DD 18 stuck in a rut

[sandwiches77]

To cut a long story short, DD dropped out of College as she found it too stressful. She started an online A level course with the intention of going to University. She is 18, her peers are now in their first year of university and she is spending her time at home watching tv or asleep. Whenever i try and speak to her about her future she gets all stroppy and defensive. I understand that she may be struggling with her executive function but she refuses to accept help from anyone and she doesn't seem to be moving forward. I am really dont mind if she doesn't go to University, but she wants to achieve that but I just want her to be happy and move forward in her life.
As i say she gets stroppy if i try and talk to her about it, i have tried other members of the family but to no avail
How can I encourage her to move forward without her being stroppy or do I just have to continue to be patient? (which I don't have a problem with its just heart breaking watching her "waste" her life)

She is 18, her peers are now in their first year of university and she is spending her time at home watching tv or asleep.

Maybe she needs time to process everything that's caused her difficulties at College. Also emotionally she'll likely be around two thirds of her chronological age, so it would have made her feel the differences with her peers an awful lot, being expected to do everything because "at your age you should be able to" can be a nightmare for some kids with AN.

Has she any co-morbids? My DD's fatigue really kicked in as a teen and it wasn't until she was at home all the time that I realised how severe it was for her, TV and sleep was her only way of existing for a long time. Has she seen an OT at all and could you get her an appt for when lockdown's over to make sure there's no physical cause for her to be so tired, whilst bearing in mind all the extra constant mental effort involved in trying to navigate the NT world.

I just want her to be happy and move forward in her life

Right now I'd remove all expectations and pressure to decide on a future career path.

While she's at home, how about teaching her the life skills she'll need to live independently and more importantly making it fun.? Can she cook, clean, manage a household budget, know how much she'd need to earn to pay rent, finance driving lessons and run a car, basic car maintenance, keep the place clean, use domestic appliances, know when to call a plumber or electrician and how to do so, how to explain to them what needs doing, how to deal with getting an estimated cost, plan meals, physically and online shop for essentials, change a lightbulb and plugs, look after pets. Manage a bank account, work out interest rates for savings, look at household bills, discuss managing finances, explain direct debits and other payment methods. Book a holiday, plan days out, home decorating and more. By going through all of these sorts of things with her, you'll see her strengths and weaknesses and she'll be more able to see what she's good at and what she needs help with and what she feels confident doing.

There's so much more to being at home than 'wasting' her time.

DD continues to sleep alot. She refuses to see Dr, counselling, OT or anything along those lines.

She isn't interested in learning life skills plus she gets up around 6pm/7pm and goes back to bed again about 9pm/10pm so I hardly see her.

She is in denial but she has run out of time to complete her online course now.

How can I help her break the cycle?

I once asked CAMHS how you motivate an unmotivated teenager with an ASC and their brilliant suggestion was a visual timetable (the brilliant was sarcastic by the way).

By sheer chance (as an indirect result of Covid) we have appeared to come up with a method of learning that suits ds2 - basically he has a tutor who sends him a list of activities and questions to do each week & return. I was highly dubious it would work as he was not self-motivated enough to work through the textbook on his own during a previous lockdown but somehow breaking the work down into smaller, more tangible goals works for him.

I guess what I am saying is that maybe the A level is too huge and daunting a task for her and what she needs is for someone to break it down for her into more manageable smaller steps.

Yeah, just tried to suggest that and had my head bitten off!!