Hi, New to the site. I have a son that has recently been diagnosed with OCD and depression and would like input from other parents as to ways to deal with this. He has intrusive thoughts and the need to confess everything to me.....Someone please give advice.
I know this is hard on him but it is also hard for me...Thanks
Hi, New to the site. I have a son that has recently been diagnosed with OCD and depression and would like input from other parents as to ways to deal with this. He has intrusive thoughts and the need to confess everything to me.....Someone please give advice.
I know this is hard on him but it is also hard for me...Thanks
Hello Hope,
How old is your son? Mine just turned 17 and he was diagnosed about 1 1/2 years ago with OCD.
Yes, I know it can be hard at first. We knew absolutely nothing about it.
What would you like to know? I will try to help you.
My son did the same thing. Always confessing, always needing reassurance. Is he on meds?
Hey you guys thanks so much for the response as for you pumper how do you deal with the confessing and do you ever just feel hopless? I would really like to talk to you more...My son is 14 will be 15 in about 2 1/2 weeks. He goes to a Phsycologist (sp) once a week and takes 25mg of Zoloft. They started him out on Prozac but the depression got worse and the doctor decided to change his meds.....Thanks for anything you can offer
As to you Broadwaybaby I think it would help him to talk to other people in the same situation. I am a very understanding mom and do not freak out at his confessions but sometimes I think he needs more than just me...Thanks
Hey you guys thanks so much for the response as for you pumper how do you deal with the confessing and do you ever just feel hopless? I would really like to talk to you more...My son is 14 will be 15 in about 2 1/2 weeks. He goes to a Phsycologist (sp) once a week and takes 25mg of Zoloft. They started him out on Prozac but the depression got worse and the doctor decided to change his meds.....Thanks for anything you can offer
As to you Broadwaybaby I think it would help him to talk to other people in the same situation. I am a very understanding mom and do not freak out at his confessions but sometimes I think he needs more than just me...Thanks
Hope,
Do I feel hopeless? Actually hopeless is a mild term for what my wife and I both felt when it first began. If it wasn't for our Faith in God and some help from Church I really do not know what would have happened.
I myself, felt something around me totally out of control that I did not feel we could contain. At one point I feared the loss of my small business and we were just confused.
In the end all came out well and things are nearly 100% around here most of the time.
What I will tell you is this:
Do NOT allow OCD under ANY circumstances control YOU. YOU control it. DO NOT allow it to make you a slave.
In all of this be loving and understanding. Your son cannot help what his mind causes in his intrusive thoughts. A chemical imbalance is what causes this, an overactivity in the Basal Ganglia section of the brain is what the experts believe to be the cause.
The FIRST thing you want to do right away is cut his sugar intake. Most kids love sugar and sugar messes around with insulin and glucose levels in the blood and can actually worsen the overactivity taking place in the brain. If you have a hard time cutting his sugar there is a simple solution. Make sure he has 2 eggs every morning and try to give him high protein meals as best you can. Believe it or not he will not crave sugar as much, actually any desire he has for sugar will drop drastically.
Secondly, answer his questions but if he asks you again and again let him know that you answered that already but be loving with him as well.
I would suggest going to the Library or searching the OCD Foundation for more information. I have found very good books at the library. Find a good doctor that undrstands OCD as many do not (in my opinion).
Cognitive therapy is a good solution as well. We have a course by Lucinda Basset called "Attacking anxiety and depression" that we really like. It has been very helpful at times.
Now, what I will tell you is this. YOU are fine and OCD is NOT hopeless. it IS treatable and with the proper Meds and therapy OCD can be brought under control and you will live a very normal or close to normal life.
The two meds that have the greatest succes for OCD are Anafranil (67% success rate) and Luvox (60% success rate). Others work to but what you want is what works the best for your son. Pay attention to this because you want to try to relieve the symptoms of OCD with the least side affects.
If one does not work after awhile try another until you find the one that does. We were lucky. We tried Anafranil the first time with GREAT success. But it wasn't without its problems entirely because we did not know how to use it and one trick with meds is seeing what works best. BEFORE bed or during the day for dosages?? Can all be confusing. My son uses this before bed and Atvan during the day "if needed". It works absolute wonders. He is 98% most of the time anymore. Right now he is upstairs playing his video games. When I see him acting normal like this or laying his guitar I know he is doing well.
Find your son a hobby, Guitar might work good for him. Set up a table and have a 500-1000 piece puzzle out for him to work on if he gets obsessive thoughts. This helps mine alot.
Most of all Mom, Love your son and let him know that you do. Try not to react to him to harshly. I know it is hard not to get upset at him, we did alot, but it does not help.
