And do you think you could fix them all?
I think our experiences vary according to the particular colleges and also the problems that caused the withdrawal in the first place. It really helps to be registered with disabilties office and the range of issues that qualifies is sometimes a surprise after the fact.
Bopper I like this:
It is more important to have good physical and mental health rather than attending college in a linear fashion.
Even if formal withdrawals don’t work out, I think that taking a leave of absence will help the future in many ways Other colleges (and even employers) will see that the student took the situation seriously enough to leave, took action to improve, and then an eventual return to classes with success will be seen as a “turnaround” and meet with approval (and admission).
And it avoids further payments- and debt! Paying while a kid is failing is really not good. Kids with debt who do not finish and have failure on their transcripts can paint themselves, and their families, in a corner.
Leaving school may mean a bumpy patch. Stay positive in your relationship with your daughter as much as possible and have faith that it can work out!!
What I see here is that your daughter is in the middle of figuring out who she is. That never comes without a certain amount of upheaval.
I think you should focus on a few things that you can actually do something about, rather than trying to “fix” your daughter top to bottom. I would address the fact that she told your husband that she’s feeling stressed about seeing you. If she’s going through (or might be about to go through) any mental or emotional issues, it’s very important that she feel she can confide in her parents. I know that therapy isn’t something you can just order like a pizza, but would you have time to find a family therapist, and have the initial intake appointment, between now and when she comes home for Christmas, just so the two of you can have one or two sessions while she’s home over break? Remember, the idea behind this is not to address every issue your D might have right now – just for the two of you to be able to talk through your own relationship so that she can feel comfortable seeing you and communicating with you again. Fixing that relationship may have a helpful effect on other aspects of what’s going on with her.
With regard to her grades, I really think I would let her deal with whatever happens and the consequences from it. It sounds to me like she really did try to get back on the right track over the summer after getting that wake-up call in spring – but she was too ambitious with her class schedule, and then she started hanging out with these non-college friends, and it just wasn’t possible to do well academically under those circumstances.
I would talk to her over break, not in a judgmental way, but just laying out the facts for her. She can’t be both an ambitious, competitive college student taking a hard courseload, and a partier who only focuses on getting tattoos and piercings, scoring weed, etc. Don’t tell her that the first lifestyle is the good one and the second lifestyle is the bad one – just that they are simply incompatible. So she needs to figure out whether she wants to have one or the other, or somewhere in between. She can take a less rigorous courseload next semester, see her new friends less often, and remind herself that there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything her friends do and also succeed in class, so she’ll have to restrict herself to only going out or only hanging out with them one night per weekend, or something like that.
Do NOT threaten to quit paying tuition and bring her back home! That would be the worst thing for her from what I can tell. Like I said, she’s figuring out who she is. Being a lesbian doesn’t have to mean smoking a lot of weed and getting home-made tattoos (which I agree with you is scary, but that is not something you can control!). Right now this is what looks to her like How To Be A Lesbian, but as she meets more people in the LGBT+ community she will realize that there are a lot of ways to be lesbian and they don’t all involve flaunting your countercultural cred all over the place.
If she gets put on academic probation as a result of her grades, I agree with @compmom – you don’t have to make her come back home to live. A job at Big Coffee (love that) will probably not pay her rent, so yes, you will have to in part subsidize a lifestyle you don’t approve of. But in the long run she is FAR more likely to get back on track and get back into classes again if she is living on/near campus, still seeing her student friends, maybe taking part in campus activities, than if you bring her back home where she will have no friends since they’re presumably all off at college. Remember, your job is not to punish her, it’s to make it possible for her to ultimately succeed.
Oh, and this:
Even if she was forced to do it, it’s still a good step. And drug and alcohol counseling often addresses things like depression and anxiety, since often times drug taking is basically kids self-medicating for their emotional issues. So she is getting at least some kind of therapy at school.
Also, I forgot to address the other point that I think you can try to address at this point (in addition to trying to “fix” your mother-daughter relationship), which is her financial debt to you. Would she agree to having a regular monthly transfer from her bank account to yours, to pay back the loan she owes you? Again, you need to keep this free of any moral judgment about how she shouldn’t be spending her money on weed and booze. (Yes, she shouldn’t, but you can’t control her actions there.) You said yourself that it’s not good for her emotionally to know that she owes you that debt, so getting that taken care of is important.
