<p>I’m so sorry you’re going through this stressful, heartbreaking situation. While it would be good if your dd would agree to some family therapy sessions to try to get to the heart of the problem, if she refuses there’s nothing you can do. In fact, there’s very little you can do to help her unless she’s willing to cooperate. We went through some similar struggles with one of our children, and dh & I still have not recovered fully from the effects of the stress. People will tell you to do this or that, not recognizing that your dd is legally an adult and does not have to comply. You cannot make a legal adult accept much needed medical or psychological help if she’s not an immediate danger to herself or others. It’s still hard to overcome the guilt over not doing more to fix things.</p>
<p>I wish you all the best and hope you can find comfort to sustain you.</p>
<p>I really think the parents need to find out if the D really wants to be in college. Maybe she was attending to comply with the parents’ desires but doesn’t really want to be there. And I think her attending college is not that important right now. If that is not where it is at for her, she should work and live independently and the parents should support her decision and require the D to financially support herself. It is time.</p>
<p>I feel badly for all you and your husband have been through. You guys sound like action heroes who have done everything you possibly could have to try to rescue your daughter from her bad decisions. Not many people, though everyone loves their children, would go to such lengths.</p>
<p>But I think poetgrls post #59 and soovievts post #50 are wonderful advice. I hope you strongly consider them. Maybe college just isn’t the right thing to help her grow up right now. She has many credits, she can always finish up later when she is ready. Sometimes being out in the real world, realizing that you are working so hard for a few dollars, watching your friends be successful, can motivate people. Of course, many people end up doing quite well, degree or not.</p>
<p>garland, Thank you for that advice on calling the Dean and not the professors. I hope to never need that info, but it’s very good to have if a crisis should arise.</p>
<p>mommathree, I hope today is a better day. Please remember that you and your husband deserve help and support just as much as your daughter.</p>
<p>I think it is time to stop thinking of your daughter as a student and see her as a person. You have worn yourselves out trying to make/keep her a student; now her actions have forced the decision for her to learn to make a life for herself as an independant person.</p>
<p>Get your money back for Spring, give her a severance check and let her figure it out for herself. I think this is some of the best therapy you can offer, along with continuing her sessions with her therapist.</p>
<p>From your post, two things struck me, it’s not just that she bails out at the end of the semester - in your mind this bail out is tied to the return of the boyfriend/friends. She isn’t just giving up on her grades, she is allowing her separate identity to be swallowed up by her associations with others who displace her as the central subject of her own life. She doesn’t just allow this, she welcomes it. That strikes me as an indication of incredibly low self-esteem and it made me wonder about potential abuse in her past - perhaps things that you don’t know about.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t treat her harshly as she struggles to set up an independant life for herself, this shouldn’t be a punishment, it is simply a transition from something that doesn’t work to something else. I think you should function as a supportive friend during this period, not a parent/caretaker. If you do too much for her she won’t need to learn to do it for herself. It seems from information given that she would be more likely to experience day to day successes with this kind of encouragement/support and gradually might begin to feel better about herself.</p>
<p>Ultimately I’m not sure it matters whether you contact the school/professors about her current papers or not; for those grades to matter she would need to make much personal progress and that will not be an overnight sort of change. You need to focus on taking care of yourself and your husband and keeping the lines of communication open while she finds her way to the simple pleasures of taking care of and valuing herself.</p>
<p>Hugs to you, I’m sure this is incredibly difficult and certainly not what you imagined for your daughter or yourselves. I wish you all luck on your journey back to happiness.</p>
<p>I agree with this and think it is very well put. The D doesn’t need a punishment. All need to sit down to hear what it is she really wants to do. The parents can help encourage and support that and brainstorm next moves and plans (which in my view, would optimally be a job and independent living). The current plan is not working. She needs to be a decision maker as to new plans and there should be a level of financial limitations and boundaries of what is possible and what isn’t on the parent end but the choice of what to do next should rest with her and should be geared toward independence. It really isn’t all about college. This plan is not working and a new plan is needed (also that doesn’t waste money).</p>
<p>“Until some determination can be made as to the motivating factor - brain chemistry vs manipulation, it may be better to err on the safe side.”</p>
<p>The fact that a behavior is prompted by a brain chemistry problem doesn’t really matter that much when it comes to the parents’ reaction to the behavior. Yes, they should pay for treatment for mental illness/addiction if they can afford it. But unless we’re talking about a psychotic situation where the D really doesn’t understand what’s going on, adults with mental illness are still responsible for the consequences of their actions. Tasting those consequences is equally appropriate whether D bailed on the finals due to anxiety or just simple contempt for her parents and their money. If D came to the parents apologizing for her omissions and asking for more intensive treatment, that would be one thing, but she’s not. She’s treating them like trash, and they should not allow her to do that regardless of her brain chemistry.</p>
<p>I was this big a mess in high school, not college, and intensive treatment combined with realistic adult expectations turned things around for me. Coddling me because I was sick would not have pushed me to get better.</p>
