General school problems/major depression (17 yo daughter)

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DualMorality
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26 Feb 2017, 12:12 am

I'm not sure if this has been discussed before. If so, my apologies.

My daughter has been struggling in school since 6th grade and it has gotten worse over the years.
She's always been kinda odd, with swaying side to side, self talking outloud, etc., but I never understood why until last school yr (her junior year of high school). After going to therapy for major depression and social anxiety, her therapist suggested I get her tested for ASD/Asperger's. The process was long, but they said she had Asperger's... I was shocked, though not entirely surprised, as she has older cousins that are all over the spectrum. Anyhow, she has been failing her classes since sophomore year and I don't know how to deal with it/help anymore. She says school is too much. Too much noise, too dramatic, too loud, to confusing, and I don't entirely understand why. I've tried to give her some form of encouragement but nothing seems to work. Aside from those problems, she's been severely depressed for roughly seven years and, over the last three years, she's had suicidal thoughts and self-harmed (thank god she quit). I just... don't know what I can do to get her on track :( She has an IEP and has speech/social skills at school, which I thought might help, but it seems to do nothing. She is most likely, if not definitely, not going to graduate this school year and I feel hopeless. I was planning to take her back to therapy or get her medication before this school year even began, but we have no insurance and she completely disagrees with the idea. Basically, I was hoping for some suggestions on a way I can assist her or how she might be feeling, so that I understand better :help:

(Non-important sidenote- This is her account, but she recommended I use it if I had any questions :) )



somanyspoons
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26 Feb 2017, 8:51 am

Those years when we are supposed to be adult but simply aren't ready to be adult can be really hard on aspies. So, give her the gift of time. Let her grow and explore. We don't stop growing when we are 18. That's just silly. She's got plenty of time to get her stuff together.

I would really suggest getting her out of that school now. I suggest asking the school if they have an alternative program she can participate in. Often, they will have a online program that students can use from home. This system is most often used by kids who are in trouble and in long-term detention, so be careful with how you broach the subject. You want to make sure she gets a regular HS diploma. And you want to be careful with her feelings about participating in this. But if it lets her study from home, it could be the solution you are looking for.

If school is so difficult for her, and it seems obvious that she's not going to graduate with her peers, and she's not enjoying the social scene, it just seems silly to me to keep her there.

If she's very behind, and needs more than a year to catch up, you might want to look into an alternative school for her. But again, she's a young woman and you would have to take into account her feelings on the matter. My cousin when to one of those farm schools for a year, up in New Hampshire. He loved it. He credits it for saving his life, as he was heavily into drugs and self-harm before the school. He has ADHD and anxiety.

I was on medication at this age. It was a disaster. It caused my symptoms to ramp up. No one believed me, and every time I complained that I felt bad, they RAISED the dose. Turkeys. They never considered that it was the medicine that was making me feel bad. Hey - the advertisements say it's supposed to make you feel good, right? Well, teen-aged autitistic bodies are different. Mine became agitated on prozac. I finally quit cold turkey and refused out-right, which was not like me. Doing so probably saved my life, as I was starting to get suicidal on the stuff. Please listen to your daughter if she says that the medicine doesn't make her feel good.



AspieUtah
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26 Feb 2017, 9:03 am

Apart from her school curriculum (whichever other choices she and you might make), invite her to help you find ways to learn about things in which she is interested. If she is interested in certain classes, but not others, ask the school administrators to let her pursue her interests as best as they and she can.

In my own school experience, I was bored to tears with my curriculum, and that isn't even mentioning the social problems. I chose to pursue a GED certificate rather than waste my time reciting memorized facts. After scoring a B+ equivalent on my GED tests (after years of maintaining a solid D- GPA), I completed my university entrance exams at such a high score that the university granted me a class credit without having to take the class.

So, there are some options for students who are simply beaten up by the monotony of institutionalized learning. Look for your own kind of options.


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26 Feb 2017, 11:29 am

DualMorality wrote:
My daughter has been struggling in school since 6th grade and it has gotten worse over the years.

No surprise there. No one out there understands these children.

Quote:
Anyhow, she has been failing her classes since sophomore year and I don't know how to deal with it/help anymore.

No surprise there. I was kicked out of my middle school. I had mediocre grades, too.

Quote:
She has an IEP and has speech/social skills at school, which I thought might help, but it seems to do nothing.

No surprise there. Schools have no clue about these children. That was why I flatly rejected any social skill development in school for my son. Autistic children are not sick. They need no special arrangements for developing social skills. (My son is more social than most autistic children out there, by the way, despite my strong rejection of any social development in his ABA. If I see the speech/social activities have visual and fun components that can help my children develop intellectually, I take them. For therapists that don't follow my guidelines, I say bye bye to them. For schools that don't follow my guidelines, I say bye bye to them. There are plenty of schools out there, and homeschooling is always a good choice.)

Quote:
She is most likely, if not definitely, not going to graduate this school year and I feel hopeless. I was planning to take her back to therapy or get her medication before this school year even began, but we have no insurance and she completely disagrees with the idea. Basically, I was hoping for some suggestions on a way I can assist her or how she might be feeling, so that I understand better

When you give her medications, you are looking down at her. You think there is something wrong with her. She needs development, not treatment.

