Is this normal teenage girl behaviour or something else?

[ikeabaskethead]

Dd is 17 and in year 13, doing A levels. She’s a good girl, never given us any trouble. She has a nice group of friends, goes to the odd party, doesn’t drink excessively. Her teachers all like her and she’s on track to do well. School have discovered she has slow processing so she gets extra time in exams and has to work extra hard as she needs to go over things multiple times before it sticks, but she doesn’t complain. She was a very late talker (nearly 3, then full sentences quickly), but she always let me know what she wanted so maybe I didn’t encourage her to speak enough. She’s always had a great sense of humour laughed a lot pretty much from the day she was born.
My only concern is that fairly often (every couple of weeks or so), she sort of retreats into herself. She barely talks for 2 or 3 days and it’s fairly impossible to make her so I tend to just leave her to it. After that she snaps out of it and becomes her usual pleasant self. There’s nothing unusual happening during this time, no friendship issues, school issues etc. I’m just not sure what’s going on with her and if I should be concerned.

Have you asked her?

Is it hormonal?

Is it every couple of weeks or more like every four? Because it could be hormonal.
The other thing that struck me is she might just hit exhaustion levels after a couple of weeks if she's having to work harder than everyone else to keep up and process things.
Have you ever asked her about it? Not in the moment when wants to be left alone but after?

Yes, we’ve talked about it and she doesn’t know why she goes like this. I wondered about hormones too, she’s currently been like this since Saturday and due her period in 10 days so maybe it’s ovulation time? I’m going to track it.
When she was a baby she used to sleep for hours and hours during the day and all through the night so maybe it’s fatigue as nowadays she’s not so keen on going to bed and sleeps in a lot at the weekends.

She may be tired and need time to recharge.

Just a guess but do you think the slow processing is a factor. If she has to take so much more time and effort to process things this could lead to a need to recharge maybe. Especially if this is something you have noticed from her being a baby and sleep bingeing.

Have you considered that she may be neurodivergent?

Slow processing and late speech acquisition can be strong traits for issues like adhd and/or autism.

Girls are known to present differently to the typical neurodivergent presentation.

For me, need to pull up the ladder and hide away is particularly indicative of something going on!

a type of selective mutism? How does she feel while she’s quiet? Does she want to speak but can’t manage it, or lose the desire /ability to speak entirely. I think it is connected to anxiety and /or autism.

As an adult, I have realised I definitely have mild sensory processing disorder and, possibly, mild ADHD (or ADHD markers). Neither are very bad nor have either materially impacted my life negatively. However, I have come to realise that some of the coping mechanisms I have had in place since a child, are most likely as a result of one or both of these things.

For example, I was notorious at university in particular for simply withdrawing completely for days at a time. I'd go into my room in residence and lock the door and just not see or speak to anyone (or as little as possible) for about 2-3 days. My mum used to tease me that if I'd gone on a school trip or had oen of those teenage multi day sleepovers, I'd then sleep for 16 hours straight. I always chalked this up to being something of an intrvert but I think now that it was sensory overload and the need to recharge.

If your DD is struggling abit at school and putting in a lot more work just to stay at the same level as her peers, even just that alone would, I think, put a huge straign on her. But if she has processing issues, it can be a lot more than just processing school work - sounds, tough, visual stimulation can be equally overwhelming, albeit at a lower level.

My son doesn’t speak. He’s happy, thoughtful, has lovely friends and is very affectionate and hardworking. He is the biggest introvert I know and just can’t deal with much noise - I actually think he’s autistic and needs to rest

I’d not really considered autism or ADHD. She is normally happy go lucky and known for her lovely big smile. She also doesn’t miss a trick and is very switched on, she notices things She is a little bit shy but has good social skills. She is quite quiet though. She never misbehaves at school and is organised with giving in homework etc so I’m not sure.

Was - and still am- like this!
Was worse when I still had periods.
Possibly ASD but not diagnosed.

I would hazard an educated guess that she needs time to recharge. Having to work hard at processing takes it out of you.

Other possibility is, has she had a virus recently? My best friend developed a pattern of needing to sleep and recharge often after having glandular fever. Some kind of post-viral fatigue which lasted for 3 years.

I’m autistic and I have great social skills!

I am methodical with work issues/tasks, am highly organised, and never come to the attention of more senior staff for the wrong reasons.

Everyday I come home from work, and need to take some time to reset myself before carrying on with family life.

Autistic people often work very hard at fitting in, completing normal life tasks etc., and this can lead to feeling burnt out and needing time away from others.

Just good for thought 😉