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Do you think she might have asd? I only ask because you say she is very neat and organised and punctual. They are typical asd traits and girls tend to be diagnosed much later than boys. Anxiety can also be an issue related to asd, feeling like you are not understood, or how you relate to peers is different.

ADHD is a possibility, but it would only have presented in the last 18 months or so. Before that, she was very good at her school work. Sure, she procrastinated over stuff in the past, but this was a whole other level. She tends to be very organised with her folders and likes everything just so. She keeps her room very tidy, and is usually neat and punctual.
It strikes me more like a nervous breakdown followed by severe depression.
Tea and sympathy only seems to be sending us round in circles. For example, she is bopping around now, making tea, surfing the web, on SnapChat, but when I ask her about anything she will get upset or say that it is just a front to her friends.
Later on she will start crying and get upset as things get quiet and she has time to think. In the morning, she can't or won't get up. Eventually she gets up mid morning or lunchtime and lies on the sofa eating and watching TV all day.
She has missed an assignment towards her exam this week, and won't contact her tutor or her lecturer.

Interestingly, I went through something like this in college, but from memory I was better able to function, but that could be rose tinted glasses.
I have all the presentations for ADHD and she is not like me at all.

Hi College, I'm really sorry you're going through this, it's so tough. My dd (15) has struggled with anxiety for years and would have been in the same place in relation to school in the past. She beats herself up so much too, and feels like she is failing. It used to make it so much worse when I got cross with her as she would internalise it and keep going into a downward spiral. I've learned to focus on and celebrate the small successes. If she got inside the door and then had to come home, we celebrated that she got that far. I've had to show so much confidence in her (even if I wasn't feeling it).. 'I'm confident you can do this' etc. It seems to help. Maybe if your dd gets out of bed and gets dressed, make a fuss of that and how great it is that she's achieved that so far. If she makes it out the door to college, but doesn't get to a lecture, that's great! She got to the building. Ask her what small step she can take, even if that small step is to take her books out of her bag and look at them. People with anxiety are hard enough on themselves.. they need the people around them to build them up, make them see the positives and the achievements. It's hard to be that support person I know. Try to mind yourself as well if you can.

Cocktail wrote: ↑Tue Nov 09, 2021 3:30 pm If your DD goes to the Student Records office and presents a letter from her doctor, they should backdate her withdrawal to the start of the year and you should get your full payment back. There's probably a specific staff member dedicated to 1st year students who wish to withdraw.

Cocktail that is good to know.
OP I wonder can you go into the college with her and meet with the disability support area. I know they won’t deal with parents but you can go as support?
She should get extra support for her mental health difficulties. Colleges provide so much more support than school but they have to ask. Is she submitting assignments etc?

If your DD goes to the Student Records office and presents a letter from her doctor, they should backdate her withdrawal to the start of the year and you should get your full payment back. There's probably a specific staff member dedicated to 1st year students who wish to withdraw.

Yes I feel like if she is closing all doors and still find to binge watch box sets I'd find that hard to witness myself after losing 3k.

You can wait and wait for a psychologist and find that doesn't give all the magic answers either. I think the idea above of some sort of incremental exposure approach is the only way.

God, that is very tough. Don't beat yourself up about being cross - that's a lot of money, and there is bound to be huge frustration for you in seeing her the way she is, mixed in with love and worry and concern. It's really hard when the longer she doesn't take action, the harder it will be. It's like that old thing about how do you eat an elephant - one bite at a time. She has probably conflated the whole college thing into this giant mountain that she can't possibly climb, when it's really just one step, then another, etc. I think 3Dollys is correct - if she could take one step at a time, it might ease her back in.

Unfortunately, she's the only person who can take this step. I'm sure if you could do it for her, you would have by now. The refusal to engage in any way with university, mental health services, medication etc is very hard. Others might not agree, but I'd be introducing a small bit of tough love at this point - giving her some sort of deadline by which time she has to have either engaged with these services, or college is off the table for the meantime, and she gets a job. Even if she went back to the summer job place, would that get her up & out and maybe put her back on the road to some sort of normality where her thinking might clear up a bit? Anything is preferable to lying in bed all day on Instagram and if it was me, I'd be outlining that this was not something I could support indefinitely.