Quote:
(Non-important sidenote- This is her account, but she recommended I use it if I had any questions :) )

That's a good sign. The more you defer to your daughter, the better. She is virtually an adult, now.

-----

Two things can help, in my opinion.

(a) Change of environment. For now, it could be hard for her to switch school. Perhaps try to stick to her high school and get a diploma, one way or another (even if it takes another year). BUT, let her learn a foreign language. I strongly recommend Japanese, but if she likes some other culture/language, that's fine...follow her liking. Do a year or so of college, then get a chance for her to study in Japan, ASAP.

(b) Get a digital voice recorder for her. Tell her this is how she can use it. When she is depressed or anxious, she'll record a few words to remind her of the sad/bad situations or thoughts. A few words suffice. OK to be cryptic. Then, she'll need to be happy. Anything. E.g.: a walk in the park, hiking, vacations, entertainment parks, friends' birthday parties, going out for frozen yogurt, etc. whatever works. When she is at her happiest moment, then she'll pull out the voice recorder (discreetly if necessary), then replay her negative moment. It'll hurt quite a bit the first time she does it, but it gets easier and easier after a few times. Then, she needs to tell herself: life some times is tough, but some other times is fun. She needs to remember her happy moment. She'll use her happy moment to sort out her thoughts. Next time, when the anxiety/depression strikes, she will remind herself about her happy moment, and what she has told herself when she was happy. Life is tough, that part won't ever change. But we can learn to handle it. Life is never as bad as you think it is. And people are never as evil as you think they are.

You don't solve anxiety/depression problems when you are feeling down. You solve them when you are happy. The problem is, without a voice recorder, it's impossible for anybody to remember their bad moments when they are happy. So the anxiety/depression comes back, again and again. The voice recorder allows you to establish a "space-time wormhole tunnel" to connect your bad moments to your good moments, and vice-versa. Once this tunnel is established, you will then be able to channel your negative energy away. Digital voice recorder works great to reduce/eliminate "self talking outloud." Let your daughter try it, and you'll see. And you never knew there was such a simple solution. Ha ha.

I don't see anything wrong with your daughter. Remember I was a mediocre student and was kicked out of my middle school? Well, I grew up quite alright. I got the highest physics score in my new home country in the college entrance exam. That was, in the whole country. Sure, I got my 5 minutes of fame in TVs and newspapers. When I entered my PhD program in Theoretical Physics at a top research university in the US, there were 11 students. I was the only foreign student. (A Chinese student joined the program later.) Mediocre was I no longer. I am married, have two of the happiest children in the world. I speak 5 and a half languages today. Life can't be better. My wife and myself have told each other countless times: this is heaven. So, when I tell you there is nothing wrong with your daughter, it's because I know. Been there, done that. A change of environment can help, quite a bit.

Looking back at it all, there was simply nothing wrong with me. I have been the same person, ever since my childhood years. The only problem was: nobody understood me. Looking back at it all, I realized that I was always the brightest boy. I played with electronic circuits, built radio transmitters/receivers and ran my own underground radio station when I was 9~10 years old. It was just no one around me understood how to develop me. I had to do all the growing up by myself, which was not an efficient way of growing up. But for all the bad things that have happened to me, I now know how to give my children a better childhood experience. Seeing them happy and smiling everyday, kind of makes up for all the bad times I had in my childhood. I treat my children as equals, as equal-rights fellow human beings. That was something that I did not have, when I was a child. I am sure your daughter craves for the same thing. With just a bit more guidance, she will be ready to flap her wings and soar into the sky. Young adult days are wonderful days.


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DualMorality
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26 Feb 2017, 12:58 pm

Thank you all so much for responding!

I am perfectly fine with giving her time to process thing and figure stuff out, but my husband is a different story. He is in denial about her diagnosis and is very unwilling to accept her differences. To him, it's all an excuse and there is nothing "wrong with her". It is so frustrating that he thinks that she is "wrong" or "damaged". If anything, she is taking the more interesting route in life. He just doesn't understand that it is perfectly fine to take extra time to complete things.

Now that I have thought on it, medication seems like a poor idea. I recall her complaining that her anti-anxiety/antidepressants were making her feel like she was on autopilot; going through the motions. I feel the word disassociated would fit her feelings. She stopped taking them a year or two ago, and i'm perfectly ok with that.

She said that she would like to redo her senior year online when the next school year comes around. I asked why she would like to do that next year and not start now, and she said that she wants to see her few friends out; to give them her support as they prepare to graduate. I like that she wants to do this, however, I feel that she should try thinking about herself for once. She's always been very giving, even if people take advantage of her generosity and naivety.

About learning a foreign language- A few years ago, she said that learning Finnish or Japanese would be interesting. Her only problem with it is that she would like assistance in learning these, yet she doesn't wish to ask for help. I suppose she is nervous about it. She would like the environment change very much, though at the moment we do not have the means to do so. She has said that a change would be nice, even if it was only for a little while, as it would give her a new perspective and help her organize her thoughts.

