How much should I actually intervene when I think my daughter is ruining her life.

[grabbygravy]

DD graduated from university last year and started work at a large accounting firm in November 21. She has ADHD, diagnosed. Such an intelligent girl, social so is fantastic at work.

She moved out, lives with her boyfriend now but called me last night in a flood of tears. She has felt very overwhelmed at work, wants to quit, says she hasn’t done any proper work in months. She’s been ignoring work’s emails and calls - this is a small industry, word gets around quick. I am tearing my hair out. She’s 22. At what point do I get involved? I just want to HELP, but at the same time this is the result of burying her head in the sand. I’ve tried to tell her to just speak to them but she’s frozen in fear. I don’t know what to do, she says she will just ignore them until they fire her. But she can’t do that. As parents of adult children, at what point do we intervene? We can only advise but in situations like these, what is the best approach? I’ve never worked an office job.

@Radiatorvalves thank you. I really do appreciate it I will push the EAP to her. She found uni in lockdown difficult too, is WFH most days now and I think she feels the same way.

If she has ADHD the business should be making adjustments - there is specific software that she can use for a start which should help her to be able to manage. Has she spoken to anyone about this?

@redredwineub40 i think we both tend to overthink things, worst combination!😅😅 I try to be strong for her, so she has someone rational on her side. MN is helping!
Mentioned that she’d spoken to her manager who confirmed that her performance needs to improve. I haven’t confirmed how much she has discussed of her recent struggles, they know she has ADHD but I’m concerned they don’t know that this is WHY she is underperforming.

so much learning to be done, it’s only the beginning of her career isn’t it.

@mumonthehill lists! That’s what I will do with DD tonight, work out exactly what she needs to do. I just need to keep calm! Be rational.

I’m happy your DS reached out to you,

I work an office job and have adhd. It’s so difficult. However, the more I have to do and different tasks to work on the better I am.

I have just been promoted and taking on an additional team in another area of the business. Discussing it with the MD taking a team similar to mine wouldn’t have helped.

I suspect the repetition in her job as a junior may be a bit boring. At that point I kind of switch off, then it piles up and I am overwhelmed. Obviously, I am only talking about me, she may be different.

I am senior management and I think there’s a couple of options. but upsides and downsides to all.

Getting signed off will give her breathing room. But if she returns to the job, the work will be there when she goes back or it will be discovered she hasn’t done anything for ages. While some employers may help her get on top of things on her return but it could damage her reputation or mean she ends up being managed at more detailed level. How would she cope with that? but she would get a break from it, which she may need to unfreeze herself.

If she gets signed off and hands her notice in then it will get discovered and, if the industry is as small as you say, it could damage her reputation. She could find a new role and establish herself before that happens. Now looking for a new role could make her feel free or just more overwhelmed. So could be good may not be.

Getting signed off, itself, could be good for her or bad for her.

If she is frozen in spot, it would be extremely difficult for her to speak to a line manager and be open and honest about her diagnosis and what’s happened. In an ideal world EAP or OH could get involved. But again, I don’t know how she will feel about that OR what her employer is like.

Unfortunately it’s difficult to find an employer that’s great neuro diversity. Many are endorsed or advertise as such, but are not.

I think you need to read this thread. Take all the great suggestions and then talk to her about her options when she is a bit calmer. You can’t physically go to work and explain in her behalf. You can support her in making a plan she feel comfortable with.

Having ADHD myself, it sounds a lot like burnout. We all get it now and then, so please reassure her she’s not failing or anything. It’s inevitable to burnout now and then when you have ADHD. It’s just a question of getting time and space to decompress and then reboot. Here is an article on it that may be helpful:

www.verywellmind.com/why-adhd-can-cause-burnout-and-how-to-manage-it-5271236

@Discovereads thank you, I will read this. There’s so much I need to learn about this.

@Hearthnhome yes reputation is her concern. I am calling later today to tell her to speak to EAP. GP and EAP tomorrow. Is OH occupational health? Will they be able to help?

She just needs to talk, and be open about this. That’s all I want and all her firm wants too probably.

Did her manager give anything concrete inn terms of metrics she's failing on? What I'd do more positively with her is the old 'identify the triggers with work that are causing you to spin/lose focus/panic' -

Is the mgr unapproachable? Does she have a mentor? A mentor that doesn't directly work with you can help. Does the environment just make her uncomfortable full stop?

No one position is that important but just listing all the things causing her to spin and seeing if it is fixable in this role with support or not could help - good luck.

Two ND dc here, really worth downplaying the significance of this except as life learning, we all fail a few times through poor self knowledge. I've also bolted from work, literally walked out a couple of times - still employed, all led me to better choices.

OH is probably occupational health and yes they do help at the stage when you are returning to work after being signed off if it’s deemed that you need new accommodations put into place. So they could be involved later on. They are usually within HR.

Couple of guidance documents designed for employers of people with ADHD, below. The ADHD UK requires your details but then allows you to download a comprehensive PDF that she can give to her employer;

www.adhdfoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/An-Employers-Guide-to-ADHD-in-the-Workplace-Scottish-ADHD-Coalition-1.pdf

adhduk.co.uk/adhd-and-work/

Her employer can even apply for up to £62,900 of government funding per year through Access to Work, to provide support for people with ADHD in their workplace, some was in which this can be used to help her are described in the link;

adhduk.co.uk/access-to-work/

Massive list of useful resources here;

adhduk.co.uk/adhd-useful-resources/

it May be that reasonable adjustments could be made, but that will only happen if the ADHD has been disclosed. I was talking at work about someone who was struggling with various things. Difficult to understand when WFH - once they came into office more regularly things improved.