In regards to confessing. When my son did this we tried to just refocus his mind on something else.
In other words if he came to us and said something to the affect of that he did something bad and told us what it was and kept obsessing about it, we would have a tendacy to tell him that "it is alright, all of us fail sometimes right? His answer would be always be in agreement, and then we would just tell him, "it is fine, hey why don't you play your guitar for awhile?"
Or, "How about going over and visiting your cousin?" or "Have you fed your dog today"?
Just examples.
And BTW hope, we have found out that having a pet like a dog can be very helpful therapy. My son loves his.
Also keep in mind that OCD can "wax and wane"...in other words in can come and go like seasons. It seems to vary in degrees as well.
Thank you so much you have really been a big help. My son has a dog which he loves more than life itself. He got the dog before the OCD started (I think my son has had OCD of some form since he was a small child but a stressful situation that happened 6 mths ago I believe to have brought on the current problem) and I have noticed that the things he used to pay so much attention to he seems to not focus on as much are care as deeply about doing as he used to.
His intrusive thoughts range from sexual to religous to harm to whatever his mind is stuck on that day and in talking to our pastor sometimes I think they are not educated in this field enough or at all and from what I read the religous part is very common and from a religous stand point they tend to think the devil has a hold of him which is very frustrating to me when he turns to someone at church for answers like "Am I really saved" "something tells me God does not exist and I am the devils child" well with them not being educated about OCD they seem to make the confession part worse because I am a christian but they know more about the Bible than I ever will he wonders am I the one right or them. I try to explain when someone has a heart condition people do not say well thats the devil so why because the OCD is telling you this should they believe the devil has a hold on you....Can you help me here have you had to deal with this?
As for the sexual intrusive thoughts the confessing is difficult for me sometimes.... lol I don't really want to know and I tell him you do not have to tell me this and he simply says but mom I feel better when I do.
I am a single mom and I spend pretty much 24/7 with him aside from work, school and sleep. I guess wait I know that I am afraid to leave him alone or leave him in other peoples care because no one understands him like I do. Even if I did leave him and go do something I am the person he confesses to and he would always have the ok to call me and talk things over. He calls me at lunch from school almost everyday.... somedays he seems ok others he says mom I can't do it anymore....Many days I have no answers we just sit and cry together.. He has said before that he would rather die than be happy. That makes me cry worse. He is in therapy and takes his meds...We have been having pretty good days but sometimes a bad day (a really bad one) come along. The one thing about this illness that is so hard is with his, he feels the need to constantly search his mind from years ago to see if he has done anything wrong and I am afraid that the way OCD tells him to remember a situation is not maybe how it happened what do you think?
Along with OCD and Depression we have teenage hormones Joy Joy!!! Am I gonna make it yes I think so but wow what a bumpy ride....Thanks for listening....
My 10 year old daughter was recently diagnosed with ocd. She has had a lot of intrusive thoughts that have been really hard for me to handle because she too did a lot of confessing to me in the beginning. She is on prozac and respridol. She sees a therapist once a week and is also seeing a psychiatrist. The therapist is very helpful. Right now, instead of confessing to me...she is teaching her other ways of dealing with the thoughts. I know how hard all this is as a mother...if there is any way I can help, just let me know. :-)
It helps a lot to just know that I am not alone dealing with this. His Psycologist helps a lot but that is only once a week the rest is up to me even though his Psy. says call him anytime he is great but I know I have to stay strong for him because he needs me more now than he ever has. It is hard because I have a 12 yr old daughter that I feel like gets pushed to the side alot because my son needs so much of my attention. I try to do little thing with her but it is just me and sometimes it gets hard.
Thank you so much you have really been a big help. My son has a dog which he loves more than life itself. He got the dog before the OCD started (I think my son has had OCD of some form since he was a small child but a stressful situation that happened 6 mths ago I believe to have brought on the current problem) and I have noticed that the things he used to pay so much attention to he seems to not focus on as much are care as deeply about doing as he used to.
His intrusive thoughts range from sexual to religous to harm to whatever his mind is stuck on that day and in talking to our pastor sometimes I think they are not educated in this field enough or at all and from what I read the religous part is very common and from a religous stand point they tend to think the devil has a hold of him which is very frustrating to me when he turns to someone at church for answers like "Am I really saved" "something tells me God does not exist and I am the devils child" well with them not being educated about OCD they seem to make the confession part worse because I am a christian but they know more about the Bible than I ever will he wonders am I the one right or them. I try to explain when someone has a heart condition people do not say well thats the devil so why because the OCD is telling you this should they believe the devil has a hold on you....Can you help me here have you had to deal with this?
