<p>We’ve all heard of fear of failure. Could this be fear of success?</p>
<p>There certainly is a literature around the fear of success, mostly for women, but sometimes for men.</p>
<p>It was my perfectionist S that would do this. He would get mostly done and just not finish. Would “sleep through” finals. He finally just “withdrew” by stopping all class activity without telling anyone so he could stay on the campus for the rest of the semester. We refused to pay anymore. Fast forward several years, he is back in school, doing great and will graduate next year at age 28. He is married, happy and on the right track now. But he had to find it himself. </p>
<p>We did not see the clue that all the withdrawals and failure to turn things in meant he wasn’t ready yet. If I could do it over, we would have given him the time sooner and not worried so when he wasn’t doing things at the “normal” time.</p>
<p>Sk8rmom- It was awful. She even walked at graduation, but wasn’t in the program. She claimed she had to finish a 3 hour language credit that summer. They didn’t find out until the insurance company kept asking for proof of student status for some old bills and my friend’s H (the girl’s father) finally called ASU and said he needed proof of status. They told him the D had not been enrolled for 3 years! It was like something from Jerry Springer. My friend was livid. They had given her $1500 for a graduation present. She paid that back, but was estranged from them for several years. She had been taking the tuition money her dad sent her and just spending it on rent and social life.</p>
<p>I also had a friend whose son did a similar thing. Unbelieveable!</p>
<p>I just received a call from a family member that my daughter is at his house. She is not coming home and is refusing to finish off the semester. I do not want to contact the professors because that should be her job. In fact her job was to complete the work and be done with what she has started. I just don’t know how many more cycles of this I could endure. We have gone to the end of the earth and back again for this child and she has consistently dammed herself over and over. I am just heartbroken beyond any words. The boyfriend comes home tomorrow and they has reservations at a hotel this weekend with friends. This is all I am sure she is thinking of. Her text indicated that she wants her dresses and shoes for her weekend. I feel like I am ready to have a stroke with a pounding headache.</p>
<p>I want to say that I feel for you- I am also going to give my experience-
not saying at all this is what is going on with your daughter but for someone else the issues may look similar from the outside,</p>
<p>I have learning disabilities- that weren’t diagnosed & I didn’t quite realize the extent until I began going back to school. Because ( if I can say so myself) I am fairly intelligent- the fact that I dropped out of high school and was able to take the GED test and start taking community college courses ( basic ones like Psych & Bio) and get A’s was more about being able to wing it than on study/writing skills.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, my basic English 101 class did not teach me how to correctly cite in a research paper & I couldn’t teach it to myself because it was in a foriegn lang( basically- I still could not tell you off the top of my head what an antonym, noun or verb were)
. I passed the class, however I retook the required English 102 3 or 4 times doing well until it came time to finish the final paper. ( the instructor permitted me to take incompletes)</p>
<p>My other classes I still did OK in, because they were not holding me to the level of correct formatting & in-text citation as the English class. However, as I advanced they became more difficult and impossible for me to get a grip on ( this was without LD support of any kind)
short papers of 5-7 pages I could do- something on the scale of what my D had to submit to apply to Reed- no.</p>
<p>I eventually dropped out until I changed to vocational classes instead of college transfer ( but still you would not believe the level of difficulty for a 3 credit class)</p>
<p>My daughter dated a person very much like your daughter. Every time he was close to success he did something to pull the plug. At first, I thought it was performance anxiety. Now I think it is something deeper. I think it was tied to getting back at his parents. He started to put my daughter in that same parental position and needless to say the relationship failed. I think this boy (cant speak about your daughter because I don’t know her) needed to get out in the world and see how this behavior works for him. We all know the answer to that! I’m so sorry for your husband, your daughter and you. My daughter said to me that most people act as well as they are able to act. Some kids just need to learn things in a different way. Barring some serious mental illness, it is time for your daughter to learn how the world reacts to her and her actions. good luck and let us know how its going.</p>
<p>You know, in the old days it was the exceptional student who went to college. My mother’s old friend joked about it recently, saying that nobody went to college, they just graduated from high school and got jobs. And many of those jobs were of the sort that you could quit the job on an impulse and get another somewhere else when the money ran out. We expect so much more from kids today, and yet I wonder how many of them would fit this slackerish pattern that was so unexceptional years ago?</p>
<p>I am very sorry for what you’re going through, I hope I don’t sound like I’m not. My nephew dropped out just a couple of weeks ago, and I know it’s hard to take. I guess I’m just saying that your husband has to decide how much garbage he can put up with, and ask you to put up with, just so your daughter gets a degree. She’ll probably live a fine enough life without one, and hold down the sort of job that doesn’t place big demands on her. Hang in there.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Would you call if she had a physical illness? What if she was cutting herself instead of hurting herself this way? You wondered who does this kind of thing? Someone who is in a crisis of some kind, that’s who.</p>