Again, thank you for all the helpful suggestions and whatnot! I'll run some of these ideas by her and see what she thinks. Sorry if i'm not too good with responding/ came off as insensitive... I'm not too great at wording my thoughts



somanyspoons
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26 Feb 2017, 3:05 pm

DualMorality wrote:
Thank you all so much for responding!

She said that she would like to redo her senior year online when the next school year comes around. I asked why she would like to do that next year and not start now, and she said that she wants to see her few friends out; to give them her support as they prepare to graduate. I like that she wants to do this, however, I feel that she should try thinking about herself for once. She's always been very giving, even if people take advantage of her generosity and naivety.



I think that shows good character. Good friends do stick around with each other. And she's also got a point that the last semester of senior year is full of specials for seniors that she might not want to miss out on. Good for her!

It's going to be a bit of a ruff ride over the next year or so while her cohort moves onto college and she's still in high school. Just a heads up - it stinks to be "left behind." I can understand her reluctance to pull herself into that sooner than she has too. Even though she's unhappy in high school.



burnt_orange
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28 Feb 2017, 10:51 am

I don't have an answer I just want your daughter to know that she is not alone. I was depressed as a child and into adulthood. I spent my senior year completely alone everyday. The couple friends I did have had graduated before me. I just felt dead at school. I graduated with good grades and went to college. (Dropped out then went back) Things do get better, especially after high school. My life has been no cake walk but I'm in a good place at 34. If she has another Aspie to talk to, I would think that would help.



DualMorality
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01 Mar 2017, 11:25 pm

Thank you, burnt_orange! It's nice to know she's not alone in this situation. She doesn't have any aspie friends, but she does have one or two who go to speech with her for similar reasons. She also has a friend who has an older brother with mild autism, so he understands why she responds to things the way she does and knows how to de-escalate her when things are beginning to get too out of hand.



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01 Mar 2017, 11:39 pm

School junior and high school is about socialising, it is where people start establishing status.

I don't seek or really recognise status, and so it is often assumed that I am low status. This causes problems when people who are high status expect me to agree with them because they are high status. I run into problems with this still in work. I am a science/technical expert, but you are still expected to agree with high status people and I often don't.

I wish my parents had taken me out of school at about 14-15 and just stuck me in a community college to get my GED and then stayed in to get an associates and onward. I didn't graduate highschool, although I went until I was a seniour, I had a 1.05 gpa, in college I had a 3.95, in grad school 4.0. College isn't as much about socialising and you can avoid it if you want.



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15 Mar 2017, 2:15 am

DualMorality wrote:
I'm not sure if this has been discussed before. If so, my apologies.

My daughter has been struggling in school since 6th grade and it has gotten worse over the years.
She's always been kinda odd, with swaying side to side, self talking outloud, etc., but I never understood why until last school yr (her junior year of high school). After going to therapy for major depression and social anxiety, her therapist suggested I get her tested for ASD/Asperger's. The process was long, but they said she had Asperger's... I was shocked, though not entirely surprised, as she has older cousins that are all over the spectrum. Anyhow, she has been failing her classes since sophomore year and I don't know how to deal with it/help anymore. She says school is too much. Too much noise, too dramatic, too loud, to confusing, and I don't entirely understand why. I've tried to give her some form of encouragement but nothing seems to work. Aside from those problems, she's been severely depressed for roughly seven years and, over the last three years, she's had suicidal thoughts and self-harmed (thank god she quit). I just... don't know what I can do to get her on track :( She has an IEP and has speech/social skills at school, which I thought might help, but it seems to do nothing. She is most likely, if not definitely, not going to graduate this school year and I feel hopeless. I was planning to take her back to therapy or get her medication before this school year even began, but we have no insurance and she completely disagrees with the idea. Basically, I was hoping for some suggestions on a way I can assist her or how she might be feeling, so that I understand better :help:

(Non-important sidenote- This is her account, but she recommended I use it if I had any questions :) )


I had difficulties with school K through highschool for the following reasons...
1. Transition issues. It was very difficult for me to transition from one task/environment, to the next. For example, sleeping, to getting dressed and starting the day, going from a home environment to a school environment, etc.

2. I did not learn well at school because of my processing differences. I learned better at home on my own.

3. The structure of the academics was open ended and this was stressful to me. I had no idea how much work I had to complete or what it was. When I finished one in class assignment, I was often immediately handed another and the number I had to do was actually indefinite...however many I could finish in a given time period. I work much better when my work load is laid out for me, and I am able to take breaks.

4. I had no friends at school so I had no social situation to look forward to. Most children, even if they don't like the academics, at least look forward to seeing friends, but for me, school was one big stressful slog with nothing positive in it.

This all changed when I went to community college and had control over what I studied, and knew exactly what my workload would be. In that environment, I actually thrived, and eventually transferred to a good university.

I think too often parents force their child to finish school in a traditional manner when it's not in the child's best interest. Today there are many alternatives to finishing highschool the traditional way. For example, there are diploma programs or GEDs. Why don't you sit down and talk to her and see what her aspirations are for the future and how she might accomplish those. It could be that she's like me and would do better in a community college setting than high school setting.