my adult daughter who is over 40, single and cannot hold a job, is constantly late, has difficulty with cleaning her spaces, delays her medical care, etc... and cannot support herself.
She refuses to apply for benefits and is extremely resistant to behavioral therapy relying only on her medication. What do I do? I live in NY.
The first thing is to get her into counseling with a Psychologist. Unfortunately, based on what you gave said. I doubt she will go. It would be helpful for you to seek counseling to learn how to deal with her. Is her behavior sudden ? If not, there is much more to this than ADHD alone. You need to give her a deadline to get help or move out. I know this is difficult and painful for a parent. But if she no reason to get help, she won't. Depending on where you live she may or may not be eligible for government benefits. She is not disabled according to government requirements. For SNAP, she will have to look for work, work or be in a training program a set number of hours a week. She does not qualify for cash welfare benefits because she has no children.
She moved out 15 years ago and then was homeless. I have her in an apartment snd pay everything, she does minor jobs just to cover her food and gas only.
Is she aware enough or feel secure enough to ask you for help? It’s a weird thing but having your parents help you can paradoxically make you feel incompetent and as if you’re still a child. And you as the mother probably feel both worried and frustrated.
All I can suggest is to just keep telling her how much you love her and believe in her. Listen and try to paraphrase what she tells you and ask if you have understood her right. Let her know you’re always willing to help, or to brainstorm along with her to make plans if it would help.
I find it hard and need help breaking big tasks Into steps to avoid getting overwhelmed. Without a happy vision for what I want to do (vs just survive), I’m not “interested” which means it’s extremely hard to rally my mind and focus on the necessary steps to get a job. So I end up either waiting until the fear hits (ex: taxes due tomorrow!! Rent going up!! Friend visiting so now I clean the entire apartment in two hours!!) or I find an inspiring idea.
I assume your daughter has been diagnosed with ADHD by a qualified medical provider? (So many peeps are self diagnosing and don’t realize the many other possible causes of similar symptoms. Or that they might have more than one thing going on: leaning disabilities, untreated depression, anxiety, PTSD, or even a personality disorder in some cases.
she is aware and goes to a counselor and won't tell me who or where. She frequently runs out of her medications and skips appointments. I every family event means she will be
How do you really know she is seeing a counselor? If she is, obviously she is not receiving the help she needs. Is her doctor that prescribed her medication a psychiatrist or primary care doctor? If it is a primary care doctor. She Really needs to see a psychiatrist. Primary care doctors have little education and training in mental health. Do you know the medications she is taking ? It sounds like she is probably not receiving the right medication.
Does she have friends or interests ? What does she do all day. If you are supporting. you have a right to know certain things. You need to realize this situation has gone on for many,many years and finding the way out of it will take a lot of time. I assume she has Medicaid since she is not working. Unfortunately, in most areas Medicaid does not have quality providers due to low reimbursement rates.
If she does have other conditions, such as depression or ASD (autism spectrum disorder), which contribute to her struggles, then it is more likely that she would qualify for disability assistance or other support programs.
Sadly, no matter how severe ADHD a person has, it's often not recognized for how debilitating that it is for some people.
My hunch is she might have additional diagnoses aside from ADHD. As disabling as ADHD can be, it’s not that common for someone to be homeless and completely incapacitated & unable to support themselves. That makes me suspect something else like ASD, substance use disorder, other chronic mental health conditions. Unfortunately unless she has insight into her difficulties or mom allows her to hit rock bottom by no longer supporting her financially, I don’t know anything will change. Which is a devastating situation for everyone.
Hi there, for some reason part of your reply to me got cut off. Maybe you can reply again or edit to finish your thought?
It sounds as if she wants privacy about the details of her treatment. Maybe you can ask her to go to family therapy with you, so you can both learn how to communicate better? Think couples therapy but two adults with a different relationship.
Edit: I meant that you’re in a bind - and your daughter doesn’t seem to hear you. One way to encourage a person to listen is to listen to them. Be the humble warrior who admits her own communication isnt working for both of you. Daughter might be willing to attend if she feels you need to work on yourself. Then, she might start to open up more and actually hear you. It’s very hard especially after all your time and stress!
As an adult, she is allowed to make her own decisions, even if you don’t agree with them. Unless she wants to change or improve circumstances, I don’t think there’s much you can do. And even people with serious mental health disorders (untreated) can’t be forced into treatment unless they’re a danger to themselves or others. Even then, they have to meet certain criteria. I would honestly get counseling on setting boundaries and grieving what you envisioned vs reality for your daughter. Or else you may be suffering for many years watching her struggle. I’m very sorry you’re dealing with this.
Yes, everything you wrote is just the painful truth. Trying to set expectations for someone else, and then spinning your own wheels bc that person isnt interested in those expectations is very unproductive. It hurts you deeply and has little effect on the person u are trying to force to change. Jordan P talks about this predicament people find themselves in. He says we have 3 choices. 2 which are good and 1 that is damaging for everyone.
1. Accept the person exactly as they are, enable them to the degree that you can live with n be okay with bc it matches your value system and stop trying to change them
2. love the person from a distance and cut them out of your life because it interrupts your own peace way too a point and having contact with this person us intolerable and sucks all the joy from your own life
3. is the unhealthy choice and what you are currently doing😢
i am sorry that u are going thru this. i hope you have a support system to help you with whatever choice you make. i think knitting20 is spot on about getting help for yourself to grieve what you envisioned vs what you have. ❤️
I am struggling with this myself with a family member whose behavior stresses me out daily. So I am trying to follow my own advice, too. It is incredibly difficult but I don’t want to ruin myself and my quality of life. So hard.
your own advice is so on point!!! what our brain knows and what our heart accept are sometimes VERY different. thats the burden of being human.❤️
Maybe your daughter doesn't fully accept her ADHD diagnosis. Maybe she thinks it gives her a reason not to try more. Maybe she's more interested in pursuing other things than taking charge of her own life. (It's hard to say, not being close to the situation.)
