Oh, Nik, this is so hard. I'm so sorry to hear that she's struggling.
I am not sure where to go from here. When do you stop trying to fix things and just let your beloved child fail?
I don't know either, but I don't think you're there yet. Here's why: you haven't had time (since the diagnoses) to get her stable and working in her own interests yet. I'm not saying that will be easy, but I think if you can commit to helping her get there with lots of support in the short and medium term, she will be more likely to be able to finish her education and hold a job and be independent in the longer term.
My DD18 has some kind of mysterious debilitating writing issue that is about to ruin everything for her. She can write very well but not on cue
It is very, very common for people on the autism spectrum to have problems with writing, ranging from organizing their thoughts in an orderly way, to physically producing the writing, to being too anxious to turn it in, to not understanding the power relationship with teachers that makes the deadline or the grade matter.
The Assistant dean has told me that she will not be able to return this fall if the large freshman essay was not turned in (and it wasn't). My DD seems to have no appreciation for the reality of the situation and she insisted that she will be going back in the fall. Looking back, it seems that things fell apart about the time she quit taking the meds.
Have you had any discussions with the dean about the disabilities, about how new the diagnoses were, about the existential crisis?
I think if she were my kid (and keep in mind, mine is 9, we're not there yet), I'd probably ask them to put her on medical leave rather than kicking her out of school, and then get going on therapy to remediate the anxiety and writing problems and get her stable on the meds again. It is going to be some serious work, but if she wants to invest the effort she can learn to manage these things.
My Husband has made it clear that she may not move back in with us (in his house) if she is not going back to the college this fall (long story, but I feel that he is not being unreasonable in this). Her other options are a bit bleak and she is not ready to be out on her own. I fear if she moves in with her grandmother or her father she will become isolated and depressed and just waste away on the computer.
My feeling is that with those disabilities, if you leave them unremediated, you vastly increase her chances of getting into more trouble, even trouble of a kind that endangers her. She has made it clear that she isn't responsible enough to live on her own. If she can't come home, she needs a sheltered, supervised living situation of some kind where she can work on the independent living skills in a productive way. You can't trust that she will learn these skills without someone teaching them to her.
You could contact your state or local autism society and ask for help. You could also talk with Social Security and other organizations for people with developmental disabilities, and start applying for funding and maybe looking into supervised housing opportunities.
She agreed to try meds again and go to counseling "if that's what you want". The college has a contract with a local Psychiatrist but she has way too much anxiety to go to a strange place to see a strange person so far away from home.
Can you travel there to accompany her? Is there a supportive teacher or residential adviser who could? Is this a "can't" or a "won't"?
Also, while part of me feels like I haven't done enough, I don't want to be an enabler by constantly coming up with the "Plan B" when maybe she just needs to fail and pick herself up. I really wish we had been able to try CBT or some kind of therapy with the meds but we didn't have time last summer.
I don't think it's fair at this point to let her fail entirely. It *is* fair to say you aren't paying any more tuition until she's shown that she has the skills to succeed in college; but the overall life failure (living on her own, becoming unable to function) is not one I'd let a young adult with this collection of disabilities experience unless there's no other option.
I don't think it's enabling if you help her learn what she needs to learn. You could set parameters under which she can return to college, and she knows she has to work on mastering those skills. That's not letting her do whatever she wants or feels like; it makes her accountable for her learning and eventual success.
I also think the odds of her mastering these skills through failure are virtually zero. She doesn't really have bootstraps to pull herself up by, no matter how smart she is-- she is going to need help to develop the self-management and other skills.
Hope that helps. I really feel for you.
DeeDee