Ultimately, she will either take on the responsibility of modifying her lifestyle so that she’s not damaging her own chances of success, or she won’t (or she will eventually, but not before she’s made a lot of choices that will put you into despair). But she’s the one who has to make that effort. All you can do is try to make circumstances as propitious for her to do that as possible.
@dustypig, you’ve said a lot here that resonates. Thanks.
For what it’s worth: she has a meeting with her dean tomorrow (I also spoke to her dean, a very warm and helpful woman), had a meeting with the health center today, and is registering with disability services. All points to the likelihood that she will be granted a medical withdrawal from the class she is in danger of failing. She seems to be breathing a lot easier now.
We’ll be having some serious discussions over break, but for now we do not want to add to her considerable stress during finals.
I want to thank everyone who has commented here. It’s wonderful to have this support and sounding board, and some of the suggestions given her have been really helpful. Thank you!
Even though your posts are not short, it is still hard to figure out what is really going on, whether there is a serious situation or just, as dusty pig said, a bumpy “finding oneself.” Only you and your daughter and those close to the situation, and privy to details, can decide if experiencing consequences or starting with a clean slate is the best course. Dustypig makes a lot of good points. Chances are this really will work out. And also remember that sometimes the kids who have the closest connection to their mom have to move the furthest away to separate- so some of her desired distance may actually be a compliment 
When reading through these posts, I started thinking about an academic dean who handled withdrawals, probation, and so on a campus where I worked. Of course, parents need their student’s signed permission for them to speak to the dean or the comparable on-campus person. This campus individual has been there and done that more times than you could count and has learned the various options that are available to students, and parents.
I think the comparable individual on your daughter’s campus is someone you and she should be talking to about what to do now and what to do in the upcoming semester/future. You do need a professional to sort through and even treat whatever mental health issues or family stress you are experiencing. However, you also need someone with clear knowledge and a good heart (or s/he would have sought other positions) to walk you and your student through the cold, hard facts and options your daughter has. It is also important to separate immediate issues from long-term concerns.
Something that has been alluded to, but not extensively addressed, is you and your daughter’s understanding, feelings and knowledge of her situation. The circumstances you describe rarely result in full disclosure and complete honesty for all kinds of reasons. While there may be overlap, there is also the likelihood that you and your daughter are working with limited or even incorrect information.You all need time to meet, talk, yell, cry, laugh, and go through a wide range of emotions as you seek common understanding about what’s happening.
Resolution will take time. effort and love on everyone’s part.
Hi cathrineholm,
So sorry you are going through this. As the parent of a freshman d. with an eating disorder who was diagnosed in November, I sympathize. Our decision was to take our d. out of school in early December and have her take a MLOA and get W’s on her transcript for now. She is in residential treatment and we are hoping she will be able to get into a strong recovery. Her health is the most important thing. We took her out before her vitals became compromised although she was at an unhealthy weight. Luckily D. admitted that she needed help and this is a very important step for her. She is in an excellent treatment center and so far is compliant and reports are that she is doing well.
College will be there when she is able to attend. If she is still struggling when the MLOA is about to expire we will recommend that she apply to schools nearer to home so that we can support her in her ongoing recovery while giving her an appropriate amount of freedom and independence. And yes, we will lose some money and that is a bitter pill for us. D. was on a partial scholarship which was very generous but we lost the money we paid for her room and board this past semester. And the fact that she is on a scholarship also meant that if she was unable to focus on her classes because she was underweight and did poorly academically, her scholarship could be compromised and we might not be able to afford to send her to her dream school even if she did get well. So it was better to take her out. The school will let her return and redo the classes and hold the scholarship and tuition we paid for her. Kind of like a reboot. This will not affect her standing. They were very nice about the situation and I appreciated it. I’m sure they have seen it before.
So sad since she did so much hard work to get into a great college and was happy with her choice and her roommates and classes. She was a really exceptional student in HS and it is certainly a big disappointment for us to see her struggling and to accept that her life’s path may be different than we previously thought and include a serious mental health diagnosis. However we are sure we did the right thing for her.
I’m sure by now you and your D. are further along in the decision making process necessary to help her. Will she be taking spring semester off to focus on her recovery?
Best wishes
Palmra