Thanks again to everyone for such terrific support and feedback.

It was truly like an epiphany yesterday to read Siegle and McCoach.

VERY much an "AHA!!!" kind of moment for me.

A nice summary of different types of motivation in the context of Goal Theory

Siegle and McCoach, 2005

Always before, we'd been looking at a single dimension of behavior, trying on various labels and feeling that it wasn't quite right... I mean, sure, we've seen some signs of executive function deficits... SOME signs of affective disorder, etc... but there were these untidy tendrils of other stuff that refused to fit in that box.

I am reminded of the parable about the blind group studying an elephant by feeling its parts, and then describing it to one another...

Reading about performance avoidance in the context of perfectionism made EVERYTHING crystal clear. I'm completely serious-- EVERYTHING about her fits it. Everything.

So I spent some time last night just chatting with DD (low pressure once I got DH to quit interjecting his 0.02c every ten seconds) and asked her a few questions (in the direction of Siegle's ideas on the subject)...

Her answers were illuminating and confirmed everything about my suspicions. It broke my heart, too, to see the true depth of her pain.

Me:
What feels like "success" to you? How do you define that for yourself?

DD: 97% or above is okay. 100% is what I call "successful." Less than an A+ isn't successful, because I should have done better. (* note here that she has NEVER heard such a thing from us. EVER.)


So 100% is how you know that you have been successful, then. How does it feel to earn 100% on things?

Initially, she cavilled here and noted that "she wouldn't know, being such a failure..." after which I pointed out that she recently earned 100% (the R+J essay, in fact). She then said: "Yes, but that wasn't really my work. I mean, it was me writing, but it wasn't all my ideas." (*This is ludicrous, frankly. She said stuff here about not feeling like she 'can do it on her own' which is CRAZY, since she apparently feels that if she talks to classmates, teachers or US about a subject/assignment, then she's "just using other peoples' ideas." crazy)

So you earn 100% sometimes, but you don't seem very happy to have met your goal. Can you tell me about that?

Her answer here indicated that she feels "relieved, but mostly just tired, and sometimes like a fake," in the wake of success. Her words.

How do you feel when you don't meet your goal? I mean, how does it feel when you earn a grade less than an 'acceptable' one?

Worthless. Ashamed.


She has tried to reach out to the Special Ed teacher for help with study skills (which she knows she lacks, since she didn't need to learn them in 4th-5th grade-- and so she didn't), but the teacher seems to not know what to make of this kind to plea in a student who has no LDs and is so obviously capable. In other words, DD feels that her attempts at self-advocacy have been fruitless.

She is uncomfortable with the challenge of the math course. She doesn't know that she can earn an A+, and it bothers her because it makes her feel stupid to have to take a risk like that. It also makes her cranky to need help-- she's based a lot of her self-image on being "super-kid" (and she's had plenty of reinforcement there, very little of it from us), and it threatens her very identity if she can't succeed spectaculary just by crooking her pinky, as it were.
_____________________

My heart was just breaking for her. frown It is so crystal clear to me that this has been caused by her innate personality and a school placement which allows for no real academic challenge-- other than PERFECTION itself. In the absense of any other possible "goal" that became DD's only goal. Now that is slipping away from her, and it's spilling over into everything else. All of what we are seeing-- the insomnia, the disordered eating, the sloppiness with self-care-- all of that fits.


So yes, counselor/psychologist. NO, NO, NO to local middle school enrollment. At least DH understood that this morning, as I pointed out to him that my personal take on this was that they would leverage inappropriate academics to weed out the disability.

He seems to understand how ludicrous the suggestion to have DD sit through three more YEARS of math (that she already earned straight A's in the first time through) actually is in this context.

So-- much better on the home front. Hey, we're all Emotionally OE people, and all HG. It is what it is. wink


Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.