I agree with pp who basically said their teen needed more time to develop.
One of my dds has ASD. She needed longer to “bake” and almost needed to retreat in to her room and “pupate” for eighteen months to two years .
I won’t lie. It was hell while it was happening. She had ARFID and got very thin. She was very low in mood and depressed and needed medication, which helped a lot. She even needed encouragement to shower at one point.
She was just very “fragile” for a while and we had to walk around on eggshells. She didn’t seem to have any understanding of how her behaviour affected all of us in the family. Nor did she outwardly seem to care. It was like she was suffering so much internally that she only had the bandwidth to think about herself.
I was at one and the same time very frustrated with her for not doing all of the things we suggested, upset with myself and dh because “obviously” in my mind we had done such a bad job of parenting for her to get in to this state in the first place, and appalled and almost in physical pain myself that she was so unhappy.
I thought I was having a nervous breakdown tbh as she took a lot of her anger and anxiety out on me.
How dare she be this unhappy when she came from a “naice” middle class home, with two supportive parents and a loving sister with access to a good education and, in my eyes, had the world at her feet? Well it turns out she has ASD and had been very anxious and unhappy for a very long time and had been masking it very successfully, until she couldn’t any more.
She saw a private licensed psychologist and a psychiatrist for her ASD diagnosis who specialised in ND teen issues. It was expensve but worth every penny. But even with that help, things took a while to improve.
She didn’t have an issue with drink or drugs but I would have banned any of that in the house.
Ultimately though, I think time helped most of all. And she got a nice bf which also helped. And the fact that we didn’t give up on her helped as well.
Looking back, I went too far down a rabbit hole of anxiety with her. She needed me to be a stabilising rock of granite. And instead I was pulling my hair out with anxiety and not sleeping and worrying about her future and how she will survive in the world. I was too reactive to her instead of being proactive in my own life.
So my advice would be to not to look too far ahead, carry on supporting her as you are, but try and protect your own mh. It sounds like you are doing all of the right things op even though to you it doesn’t seem like you are. Above all, remember that by just being there and loving her and standing alongside her in this, you ARE helping.
All of your concern and love for her is going in! She feels it, even though she is rejecting it.
Think of it like a solar powered toy car. It’s sitting there in the sun out of energy with algae growing on it and covered in leaves and it has to absorb lots of rays of care and love before it can get going again. But lots of those rays are being blocked by dust until it has stored up enough momentum to turn the wheels again.
All teens will ultimately have to be responsible for themselves so keep saying things like “if you had a friend or dd with this issue, what would you advise her to do?” . Keep pushing the responsibility back on to her gently and keep suggesting and steering a little. And when you have to step in more firmly say “I love you too much to let you do that or to let that happen”.
We also used to say things like “staying in your room is hard and going out in the world is hard, which hard are you choosing today?”
which sounds massively cheesy but it validates the difficulties they are experiencing as well as putting the choice back on to them. Then step in with some advantages of being outside the home and being free to make certain choices. And build some treats in to the trip when she does make it outside.
I also used to try and gently challenge the notion that staying in her room was as “safe” as she thought it was. On the one hand it’s comforting and a haven. But on the other hand it’s a barrier between her and the skills she needs to acquire and practice to navigate the world.
So staying in her room wasn’t just a passive choice, it was also an active choice not to tackle something that day and by staying in , she was just pushing the facing of fear further down the road, which made it harder ultimately.
About the flaking on appointments or other projects; my dh spoke to dd about gaining confidence by keeping her promises to herself. Learning to trust herself essentially. This was good because it again put the responsibility and freedom of choice back on to her, but there was no need to avoid demands from others bc she had ultimate control.
I also used to point out that flaking on an appointment now made her feel safe in the short term. And it didn’t have any immediate consequences when she was supported by us at home. But of course once she needed to earn money and support herself in the future she wouldn’t have as much choice. So I used to emcourqge her to work on keeping promises to herself while she could fail sometimes and still have us there as support.
Other people will explain this better than me but I think a massive downside with ND is that you don’t get the same buzz and rewards for tackling the hard stuff, you just remember the hard. But the hard stuff still needs tackling ultimately.
Keep suggesting non-pressured ways of getting her out of the house. Little rituals like a trip to look at clothes in the local charity shop followed by a hot chocolate. Thirty minutes is better than nothing.
Stay hopeful op. Don’t give up. Hang on to the fact that things will be different in five years. The fact that you are going to the gym is great; you need to take some of the energy you are spending on her, and give it back to yourself, as she will be taking in how you deal with this family “crisis”.
I think teens almost put us under test conditions to see if the world is a safe place to emerge in to. At the same time we have a responsibility I think to make the adult world appear to be enjoyable and worth graduating towards.