Well, she doesn't SEEM to form very deep friendships with them, so it isn't like she is allowing much access to her inner/authentic self.
My actual concern is more that she isn't opening herself up to authentic friendships much, either.
She seems to be operating on risk-avoidance rather than seeking friendships.
The part that I'm most concerned with:
a) she's not building a repertoire (or practicing one) that will allow her to operate socially in a collegiate setting with older peers-- in other words, she's setting herself up to be aloof/alone/isolated from college peers, and
b) she's deliberately dumbing down to the point that there is now spillover. She's actually suppressing things that she has known for years. It's very disconcerting. This really freaked me out as she did practice exams for her SAT's. I swear that a year ago, she WOULD have had perfect scores-- effortlessly, and probably even two or three years ago would have. Now she is struggling, and some struggles even with vocabulary (which is beyond my ability to even understand it, frankly). Very much "what in the HECK??" territory.
I'm concerned also that this might be a manifestation of either her PTSD-like feelings having survived a brush with a NPD (older) peer who attempted to use her, or that this is about her perfectionism and is really just risk-averse behavior.
She has been VERY oppositional and refuses to work with a mental health professional, incidentally. We've tried to get her to work with a therapist several times in the past five years, but she WILL NOT do it. This is too bad on the one hand because we'd like for her to have the ability to do that, but just as well on the other since it's all out of pocket anyway. Anyway-- whatever we do is likely to need to be DIY, because a therapist is a waste of time and $ for us here unless she decides to become cooperative. Which is about as likely as her learning to fly to the moon, imo.
