17yo dd has gone a bit wrong, socially. How to support her?

[NailyDale]

Dd finds social interaction exhausting. People who first meet her would be surprised to learn that because she's chatty, charming, and very socially capable. She CAN do it but it exhausts her, and she doesn't enjoy other people's company much. She can be a bit dismissive of other people, but only in private. Her favourite place in the world is her bedroom with a sketchbook and her music on.

Having said that, she makes a big effort and leaves the house every day with a (big, fake) smile on her face, goes to school, plays a sport, coaches a mini-league team, and has a job. She's a rep for her school in a few different areas. She does all of this because it's just what you have to do. She hates school, but takes on lots of roles because she wants to be chosen as a prefect because that will look good on uni applications. It's all a bit transactional? Or calculated? She says that if she's going to have to go to school every day and hate it, it might as well be useful. She is extremely high-achieving, but also terrified of failure.

She often gets overwhelmed and needs time to decompress. She doesn't lash out, just disappears to her room. She hates to be touched, hates loud noises, gets sensory overwhelm quite easily.

She admitted recently that she has let all her friendships go. She says that at lunchtimes she just needs to be alone to recover some energy, and she's noticed that gradually everyone has drifted away and she now spends lunchtimes alone because she has no other choice. She absolutely understands why everyone has left her to it. She says she wishes she had the energy to maintain friendships, but she's so exhausted by the effort of just being there. This time last year she had a big group of friends at school and various other people she saw at weekends.

She understands that she has to give something of herself to maintain a friendship.

I strongly suspect she has changed her mind about applying to be a prefect, and I think the reason is that she can't bear the idea of applying, being rejected, and this all having been for nothing.

I'm worried that she's exhausted all the time. Could this be a medical thing? She is also often shaky and gets headaches.

What do I say? How do I support my girl?

We've had a chat. She's stressed, tearful, anxious about the future, and being very hard on herself for not maintaining her friendships.

She knows what happiness means to her, and absolutely none of it can be found at school. She is happy at home, and she is happy underwater (she swims several times a week).

I asked her about success and failure. She is anxious about success, and failure to her is a B grade. She wasn't being flippant. Ongoing chats to have there. She does acknowledge that she holds herself to a much higher standard than everyone else. I might have a chat to her form tutor and just let him know that she's struggling. He's lovely and knows her well.

I hadn't realised that a part of the problem is her driving lessons. She is not excelling at driving (oh my gosh I love her so much but she is a REALLY bad driver, it's terrifying) and she has taken that to heart as "yet another thing she's failing at". We've been nothing but encouraging and supportive.

I suggested that rather than try and mend everything all at once why not just choose one person and reach out. She did, and she's meeting up with an old friend tomorrow for a swim and a coffee.

She has also requested her dad take her out for some parallel parking practice.

It has been really useful for me to reflect on her experience. I think sometimes my support is to encourage her to be more independent. E.g. 'great that you're meeting a friend! How are you getting there? Will you bus home? When you can drive I'll lend you my car!' but now I realise that it's been a whole big thing for her to reach out and plan to meet her friend, I've offered to drop her in town and pick her up if she's ready before I start work. She could bus (her brother would certainly be expected to!) but I'm realising that maybe she hates getting the bus not because she can't be arsed, but because it's a whole EXTRA thing to deal with on top of a high mental load.

Op your last post is v reminiscent of the support I give my autistic daughter. I know that every social experience or interaction is much harder fir her than for a more outgoing child. So I constantly scaffold and support her socializing. My daughter is younger but I wanted to say you are really doing the right thing in acknowledginf she probably needa rhe support if a younger child.

This is a leftfield suggestion but I really also suggest some zen philosophy! Listen on spotify or youtube to Alan watts...his talk life is not a journey.

There is no Destination. Your daughter thinks she needs to achieve goals to continually move to the next stage as a winner but as we all find out later in life...there is no destination. The top grade at school was onky meaningful if you enjoyed the moment
.transactional behaviour is meaningless as we only have the Now

Sorry a little philisophical derail !but something I think our school system sadly reallY fails to impart to teens

Just to say, the fact that she’s told all this, and talks to you about how she feels is a really good thing. She feels safe with you and can be open and honest with you. That’s helping her already.

She's talking to you, which is good. Mine shut down completely last year and rebuilding her has been hell. She's a super masker - can talk to people if she knows them but can't do small talk, wants to be the best at everything and beats herself up when she isn't / shuts down, needs alot of scaffolding especially for friendships, and is exhausted alot of the time. She started college part time this week and otherwise was asleep all day. Literally.

ASD, Inattentive ADHD, hEDS, and OCD. The dx has helped her understand it's not that she's weird or broken, she just thinks differently. Therapy has been brilliant too, once we dropped the CBT approach.

Honestly, I don’t think she needs to do all of this. School jobs don’t matter for uni applications. And surely driving can be put on hold for a bit. It’s too much for many people during A levels.

She sounds a bit like my DD who has anxiety, she went to see well being at school who were great and the dr was also great and she is on some medication which has really really helped.
It is easy to say but she might just need to drop extra things that are causing her stress, only do what she enjoys out of her schoolwork as doing something just for an application is not a good idea.
My DD didn't take to driving, she's still hanging lessons at 19 , we did switch to automatic which also suits our cars and she's doing well . Again just say you'll get there when you get there , no pressure
With friendships, a lot of her friends started going to parties which she found a bit fake and not for her, she did completely change her friendship group in 6th form, hanging out with quieter people who she felt comfortable with. She's now sociable and that group go out and have fun but just took longer. I wouldn't encourage her to go places she's not comfortable with, it will come,

Can't she just be an introvert? She doesn't have to be autistic just because she finds people exhausting. Especially if she's tried to be an extravert.

I am this way myself. Perfectly capable of chatting, no confusion about interacting with NT people. No one thinks I am weird or that I do social interaction "not quite right". Quite like eating lunch alone or with just one or two people. Like a little reset in my bedroom when I get home.

I have no interest in being everything to everyone, doing big groups, organising stuff. But neither do I really struggle with everyday life. Being an introvert is perfectly acceptable.

I'm neurodiverse and it took me 4 attempts to pass my driving test so this really touches a nerve.

The overthinking makes you a terrible driver as you are too nervous to turn in properly to park, wait too long to pull out at a junction, and so on. And likely are not that spacially aware at the best of times.

Helping her to take the pressure off herself would be the best thing, so she can learn to be happy with you she really is.

I think I have the twin of your daughter, except mine went a step further and had a period of self harming.
I've nodded along to everything you've said, but we are a little further along the journey.
The one thing I do for DD is chauffeur her as much as I can. It's a pain, but it's one weight I can take off her shoulders and she has stopped the driving lessons for now. Factored into that was we don't have a car that she felt comfortable driving, I can't afford to finance one for her and she was worrying about not being able to save enough money for one - so yet another worry for her. I actually did the same and went back to lessons in my early twenties.

Also someone above mentioned their daughter switched to learning in an automatic. This isn't as limiting as it once was, as most electric cars are automatic, so the need for manual driving skills will be much less in the future. So maybe something to think about if she wants to persevere.

Sounds complicated. Perhaps she is not physically 100%. Anaemia is quite common. Might be a bit depressed too. Tell her she doesn't have to try so hard but a few friends can help.