As for the sexual intrusive thoughts the confessing is difficult for me sometimes.... lol I don't really want to know and I tell him you do not have to tell me this and he simply says but mom I feel better when I do.
I am a single mom and I spend pretty much 24/7 with him aside from work, school and sleep. I guess wait I know that I am afraid to leave him alone or leave him in other peoples care because no one understands him like I do. Even if I did leave him and go do something I am the person he confesses to and he would always have the ok to call me and talk things over. He calls me at lunch from school almost everyday.... somedays he seems ok others he says mom I can't do it anymore....Many days I have no answers we just sit and cry together.. He has said before that he would rather die than be happy. That makes me cry worse. He is in therapy and takes his meds...We have been having pretty good days but sometimes a bad day (a really bad one) come along. The one thing about this illness that is so hard is with his, he feels the need to constantly search his mind from years ago to see if he has done anything wrong and I am afraid that the way OCD tells him to remember a situation is not maybe how it happened what do you think?
Along with OCD and Depression we have teenage hormones Joy Joy!!! Am I gonna make it yes I think so but wow what a bumpy ride....Thanks for listening....
Hope,
My goodness! Are our sons twins??
I mean, you spoke EXACTLY what my own son has went through in a better way than I.
My son (we feel) also had his problem from a young child and yes, a very tragic even triggered it! His cousin died in a motorcycle accident.
And then he had problems about heaven, wondering if he was saved, wondering if he blasphemed God and could never be forgiven. All STRIKINGLY identical to your own son. Mine had thoughts of hurting himself even though he knew in his heart he never could. Mine also stopped caring about doing things he used to do, he just lost interest and didn't want to go anywhere. He wanted a "safe place". He would obsess and pray for long periods of time trying to communicate with God or hear his voice, hopefully to comfort him.
Quote:
His intrusive thoughts range from sexual to religous to harm to whatever his mind is stuck on that day and in talking to our pastor sometimes I think they are not educated in this field enough or at all and from what I read the religous part is very common and from a religous stand point they tend to think the devil has a hold of him which is very frustrating to me when he turns to someone at church for answers like "Am I really saved" "something tells me God does not exist and I am the devils child" well with them not being educated about OCD they seem to make the confession part worse because I am a christian but they know more about the Bible than I ever will he wonders am I the one right or them. I try to explain when someone has a heart condition people do not say well thats the devil so why because the OCD is telling you this should they believe the devil has a hold on you....Can you help me here have you had to deal with this?
Again, this is EXACTLY what mine has gone through, EXACTLY to the "t".
We have struggled with contradictory answers from the church as well that differ from our own. We had to go in and have a counseling session with one of the Pastors and I explained to him about the condition of OCD. That helped a great deal. You may wish to do this as well , as you are right, alot of those in the Christian realm will blame things like this on the devil which can only complicate the matter for you and your son. Plese take some time and make an appointment with your Pastor and speak to him about this. I believe it will help. With us it did. If your Pastor does not seem to understand then I have a TRUE story about a Pastor who was very hard on his people for coming to him with depression. He always told them that they "needed more faith" or that "they need to read the Bible more" or that "it was just the enemy". Well it just so happens that one day the Pastor could not get out of bed. Something hit him so hard and he didn't know what it was. He was diagnosed with clinical depression. He recieved treatment and had to go back and apologize to everyone he ever offended with his misunderstanding words in deep repentance.
I know, it can be really really hard with religious thoughts. I have to laugh because I at times feel I went through Seminary when I was done answering his obsessional thoughts again and again. I became a book. How can I know that God is real, was one...and lets not even get into evolution. That was a tough one.
The medication was a tremendous help and I believe that you will find that once he is on the RIGHT ONE that these thoughts will greatly diminish and they will be easier for him to handle.
But keep in mind that although the subject of religion can be troubling it also can have a calming affect, for you and him both.
Let me tell you what has happened to us a number of times. Sometimes when we were at Church he would refuse to go in. NOT BECAUSE he did not like church but it was because he was obsessing over a word like "worship" or "religion". So I had to stay in the car with him while my wife went in. A few times we just went home. Finally I discovered how to help it. I would give him an Ativan. WHAT A GODSEND! Within ten minutes he would want to run into church completely free of this obsessive thought. I would tell him that those "words" were no big deal were they? And his response was "Nope". They never hurt me before, and they cannot now! The Ativan is a Godsend, bnelieve me. If you ever get it though use it only on an "as needed" basis. I mean it literally will drown those thoughts out. At least it does for my son.
What you need to start doing hope is to begin to see those thoughts as "junk mail". Explain to him that they are junk mail and not to read them. Have him picture them in his head as an unopened envelope to throw out. Tell him to only read the "good mail".
