DD wanting to leave uni. Lonely and finds day to day life anxiety inducing. Will she always be like this?

[allthethings]

This is long. I'd really appreciate some support or an outsiders view- particularly if you've had similar experiences.

DD is in 2nd term of university and doesn't want to be there anymore.

Prior to this, she had a gap year and she lived at home and had a good well paid hospitality job, allowing her to save. It was always an option for her not to go to university so long as she looked for apprenticeships or entry level jobs. In the end she only ever applied for anything I sought for her.

She probably went to university to please us and get us off her back but she didn't have any friends here so we thought she'd only flourish if she started afresh - we knew it could be sink or swim.

She started in September and engaged well with her studies, attended everything, and got some good grades. She said she was enjoying the course. She had to move accommodation but seemed to be making friends and had a few weeks where we thought she was flourishing and her past was behind her. Those, admittedly, were blissful weeks, as it was the first time in 10 or more years I wasn't worried about her. I felt I could think about myself and my life.

I'm lost over how to best help her and distraught that she could drop out and be back how things were last year but with no future prospects and still no hobbies or opportunities to make friends. She has come a long way and coped living independently very well and handled her studies well She's just not able to cope with her discomfort and anxiety and lack of friends.

She's reached out to wellbeing services and will get some counseling and support but she's spiraled in the last week. I need to get her home. The plan is to consider medication for anxiety and get her some proper counseling but try to get her to go back to university as we fear she's not thinking straight and could regret leaving a few weeks down the line. But how likely is this? She's not got a plan of what she'd rather be doing. I think we'd be okay with her dropping out if she at least had some friends here, but she's just going to be stuck at home feeling safe but sad. I can't see her getting an actual job unless I do all the work and I just can't do it anymore.

Or should I push the neurodivergent screening more? Can anxiety disorder present like some aspects of ADHD inattentive or is the anxiety likely an offshoot of ADHD.

Thank you if you read this far. Where's the manual for parenting adult children?!

No. The anxiety seemed situational and she didn't v want to pursue further. Shed dropped out of the CBT. It was by telephone 🙁 Her hospitality job was a good fit and she started to make friends - we thought she'd turned a corner. I know it sounds awful now looking back. I think I've failed her badly.

I do think you need to stop making decisions for her and I say that in the kindest way. What does she want to do? It sounds like she did very well in her gap year. Maybe work is just a better option for her.

I woukd second this.

I’m afraid I won’t have mine back on a permanent basis. I’ll do my best to help them do well but not permanently under our roof. I think you have to make this part clear without her/you feeling like you’re making it worse.

We really struggle to fit back together as a household when my eldest Come’s back from Uni. The next 2 are living with partners and come back for the odd night/day.

The last will be living permanently out of home in September.

Can you help her with the first few months rent in a shared house somewhere else?

It's taken me 3 years since my dds diagnosis to realise I can't fix this. She needs to learn who she is and do it on her own terms.

I feel judged by society as she isn't in education or work right now but she currently isn't ready.

So sod them. I'm her cheerleader now not her engineer.

No hobbies.

Boundaries will be that she has to engage with counseling and GP and maybe now reading replies adhd/asd screening.

I don't know what else. Reading replies here will help.

I agree! There is lots of great advice on here from Mums who have similar experiences (I dont)

It seems to me that she needs medicating and testing for ND

You say she likes living alone and studying alone - have you checked that she’s aware that that’s ok? It’s ok to do things on your own, you don’t need to join every social group going and force yourself on nights out etc. I hated uni for the same reason, I dropped out for the same reason, I hated the falseness of the friendships I had slotted myself into and it made me not want to go to class. I regret leaving that degree every single day because it was my dream career, but I think if I had allowed myself to be ‘lonely’ and just there to get the degree and go I would’ve stuck it out

This was me. Im under assessment for adhd.

Sounds exactly like my dd too - except that my dd was screened for both asd and adhd and did not meet the criteria. But she certainly meets many of the boxes for both.

I would offer your dd the option of commuting from hime, to see if that makes a difference.

Following. No time to read the whole thread for now, but my daughter’s situation is eerily similar!

My husband dropped out after a year, he really needed a university close to home. Is a transfer an option? Either way she needs support that probably includes counselling and meditation. If this is how she is long term support is the key before her life becomes very closed in.

Honestly - her stock response is I don't know. She's never shown interest or passion for anything. She had the chance of an apprenticeship and got cold feet. She has been encouraged to pursue what she wants. She doesn't know what she wants. I didn't make a decision for her except to say she had to apply for jobs or get a degree.

What does the occupational Therapy entail?

This all sounds SO familiar OP. My youngest son (of 4) was diagnosed with autism at 17. Insisted on going away to uni, although I suggested the local (low ranking) one. Lasted almost a semester then admitted he wasn’t coping and came home. Was diagnosed with ADHD in addition and started on medication. Has lots of social anxiety and anxiety around public transport (doesn’t drive because the autism makes the sensory input required overwhelming). Spent the year in his room, not socialising at all except online.

