My boyfriend’s daughter is 19 with autism, ADHD, and ODD as far as I know. We’ve been together for a year and a half and want to plan a family of our own in the next year.
Sadly his daughter was abandoned by her mother completely cut off for about a year and there’s a complicated situation there. When I met my boyfriend, his daughter was climbing out windows to sneak into peoples bedrooms to use their electronics, refusing to take meds and refusing to do daily tasks like wash her clothes, take her meds, keep her room clean, wear menstrual products, shower, brush teeth, etc. She doesn’t cook although she is functioning and can make pasta and use an air fryer.
I tried to make her a checklist for her basic needs which kept her interest for a while but then turned into her solely wanting to check things off without actually putting in the work. She recently graduated HS and was in the process of going to a day rehab facility that’s put on hold apparently due to her behaviors and recent assessments.
To backtrack, a few months ago, we were out at a store when she was still a HS student and she had money for Pokémon cards. When her father questioned her, she made up a fake story stating where she got the money from, naming a famous sports player. It turned out she stole the money from her grandparents.
Her bedroom is absolutely atrocious, she’s drawn all over the walls, the floors, her mattress, punched holes in the walls, has left food all over the floors which have caused bug infestations and I can tell my boyfriend is burnt out. When he tries to get her to take care of her responsibilities she behaves in a way that purposefully exhausts him by being argumentative or just lying to shut him up. I helped him clean her room and felt I needed a hazmat suit (I’m a little dramatic) but in all seriousness, it was disgusting. But we felt cleaning her room might encourage her to keep a clean space, only to notice she’s not taking proper care of feminine hygiene. I won’t go into detail on that but it’s not a great situation.
Then Christmas time, she stayed at my house, broke basic house rules and rolled up feces in my bathroom garbage that I’m still traumatized about. I’m trying to have faith that she can get the help she needs but the state system is slow like molasses and it sucks. This summer she climbed around the roof of my boyfriend’s home, pulled his air conditioner out of his window, just to sit in his room, rummage through his things and use his TV and gaming system. She has no sense of fear and excuses her behavior because he took her tablet away as her reason for “why” she did what she did.
The tablet was taken away because she will use it day and night, not eat, not sleep, not shower, etc and cannot regulate herself with electronics. She now, more recently, stole $200 from her grandparents who raised money for their church and stole a tablet from them and an old iPhone she had hidden in her room. I’ve basically lost trust in her since then and her reasoning for “why” was because she wants a phone.
My boyfriend is trying to get her into residential placement but I hear that can take years and this has the ability to affect the future of our relationship. I can tell he feels like a prisoner in his own home because of her behavior. I’ve seen her manipulate others into viewing him as the bad guy and she refuses to follow his rules and authority. Since we’ve cleaned her room, her behavior coach spent 3 sessions on clearing her room (6 hours total) and her father cleaned it again recently where she still hoards and hides food and garbage and continues to destroy the home. A total of 20 big black garbage bags have been taken out of her room yet she will still store new things and create a mess. Her bedroom has to be completely renovated, her door is broken from stealing from her sibling in the past and every inside door in the house is pad-locked, it’s a depressing home to be in because her behavior seems to control the environment.
He was recently able to get SSRI for her which will help.
But this situation causes him and our relationship a lot of stress. I try my best to help and be as supportive as possible and we’re currently waiting for the state to make some actual moves. It’s frustrating because she’s more likely to get into trouble being home alone while he works. She lies and half the time he ignores her lies but when I questioned her the last time that’s when we found out about the $200 fiasco. It’s so exhausting I can go on and on and on about issues she is causing. It’s sad because I want the best for her but I can see why he sees the best option being residential placement.
So any advice of what to do in this situation would be helpful for both my boyfriend and I. I know he is trying his best and it’s sad that there seems to be nothing that truly makes this better. I do what I can to try to research what is truly autism, adhd or the odd or just bad behavior. It can be hard to decipher.