Yea occupational health. They may be able to help because they can sometimes provide things to support your dd. I struggle in long meetings. I can hear what’s going on and follow, but need to love even if it’s my hands. OH provided me with some strategies and a stress ball.

They have also been great, in my current role in explaining better than I can, to my MD what my needs are and what helps.

yes reputation is her concern.

Shes 22 and in her first job. A baby. Any sr manager worth their salt isn’t going to bin her reputation over a stumble or few even if the person did not have a well known and recognised disability. She’s only just learning to walk in her profession, her reputation isn’t something to worry about now. When you are a junior, this is the time to be falling over and getting back up again. You’re learning. You’re not an expert yet. Reputations are built over decades.

I think perfectionism may be manifesting itself with worry over reputation.

Try not to worry too much. She’s 22 - she isn’t going to ruin her life.

Three things are important

1- Pay for appropriate help to manage work, a coach or similar who actually understands ADHD. The systems that work for non ADHD/chronically disorganised people are different. Ideally she’d look for someone and you’d just pay for it. But if that’s too much for her right now, find her a shortlist of people for her to have initial calls with. Start with organisations for people with ADHD. She needs some weekly sessions and regular WhatsApp check ins.

2 -Encourage her to - step by step - face up to her current situation. Teaching herself the habit of giving up isn’t a good habit to learn, neither is burying her head in the sand. Go see HR, acknowledge she has a problem, say she’s going to get help, ask them for any help they can give, then repeat the conversation with a manager.

The posters who are telling her to get signed off with stress do mean well, but you mostly learn to manage stress by learning to manage it. Quitting is necessary sometimes but it doesn’t teach you anything about managing work, which is what most of us have to do.

3- support her by encouraging her to learn to look after herself. You are overreacting and getting too involved right now. Help her to learn coping skills. Help her to see this is a problem to work on, not a massive disaster. Help her to see there are other careers if this isn’t for her. Help her to see everyone has strengths and weaknesses, it’s just a question of learning to manage them. Help her to see that finding solutions takes some experimenting - you don’t get everything right first time. She’s 22 - only just a grown up - she is learning all the time and that is fine.

@Discovereads @ZealAndArdour thank you both for the links. I have a lot of reading and learning to do. It’s nice to see that she can be supported, I will send her these so she knows

Presumably she's on a training contract working towards accountancy exams. She's at a big firm. They will have lots of mental heath support available, she needs to open up to her appraiser or someone she trusts/has worked with. They will only want to understand and help her. Hybrid working can both help and hinder. Did she disclose the ADHD in the recruitment process?

I speak from lots of experience of Big4

The posters who are telling her to get signed off with stress do mean well, but you mostly learn to manage stress by learning to manage it. Quitting is necessary sometimes but it doesn’t teach you anything about managing work, which is what most of us have to do.

Signing off with stress for a month isn’t quitting. And when you have ADHD burnout it’s a physical need for rest. You literally cannot force yourself to just work through it. A break is managing stress, just not in the nuerotypical way you suggest that doesn’t work when you have ADHD.

Yes. It should be there! We’ve fought forever to get this support for workers with ND and she is perfectly entitled to access this support. I hope they are a supportive company.

I would def advocate reaching out to her line manager EAP and Hr and / or equalities lead - mental health and adjustments are top priority in most companies these days - it's very different post Covid.
Explore all they can do to support her - but she has to make that first step and not continue to crucify herself over a simple mistake- it's likely that her manager has no real idea what's going on or how to support her without her explaining some of her thinking.

As an adult she needs to take ownership of her own needs in the workplace and jumping ship to another company would only in my opinion suggest she can do thsi over and over when things do get tough and she makes mistakes - we all do.

Please encourage her to see what her current company can provide first / if she gets this right then this will be so much more confident handling the next time - good luck

@SuzySangfroid up-thread put it much better than I ever could ^^

I would say, as someone with adhd, boredom is an absolute killer. She needs to find a way to make the work interesting/challenging or think about changing roles. I have always been much better with busy, fast-paced short deadline or very immediate task orientated roles. It took me a lot of trial and error to work this out!

This is a very interesting thread! Not to hijack it or anything, but how did adults with ADHD get their diagnoses?

I think it’s really important that she knows she isn’t failing. There are many of us out here who know these struggles all too well. For every time she has a wobble or burn out, there will be other times where she is absolutely outstanding and capable of far more than her neurotypical peers.

Was she diagnosed as a child/teen? I guess if that’s the case then you will all have gotten used to managing ADHD in a child, but having ADHD as an adult woman with increasing responsibilities presents a new set of challenges and she might need to reconnect with her diagnosis and do some up to date reading on how her symptoms might present in her life now. This is quite a common time for the wheels to fall off, so to speak.

The only way to get a diagnosis is an assessment with a a consultant psychiatrist.

Theres adult ADHD services available through the NHS or you can go private.

This is why I’m struggling with all of this, whilst I’d love to swoop in and save her I can’t and shouldn’t.

I don’t want her to quit but I think she will anyway which is something I cannot stop but I am so scared this will happen again and again. So I appreciate everyone mentioning formal accommodations for her ADHD, that’s the big one. I think I will ask her to speak to HR today

@ZealAndArdour diagnosed as a child. School were very good in getting things put in for her. Very high achiever at school and uni. She is so intelligent, provides different POVs that no one else thinks of

Even at university, she sought help herself, I prompted yes but she spoke to uni when she started. Brand new challenges as an adult, yes definitely. I’ve sent her all the links you’ve sent too, I hope she reads them. Thank you thank you :))