I would also contact the college re: that deadline for fee refunds and explain the situation. They might not do anything, but they might and it is certainly worth a call.

God love you. This sounds incredibly hard and you must be frazzled.

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See the thing with medication perhaps suggest to her that people with poor eyesight wear glasses, stigma free, it's expected a person would obviously put on glasses if they had difficulty seeing and it would be considered ridiculous not to. It not as simple or straightforward with the brain but the right medication can be like a pair of good glasses, even just for a while to help the brain help her get through her days more easily.

I feel like if it is some anxiety disorder or weakness of the executive functioning part of her brain, it is such a pity she won't try medication.

You're in a difficult position given she's 18 and AFAIK the college will not be able to engage with you at all as she is an adult. The obvious thing (to us on the outside) is for her to engage with the college, which will have peer, academic and MH supports. All you can do is have the conversation with her maybe focussing on how she'd like to feel and what is available to her to help make that happen. You may be able to do no more than talk to her and give her a list of contacts and numbers (or also message them so that they're on her phone and all she has to do is click on the number).

It is the hardest thing as a parent I think, the adult child who is in trouble. Wishing you both well.

You poor thing you are so helpless as she is 18 and won't/ can't listen.

Can you intervene with the college- contact the head of dept/student services/liasion etc and ask about your options at this point in terms of pulling her out from a financial point of view.

She he's a few choices: you could go though these with her and discuss what had to happen esp for choice 1 to be successful.

Pulls it together passes into 2nd year

Fails exams and faces repeats in august

Fails august and repeats the first year at a financial cost in year 4

Drops away now and deferrs her exams to some other time.

Leaves.


It is so hard as the person who wants is not the person doing.

Her psychiatrist would be high on my list too .

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Some great advice already - especially around the medication and ADHD/OCD.

For what it is worth I have a good friend who is a professsor/head of department at a university here in the US. He says that his college are more worried than they ever have been about the mental health of students. Massive increase in students seeking help from the support services, massive increase in previously competent students failing tests etc and dropping out and just a general anecdotal feeling from most teachers that more students are depressed/anxious/finding it difficult. He was saying to me today that he thinks a lot of students used up all of their mental resources/resiliance just getting this far out of school and into college during the pandemic and they are hitting the wall now.

My own dd really struggled to complete work/go to class in high school. I muscled her through and really provided a ton of support but we were both clear that in college she was academically on her own in the sense of I wasn't going to check up on her or ask her about deadlines. It was a pretty hairy first year but toward the end she pulled it out herself - went to her professors, asked for help, got through by the skin of her teeth. It was never as bad after that - in fact she is very much in control and doing ok now. What motivated her was her realisation that if she failed, she wasn't going back next year and she really wanted to go back.

Most colleges will have mental health services, best to see if there are student welfare services (they can help with writing exceptional circumstances submissions for late or effected work) and link in with the counselling.

OCD is very treatable with a structured Exposure and Response Prevention regime, it can be helpful to take medication to help her complete the exposures but it will also be effective once she gets going on doing daily exposure work.

ADHD is often missed in bright females as it tends to present with internalising rather than external behaviours, eg might feel distracted internally but not outwardly distracting self or others, it’s linked to both anxiety and depression. It wouldn’t be my first port of call but if she had been taking her medication and was working with a psychologist and wasn’t making progress it might be something to look into.

There are great free resources here: https://www.anxietycanada.com/

First of all big hug for you. This sounds incredibly difficult and it much be a huge strain on you.
You sound remarkably caring in your post and your daughter is very lucky to have you.
I agree that she sounds like she needs medication.
I wonder too about college. Has she any indicators yet of what she might expect performance wise? I suppose what I mean is from reading your posts it seems unlikely she will pass college if this continues. Does she realise that? If she's unable to give college her best shot, she is working against herself.
Would she have a chat with a service like Jigsaw? Coukd she see the college support service?

There are nurses and counsellors in college, would she make an appointment with them?