So I have posted here before about the challenges of my 23 year old daughter. Quick recap she has non-verbal learning disorder and along with it (almost always with this dx) significant anxiety. She is gifted in IQ (according to her now very old neuropsych evaluation) – but the executive function defecits and slow processing speed along with the fine motor skills issues (writing especially) seem top do her in. In HS she had 504 accomodations for these although getting compliance was a full time job for me. She graduated with good grades and nice scholarship at the honors college at West TX A&M.
She tried to go to but couldn’t hack it. She came home after the first year with only about 9 credits having been tossed off the equestrian team for poor grades and moved out of the honors college dorm – most of which I didn’t know at the time. It was doubly hard on her because right at that same time her father and I were going through an extremely contentious divorce which I didn’t see coming at all. She started refusing meds because she said she felt like a zombie – maybe the psych doctor got a bit too much with it all - depression meds, ADD meds (2 of them). I don’t really know.
She moved in with my ex and did a few other classes here and there, did well in some and not in others (community college). Then she moved out on her own. (also did a couple classes here and there successfully and some not so successfully). She refuses to live with my ex and she isn’t all that interested in being with me because I live in another state (not where she grew up). Both ex and I agree that she has a better chance of being successful in school if she doesn’t have the stress of trying to live on her own on top of it (and the job commitment and money commitment it takes) but no matter how many consequences we let her have (natural ones) she will not change her mind on that. She claims to me that her fathers house is too anxiety producing for her. I don’t know how true that is but I can ‘see’ it in a way. Even my younger neuro typical girls say that sort of thing when they visit for relatively short periods of time there.
She is so determined to live on her own that she has been in motels, by herself, with friends, with a boyfriend – and she does keep picking herself up and moving on every time something goes wrong (and it so does all the time). I have to give her kudos for persistence and resiliency.
About a month ago, she landed a new gig managing the stables at a quarter horse barn (that is what she knows well) and as a part of the pay she gets an apartment with utilities and all that. The barn owner (whom I am familiar) is a nice guy and knows her and her local horse history. She seems GOOD at this kind of work. Her boyfriend abruptly moved out after a fight which I now know was over missing money (apparently he had a history of drug abuse - I didn’t know this of course). I went to see her and I felt so sorry for her – trying so hard to pick up the pieces and move on. She kind of did all the right things by taking his name off accounts, shutting down his phone etc. so she wouldn’t get killed more financially than what they were already fighting about. It seems to me the drugs are back but she doesn’t know that for sure. But he left, never came back and the apartment/job is hers.
So she is 4 classes short of an associates in Animal Science, she has apparently visited admissions at UConn and if she matriculates this fall she won’t lose all the credits (some are getting oldish) and can take part time as a commuter student. The barn owner is all for allowing her the flexibility to go to class. She agreed to take a light anxiety med again and start counseling (I said I would pay the co-pays) and wants to try and finish the credits and then see what happens.
A few state university classes are probably not going to kill me financially - but I also probably do need to get her a new evaluation so she can get some needed accomodations. I am seriously considering going ahead and paying for all that – it won’t be easy, I am putting several other kids through college right now and my retirement looks fairly bleak (divorce settlement ouch).
She cannot keep doing what she is doing - no career path or job growth opportunities. She is saying if she gets a 3.0 she will automatically be accepted to the BS Animal Science program there and when she turns 24 can probably apply for financial aid on her own.
Am I crazy to give her yet another chance?