<p>Does her therapist know what is going on? What does s/he say? What has been done in the past is not working. It’s simply not working. It’s time for a new plan. That may involve her leaving home or it may not but get help in making these decisions.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear about your struggles with your daughter. One thing that struck me as a possible cause is you mentioned 6 classes…that is a huge load for someone with a history of bailing out at the last minute. (or any college kid, I would wager). Forgive me if this has already been pointed out…didn’t read the whole thread. Maybe, if you give her another go at school in the Spring, a good idea would be a reduced load? 3 classes might be more doable for her, given her track record. Just a thought. Good luck.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This just doesn’t strike me as a kid having some kind of emotional/mental crisis. She has a history of slacking off and is a junior in college, so surely knows the drill by now and is well beyond the intro English classes. If her papers were that close to being finished, it seems like she could have put her social plans on the back burner for a few days or let her folks know if something was truly amiss. Given this, my response to the request for party clothes would be along the lines of when he!! freezes over unless you grow up and make arrangements to finish what you’ve started first…and my kids know it! But I can otherwise see my youngest, happy-go-lucky soul that he is, trying something along those lines. Even people with problems have to take responsibility for their own actions.</p>
<p>Regarding the credit load…Three credits is a field observation. There were no exams just a written report. Had she been doing it all along she would not have had to do it now…it is incomplete. Not a hard or demanding course load at all. </p>
<p>She just bails out…it has been my husband and I keeping her together. We are drowning.</p>
<p>Well…I would not pay another nickel for her to attend college. She has not shown sufficient responsibility spending YOUR money to do so. Perhaps if she is paying her own way, she will think better of not wasting money by blowing off classes.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>First, I’m so sorry you are going through this. The phrase I quoted caught my attention. You can’t keep her together. She’s around 21 years old, she needs to keep herself together. My sister-in-law tried for years to keep her son together when he was having problems of a different nature that were very, very serious. She had the best of intentions, but was also enabling him. A year ago (shortly before turning 22) he moved out of state – first for rehab and then to live. I saw him for the first time in over a year this past weekend. He has turned his life around completely and looks and sounds the best I can remember. He is working a very good job and living his life in an organized, fulfilling and sane manner. I think he needed to know he was on his own and he needed to not have someone else keeping him together because it finally both forced and allowed him to hold himself together. I suggest you call the therapist and ask for a family session. You need to meet as a family with the therapist and figure out what comes next – as well as communicate how much pain you are in. But you probably have to stop keeping her together. It might be necessary to let the college dream go for now, letting her know that she needs to work and support herself. As self-destructive as this seems, she isn’t (unless I missed it) addicted to drugs or alcohol, she isn’t suffering from a serious eating disorder or illness, she isn’t suicidal or injuring herself. She might need to figure out what she needs to do next and be responsible for her own decisions. And you and your husband need to take care of yourselves.</p>
<p>Not being able to control one’s emotion is the root cause of so many problems.</p>
<p>So sorry to hear the trauma you are dealing with. It’s exhausting. I don’t have any advice, but sending {{hugs}} and a prayer.</p>
<p>Is there any chance for a barter? If she does what she can do to redeem her grades (call her professors, finish her work…figure out if there is anything whatsoever that can be done)…and it sounds like she only has two days before the weekend, then she can have her dresses and shoes. Otherwise, forget it, she doesn’t get them.</p>
<p>Her behavior–especially the almost-finished papers–definitely strikes me as odd. If she’s unwilling to finish them, could she at least submit them half-finished and receive some credit for them? No reason to let an entire semester’s worth of hard work go down the drain when all that’s left is a conclusion and pressing the submit button.</p>
<p>I like busdriver’s suggestion. I’m a college kid, and I think that tactic would work. My parents have bartered with my sister sort of like busdriver suggests, and it works wonders (sis is also college kid).</p>
<p>Best of luck to you!</p>
<p>Momma-3,
I am so sorry to read this news about your daughter. I know how hard you and your husband have worked to try to keep her focused on her education and you both must be heart-broken. I would take care of yourselves right now. Try to do some things that you both enjoy to relax and calm down as much as possible.</p>
<p>I do think your obligations as far her education is concerned should be over. She should fund her own education from now on if she wishes to continue. And I know that means letting go off a dream you had for her.</p>
<p>She may finish her college or she may not. She can live a full satisfying life without it; my nephew’s behavior was similiar and he never completed. He has worked for Walmart for almost 8 years and he is content. He may not be rich but he has a good marriage and many friends (and a new baby!!). So I do believe your daughter will find her way.</p>