2 issues that are coming up for me with my new approach.

1) Younger siblings, who were at first cooperative with helping out, even though older sibling has not been helping out at all, are now refusing to help out when the older sibling is getting away with not helping out around the house at all - even though they are older. So now I'm picking up slack for everyone.

2) This is worse because I'm sick this week, but I'm already getting and tired and resentful about the kids not helping out. I don't mind picking up their rooms, and making their lunches and breakfasts and dinners. But I do mind when my daughter threatens to kill me for going in her room. And I do mind when she complains about the lunches I make for her. And I do mind when the younger siblings just flat out ignore me when I ask them to do something. And I mind when they literally leave trails of mess as soon as they get home from school. And in 3 years I still haven't been able to figure out how to get them to put their bookbags away and unpack their lunches without nagging them 5 times daily to do so, so this week I've given up and am doing it myself.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You mentioned your husband is just like her?
Is your husband is being horribly verbally abusive to you (or worse)?
If so, a divorce might be the first step to having things calm down. You would get half of the time free with joint custody & no adult treating you this way. You could recharge so you would be in a better mind set to raise her.

I think family therapy is a good idea reguardless.

He USED to be. We had a come to Jesus moment a few years ago and he has genuinely changed. It was a bit of a work in progress for me to accept that he’s not the same person anymore and to let go of a lot of the hurt and resentment I carried from those earlier years. It also really helped that he stopped working full time. I think for a long time he was overwhelmed and exhausted from his full time job and he was just so angry and irritable from it and he brought that stress home. Now he’s able to spend at least 20 hours a week pursuing his own hobbies and he’s less irritable. He’s also matured, and mellowed out a bit in his 50s.

So your audhd husband stopped working and was no longer angry all the time at home?

And now he spends half if the time in his personal hobbies and feels great?!

Meanwhile his audhd tween is going off a cliff and his NT wife is being verbally abused by the kid and is hanging by a thread.

Sheesh.

What a special guy indeed

He’s able to work, spend time on his hobbies, AND still engage with the kids, make meals on most of the days he is off from work, do his own laundry, and fix things around the house.

His ability to make meals has exponentially expanded since he went part time. It went from knowing only how to make 3 dishes, which each took him 3 hours to prepare, to now knowing how to prepare like 10 dishes and getting them done in an hour. I really can’t complain, it is a complete turnaround from how things used to be.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You mentioned your husband is just like her?
Is your husband is being horribly verbally abusive to you (or worse)?
If so, a divorce might be the first step to having things calm down. You would get half of the time free with joint custody & no adult treating you this way. You could recharge so you would be in a better mind set to raise her.

I think family therapy is a good idea reguardless.

He USED to be. We had a come to Jesus moment a few years ago and he has genuinely changed. It was a bit of a work in progress for me to accept that he’s not the same person anymore and to let go of a lot of the hurt and resentment I carried from those earlier years. It also really helped that he stopped working full time. I think for a long time he was overwhelmed and exhausted from his full time job and he was just so angry and irritable from it and he brought that stress home. Now he’s able to spend at least 20 hours a week pursuing his own hobbies and he’s less irritable. He’s also matured, and mellowed out a bit in his 50s.

So your audhd husband stopped working and was no longer angry all the time at home?

And now he spends half if the time in his personal hobbies and feels great?!

Meanwhile his audhd tween is going off a cliff and his NT wife is being verbally abused by the kid and is hanging by a thread.

Sheesh.

What a special guy indeed

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and DD are both autistic. It’s really as simple as that. Get a full evaluation and move forward with the right tools.

The school evaluation determined she doesn’t quite meet the criteria for autism. I do honestly think it’s something that presents a lot like autism in many ways, but it’s different.

I think she likely has DH’s traits that are similar to autism- and some of the personality traits. But then she also has some of my adhd traits, which causes a lot of frustration for her because she knows she is smart and yet she gets easily stuck. And I think it’s the combination that is truly problematic. Because DH can’t be taught- he needs to figure out everything for himself. He has never let me teach him anything. He slept through all of his med school classes and yet was able to pass with flying colors because he had the ability because he’s a genius. She does not have that same ability.

He “can’t be taught anything by you” because he knows he’ll fail and fail again. So it’s easier in his mind to be belligerent and defiant. And refuse to be taught or to learn anything other than his pros al hyper interest(s).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and DD are both autistic. It’s really as simple as that. Get a full evaluation and move forward with the right tools.

The school evaluation determined she doesn’t quite meet the criteria for autism. I do honestly think it’s something that presents a lot like autism in many ways, but it’s different.

I think she likely has DH’s traits that are similar to autism- and some of the personality traits. But then she also has some of my adhd traits, which causes a lot of frustration for her because she knows she is smart and yet she gets easily stuck. And I think it’s the combination that is truly problematic. Because DH can’t be taught- he needs to figure out everything for himself. He has never let me teach him anything. He slept through all of his med school classes and yet was able to pass with flying colors because he had the ability because he’s a genius. She does not have that same ability.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You mentioned your husband is just like her?
Is your husband is being horribly verbally abusive to you (or worse)?
If so, a divorce might be the first step to having things calm down. You would get half of the time free with joint custody & no adult treating you this way. You could recharge so you would be in a better mind set to raise her.

I think family therapy is a good idea reguardless.

He USED to be. We had a come to Jesus moment a few years ago and he has genuinely changed. It was a bit of a work in progress for me to accept that he’s not the same person anymore and to let go of a lot of the hurt and resentment I carried from those earlier years. It also really helped that he stopped working full time. I think for a long time he was overwhelmed and exhausted from his full time job and he was just so angry and irritable from it and he brought that stress home. Now he’s able to spend at least 20 hours a week pursuing his own hobbies and he’s less irritable. He’s also matured, and mellowed out a bit in his 50s.