Adult children can be difficult to deal with. I have a son (age 21) who seems to have all the same ADHD traits that I have, as severely as I have. He was 18 when I got diagnosed. I've tried to convince him to get evaluated, too. He's trying to find his own way in life, after he had a good enough scholarship to pay most of his way through college, but he left after just one year.
(He works two part time jobs, both for the same employer. He says he likes it. He's somehow getting by. That's good, because I can't do anything to support him right now, yet I worry about him a lot because I know how difficult life was for me at his age.)
But for your daughter and my son, I have the same answer. They won't change unless they want to change.
----
Knowing that your daughter is 40 got me reflecting on my own ADHD journey, but in reverse.
I was diagnosed three years ago, at 45 years old, with "mild-to-moderate" ADHD, which in hindsight I would definitely say leans strongly towards "moderate". I was diagnosed when it seemed quite severe, but that was because I had severe anxiety at the same time.
Treating the anxiety (with counseling & medication) brought my ADHD traits severity back down to my normal levels, and then treating the ADHD for the first time ever helped me get my life under control.
At 45, I was finally ready to consider that my many struggles though life were due to ADHD. In fact, by then, I was sure of it.
At 40, I was open to the idea that I had ADHD, but was still on the fence, thinking that I could somehow figure myself and my struggles out on my own.
At 35, I'd have resisted the suggestion that I have ADHD.
At 25, I'd have flat out refused to consider the idea that I have ADHD.
I had to take a long look at myself and my struggles, going back to age 6, and be completely honest with myself about how much I struggled. When I was a kid, I hid the fact that I kept forgetting to do my homework at home, and scrambled to get it done before class when it was due. In college, I struggled more.
In career, I could keep a job, but it's been slow going to advance, until I finally got diagnosed and started getting treatment for my ADHD. Now, my struggles are much more mild, but I still struggle. Embracing my ADHD is probably the best thing I've ever done for myself.
my mother cut the purse strings on me when I was 28, it worked, I’m now a self employed upholsterer and have been for over twenty years, I enjoy it immensely!
ADHD, ASD, OCD and DYSLEXIA.
Sometimes that's exactly what's needed.
My parents hadn't gotten to that point, and I was still living with them when I got married, at 26. I was married for 20 years until my wife filed for divorce, and while I was the primary wage earner for most of that time and sole wage earner for part of it... I'd forget to pay the bills. I relied on my wife to do so.
Now, as a single dad, I have had to figure out how to pay the bills and plan a menu. I'm still figuring out how to run a household on my own, while working full time and with custody of my kids half the time.
I'm surviving; sometimes thriving.
• ADHD (Dx'd at 45 in 2020)
• Anxiety (recurring, possibly GAD)
• Depression (occasional)
Cool career! What a great skill and talent to have.
PS I don’t mean to sound harsh or like what I’m suggesting is easy. I have family members who have suffered for decades watching their son, now in his late 40s, flounder. They are aging, still supporting him financially, enabling maladaptive behavior (I’m not saying at all that you are doing this), stressed out and on a chronic emotional roller coaster into their 70s with this messy situation. I’m sure you already know people in similar life circumstances. I will be in a lifelong caregiving role for my child with disabilities. These situations are very difficult and unpredictable. And finding a toolbox of coping skills now will probably be valuable because if your daughter has executive functioning deficits and lacks insight, that combination is unlikely to improve overnight. Her counselor may not exist or may understand perfectly what’s going on.
I just now put 2+2 together and realized you must have had a difficult Mother’s Day. Many hugs to you!
The key thing here is the perception of ‘ adult child’ whilst I get the person you birthed will always be your child to you, they are not an adult child they are an adult. There are a number of replies suggesting what you need to make them do; you can’t make them do anything as an adult with capacity. Some of the replies whilst I’m sure are well meant are very matriarchal/patriarchal.
If you are supporting financially or in other ways and you no longer wish to do that, then that is something you can withdraw, however expecting them to fit with what and how you feel about their approach to life is sadly never going to have a happy ending. Having capacity allows us to make decisions that others may views as unwise.
Two out of three of my adult sons have issues with dependency on drugs/alcohol, ADHD, and poor social skills and refuse counseling or medication. But I am grateful that they are self-supporting. I'm 74 years old. But the phrase, "Having a kid is like having your heart walking around outside your body" is still valid. Moms always worry, and moms want to fix things for their kids. Sigh. That being said, the only thing you can do is take care of YOU, and therapy or Al-anon or some other program thru NAMI might be helpful. Radical acceptance is hard work, but life-sustaining. I hope you get the support YOU need to deal with this issue. Some things in life we just have to accept. There are no simple answers. Grieving the loss of what we hoped for our children seems never ending, but I am doing better at that now. I hope this for you as well.
That quote is so true. Parenthood is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I really admire you for powering through that stuff. My husband and I are climbing that mountain daily. The chronic amorphous grief is very hard and unless other parents have been through it, they don’t understand. I’m sure everyone goes through something similar eventually, but not necessarily when their kids are young like our family has. Your post is inspiring me to keep going. Thank you and best wishes.
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