<p>Some activities can result in psychosis causing pain resulting in a
strong incentive to stop the activity.</p>
<p>I think that relatives, parents in this case, do have a pretty tough
time dealing with this sort of thing.</p>
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<p>I don’t have enough information to make such a determination.</p>
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<p>Well, some actions to prevent wasting money is recommended. I have
some thoughts on that but I don’t know enough about the family to see
if they have the resources to do that. I also don’t know what the main
issue is in this case. One can speculate but given the things that
I’ve personally seen and experienced, I think that it would be wiser
for me not to speculate.</p>
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<p>There are other supportive approaches besides coddling but I think
that I’ll just wait to see if additional information is forthcoming.</p>
<p>“Some activities can result in psychosis causing pain resulting in a
strong incentive to stop the activity.”</p>
<p>I’m not sure what you mean. By psychosis, I meant running away from school because aliens in the dorm want to eat your brain. THAT mentally ill person is truly not responsible for her actions. Are you referring to the pathological anxiety a student might feel when confronting some scary course or responsibility? Yes, that’s a strong incentive to run away from school. It doesn’t make the running away appropriate or justifiable, and after the fact, the student has a choice to apologize/explain her behavior vs. act callous and selfish toward her family. It certainly doesn’t mean that the consequences of running away (like a bunch of F’s) should be averted.</p>
<p>Possible actions that would count as “coddling” to me would include parental action to get the university to grant extensions on the finals/papers, letting D move back home and party/stay out all night the way she did before, and paying for the spring 2011 semester.</p>
<p>Psychosis can result in hallucinations or delusions. Delusions are where you believe
the hallucinations. So you may be able to understand that they are hallucinations
and try to ignore them because you know that they aren’t real but the things that
they present to you may be painful or cause you great fear. Perhaps this is a brain
response to deal with stress where it tries to get you to stop doing something by
triggering something in your brain that causes fear or other unpleasant emotions.</p>
<p>Perhaps thinking about what soldiers go through may cause a brain reaction to stop
“succeeding” at what they are ordered to do.</p>
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<p>Some of the behavioral problems may or may not be related to the underlying problem.
If she were my daughter, I would probably have her commute to a local university along
with keeping a close eye on what she was doing, how her assignments were going, what
her mood was like, etc. Perhaps a closer view of what she is doing, her mood, if there’s something that sets her off, etc. can reveal the root cause of the behavior.</p>
<p>BC, all good suggestions, and things this mother and father have now been doing for 2 years, with the same general results again and again and again. FYI</p>
<p>Momma-three, it sounds like it is time for you and your H to take care of yourselves, or the stress of worrying about your D will make you both sick. Your story is heartbreaking, and I know as a mother you can’t just let go. I don’t know the details of your D’s situation, of course, but I do know of similar situations personally, and at some point when your child becomes an adult, it’s necessary to release yourself from responsibility. It doesn’t mean you turn her out necessarily, but it does mean that SHE is the one responsible for her life.</p>
<p>“Delusions are where you believe the hallucinations.”</p>
<p>No, many psychotic people have delusions but not hallucinations. This is especially common in psychotic mood disorders (as opposed to schizophrenia, which typically presents with hallucinations). There has been no suggestion at any point that the D has either hallucinations or delusions. If she is psychotic, my expectations would change.</p>
<p>I’ve walked that road when it comes to paralyzing, indescribable, pathological fear. There are appropriate and inappropriate ways for adults to deal with that fear when they experience it. Repeated abandonment of one’s responsibilities, while acting flippant and blase about those responsibilities, is not an appropriate adult reaction.</p>
<p>Momma-three - How are you doing today? Please check in with us. I am worrying about your health - and also your hubby’s. If I was with you, I would give you a big hug, and some chocolate, and just sit and listen.</p>
<p>Sorry for not replying sooner but I have had a migraine for two days and I just could not look at a screen. Our daughter came home and submitted her work. It was completed within minutes without any real thought. I don’t know if it will be accepted or if it was accepted. She leaves today for her weekend away with the boyfriend. She does not have a care in the world and I am crawling to the kitchen to get a cup of tea. I will see the doctor about the migraines and my overall anxiety because I must take care of me or I will never be any good to myself or the rest of the family…and she needs me healthy more than she will ever realize. </p>
<p>As for attending school. We have asked her to take a leave of absence for at least a year now. We do not think she should be attending school at this time of her life because she is not a kid who is being educated she is getting through. I don’t know if that makes sence to you but that is the only way to describe what school is for her. She hates books, papers, and tests but she loves school. She even likes lectures. Years ago she would have been one of those kids that would have worked after highschool but because of the current climate kids that should never be in college continue to plow through. </p>
<p>Today she leaves for her weekend away and I will be going to the doctor to address the lingering migraine now a dull ache…this picture is all wrong. It is a yo-yo and my head is always spinning. Yes…I am seeing a therapist and now I will get a prescription because I need to get myself together so I could see this objectively.</p>