Went back to his original uni last year (we are in Aus so uni year starts in Feb) despite me again trying to convince him to stay here and do uni. Coped in year one with a half load, although spent all his non-contact time in his room and doesn’t have friends. (I have to try SO hard not to judge his life by my standards - the way he lives would have made me v unhappy but this is his choice). He is going up to 3/4 load for the year about to start so fingers crossed. 😬

I don’t have any answers for you OP, just solidarity and a suggestion that yes, it’s definitely worth getting her assessed for ND. Mine says his ADHD meds make things much easier. And even the autism diagnosis, although it doesn’t open up therapeutic options, helps him understand why things are hard for him.

But it’s SO stressful. I’m constantly waiting for it all to go wrong again. I feel your pain.

If this were my daughter I would encourage her to find ways to cope to stay at uni. Mainly because you say that she enjoys studying and living there and also enjoys lectures, but can't cope with the classes. But how many classes are there in a week? At my son's uni there were not that many, and he did a course with quite high contact levels. I would help her to seek help, but wouldn't at this stage assume that leaving is the only option.

But she knows she wants to leave university?

we had a similar issue with ds - he managed to hold out to get his degree but it wasn’t easy - and I have to say that work has been the making of him. But he does still live at home (though he has v severe mental health problems and does take medication).

I do think getting a private assessment might help if the GP isn’t helpful - once anxiety takes hold and dictates your decisions, it’s definitely time to do something about it

Feel for you op.

Who does she currently live with at uni? I think who you live with in first year makes a big difference to your experience.

You mentioned she got on well with working during her gap year. I also worked during my gap year and tbh, found that much more useful and life changing in terms of giving me confidence, having people skills and also giving me skills that would be more useful for my later career than uni ever was.

But i also totally understand why you don’t want her back living with you so you’re right, if she does move back, she needs to get job and work towards moving out again, maybe into a flatshare or something.

I'm just reading this and can't get past the fact she had a well paid job in hospitality which allowed her to save but I'm reading it that you didn't approve because it wasn't an apprenticeship or uni? Why not just leave her alone? She was earning good money and the hospitality industry is huge with lots of potential careers.

I pursued the anxiety support through 6th form and they referred her on to the GP. So much is done by phonecalls. Go told her she could have a course of CBT. She didn't want to continue. I guess it might say anxiety on her medical records.

It's difficult to argue with a 17/18 year old that they have anxiety and need help when they don't want to have help. I know it sounds nuts. Life just continues on. You've lived with her all your life, I guess you don't see how things really look too an outsider.

personally I don’t see how you can put boundaries in place for her. Boundaries are for you, because you can only enforce them on yourself.

If you are talking about making her return home conditional on her doing XYZ, how are you going to force her to ‘obey’ these rules when she doesn’t / cannot follow through? She sounds far too fragile to be threatened into doing things she seems to find very very difficult.

I have a child who in her late teens was diagnosed with AuDHD.

she required a massive amount of scaffolding through her teens. She dropped out of a levels in her first year due to anxiety. We did wind up in a situation where she did just sit in her room for over a year.

it wasn’t ideal but at the time we were also dealing with other stuff (I became disabled myself following an accident and my son was going through some MH stuff).

she did eventually decide that she wanted to engage with the world and left her bedroom. She did a part time course at the local college (catering) and then did an access course.

she then went to university. University was socially successful as she found lots of autistic friends (was doing a stem subject) but didn’t do any work in her third year and so failed her finals.

they let her resit the year, so she phoned me up and came home, and was resitting from home.

honestly that was one of the most stressful years of my life as she did fuck all work and was very hard to live with - anxiety and panic attacks. I personally took her into her January exams, and by the summer exams she actually went into all of them herself.

she got a 2:2

she’s been at home with me for another few months now and has apparently finally decided that she wants to move out. I am very very happy about this as previously she was living in fantasy land - “Maybe dad will buy me a London flat so I can do a masters in London”.

honestly it’s been really really tough. What I have learnt is that given time she will choose to engage but it takes a lot of time, and that I try very hard to not think of her as being able to follow a normal path.

she isn’t normal and she won’t be able to follow a normal path and she’s made some bloody stupid decisions but none of them are life destroying as of yet.

So sorry you are going through this - the stress and worry is never ending. But does she HAVE to go to uni? My DD is 16 and a high functioning anxious person. Been through CAMHs and now doing a vocational BTech at our local college instead of A-Levels. We already known uni is probably not the right environment for her so we will be looking at apprenticeships in her field - and yes, we will need to provide that scaffolding another PP mentioned - such a good analogy - for her to apply.

Does your DD know what she wants to do in life and is there an alternative path?

I’m sorry, I’ve skim read your posts but does she have support in place from student services? At my uni, they can help arrange ADHD/Autism screening. Does she have a GP on campus that she could speak to about her anxiety?

There will be masses of support/groups/societies for ND students, she really does need to go and have a good chat with student services, or if that feels like too much for her she can email them explaining everything that’s going on.

Apprenticeship wasn't a degree apprenticeship - She also had the option to stay in hospitality job - and can go back - but she said she didn't want that for her future. Also, it's not all year round.