My DD is 19 and currently on the pathway for ADHD assessment. She has always struggled with friendships so spends a lot of time at home although she does have one close friend. She seems fairly ok in her mood and does socialise occasionally although I know she'd like to do more if there were more opportunities.
My DD is heading to uni in September. She struggled massively through college and didn't do great but resisted help from college, or me. I'm a lone parent and she sees her dad but he lives at the other end of the country and is inconsistent.
I've had an extremely difficult few years with her at home. I cant really list all the issues here because I'd need a lifetime , but suffice to say I'm hanging on by a thread mentally. Her positive points are that she is bright , funny, engaging when topics are of interest to her and also really brave. Outwardly my DD is quiet and fairly polite , but at home she is oppositional, hostile and difficult to a really extreme level. She doesn't express a lot of empathy for others but for me, it is non existent.She blames me for everything, and I mean everything. I've not always got everything right but I've done my absolute best for her, and given her many additional opportunities. I've always supported her ambitions , and try to fix any problem she comes to me with.
What leads me to seek advice today is specifically in relation to her ability to cope living with others at university. I understand young people are very different at home , but I've got serious concerns about coping at university because of the way she lives at home - she will do nothing in the way of contributing to chores , but this is less of a problem than the mess she actually creates. It's extreme- it's beyond teenage mess, her bedroom is so so, bad. Please don't say " I wouldn't put up with that". I've tried everything, - cleaning her room for her when she's been away, paying a cleaner to tackle it, shouting , arguing , asking nicely, crying and even pleading. Nothing works. If I do clean it behind her back, she is explosive , and then the room is worse than ever a few days later. She won't let me help her to keep on top of it day to day. Even entering her room while she's in it causes anger. She keeps her windows shut therefore it smells and if I open them, she closes them again, even in the height of this heatwave. Her curtains are permanently drawn so it's a dark, dingy, and deeply unpleasant setting for anyone to live in.
I understand disorganisation to be a symptom of ADHD, but when I tell you it's bad, it's so, so bad. She can't reach her own bed for rubbish, discarded snacks, and clothes. She can't find clean clothes because they're mixed with dirty ones. My DD is so oppositional that she will resist having her own laundry done by me, because she will not rifle through the mess to bring the laundry down. This means she frequently puts dirty clothes on a clean body, including her work uniform. She will cover the smell with perfume and if I point out that the clothes smell, she gets angry and says I'm attacking her. Her self care is really really poor and I worry all the time what appraisal other young people at work are making of her. She takes all my advice as an attack and I have tried literally everything.
My dd leaves a trail of mess downstairs. If she eats a snack , the rubbish stays on the sofa. My DD will argue for 30 minutes about how she will move the rubbish in her own time, rather than just get up and throw it out. She spends , huge ,huge amounts of energy resisting , fighting and defending her right not to bossed around , and it makes our home absolutely miserable. I would be lying if I said I was not looking forward to a break from this dynamic, but more than anything, I'm terrified this is going to affect her at uni. She is going into halls 6 hours away from home so not easily accessible to me. I can't just pop up there regularly to help her, and even if I could , she wouldn't let me.
I worry about how she will get along with others in a shared space , however I do know she would never argue with others the way she does with me - she is completely timid in front of other people , so perhaps this will mean she will be more open to cleaning up after herself.
Her bedroom at uni though- I am terrified that if she keeps it like she does at home, her studies will suffer. She already struggled though college with deadlines and pressure. She went to bed for weeks at a time and didn't do any work. I tried to get her help but she refused it from everyone. She did eventually manage to complete the course but it was a struggle. Her room as it is currently is so bad she won't spend any time in there herself. She gets dressed on the landing and does her makeup in the living room.
If she makes her own bedroom at university uninhabitable, I know she will not be able to study. Here, she was able to take over the kitchen to study while at college, which was at least a blessing, but I'm assuming this option won't be available to her at halls. I also want better for her and feel desperately sad that she doesn't yet want that for herself. I know lots of people with ADHD who do not live like she does, but my DD has fully leant into the belief that this how she is wired and that's it. She won't discuss another way to be , and is extremely volatile in her communication so talking about it just ends in shouting and insults.
I don't really know what I'm asking for. I guess positive stories of other young people who came out the other side of this. But also , I guess if you have any suggestions for how I could get through to her or if there was something she could access at university to help her manage.