Whenever my son, if he should get a junk mail thought he now out of the clear blue says "junk mail",,,and then I tell him..."what do you do with junk mail"? and he says "Don't read it and refocus", which he does. Train your son to respond this way. It will help. This is a form of "Cognitive therapy",,, in other words he is restructuring his thinking and training himserlf. There is a book out called "Brainlock" which is supposed to be very good. It might be worth a look into perhaps at the local library.
I am a single mom and I spend pretty much 24/7 with him aside from work, school and sleep. I guess wait I know that I am afraid to leave him alone or leave him in other peoples care because no one understands him like I do. Even if I did leave him and go do something I am the person he confesses to and he would always have the ok to call me and talk things over. He calls me at lunch from school almost everyday.... somedays he seems ok others he says mom I can't do it anymore....Many days I have no answers we just sit and cry together.. He has said before that he would rather die than be happy. That makes me cry worse. He is in therapy and takes his meds...We have been having pretty good days but sometimes a bad day (a really bad one) come along. The one thing about this illness that is so hard is with his, he feels the need to constantly search his mind from years ago to see if he has done anything wrong and I am afraid that the way OCD tells him to remember a situation is not maybe how it happened what do you think?
Along with OCD and Depression we have teenage hormones Joy Joy!!! Am I gonna make it yes I think so but wow what a bumpy ride....Thanks for listening....
Hope, What I can tell you here is that OCD sometimes has no "ryme or reason".
Sometimes it just makes no sense and believe it or not sometimes it is just funny
Yes, we have had several funny moments. Want to know what my son obsesed with the other day? He hit me with iot when I drove in. He said that he had a junk mail thought telling him "that he will never mature". I laughed like a hyenia. In a few moments he laughed to and that junk mail thought passed. He said "Its just junk mail". I said "thats right".
He also was obsessing over "hangar 57". That's a supposably top secret plane hangar that has aliens in it. Again I just laughed and made humor of it and it passed.
Hormones....Yes, they ARE a factor. Sometimes I think they are actually somewhat of a cause. I asked my doctor how my son will be like when he is in his 20's. He gave us some reassuring words. He said that MOST OFTEN dramatic improvements take place and OCD is not as severe. I have been around o the Net and I have found others who suffer from it and they tell me that their OCD improved as they got older.
And BTW, Hope, you sound like a very good and loving caring Mother. Please keep up the good work.
The doc tells me that having a good parent or parents is half the battle. In a sense you could say that God has given you a son like this to make you into a better person. This is what I told my son here.
As for the sexual intrusive thoughts the confessing is difficult for me sometimes.... lol I don't really want to know and I tell him you do not have to tell me this and he simply says but mom I feel better when I do.
I know,sexual thoughts are a tough one. I think that what you will discover is that your son somehow thinks that you have a direct link to God and when he confesses to you he is actually confessing to God himself.
Tell him that it would be better if he confesses that to God himself. If he still insists on confessing it to you just tell him that God has forgiven him. If he asks you how do you know, just tell him that parents just know because God speaks to them in special ways and God would rather that we tell him ourselves.
And on School. You are doing tremendous if he goes to School. We homeschool ours here and we have tossed round and around about sending him to High School but I am just afraid that he will have OCD problems , triggers and so forth.
I sent him to Christian Teen Camp this year for 4 days thinking that we had ALL under control. When He got off the bus (coming back) he come up to me with his lip swollen like someone hit him, in great distress, laid his hand on my shoulder and said" Dad, are you sure you are going to heaven"? He was so obsessed with religious thoughts that it took a good week for me to get him unwound. He said that his thoughts were like a deck of cards and each card had a obsessive thought that he struggled with. The reason he bit, chewed his lip was due to stress.
Knwing what I know now I could have relieved him within a few hours with some Ativan. But I just wasn't sure what to do
I found out later that it was a woman teacher there that claimed one could lose their Salvation. THAT is what triggered him. We were really upset.
But those instances are getting much fewer lately and are even non-existant now or very small because we have learned how to handle the meds and use therapy.
Our lives actually feel normal again.
Panic attacks, anxiety, stress and OCD all go together as well. Its like they "coexist" together.
I wanted to offer you a few words of encouragement here. OCD is really not THAT bad.
I can think and have thought of things much worse.
What you will learn in time is that for a parent OCD is like trying to learn to drive all over again. But once you learn it goes quite smoothly.
Hang in there!
In time you will learn how to use the meds along with therapy and it will become "second fiddle".
You will learn what to watch for and what can trigger things and how to handle it when it does.
In time you may even see humor in it.
We do.
In time you will know when you can leave him alone and when you cannot. We have a system here that when we leave if he has a OCD thought that troubles him greatly he is to go over and see his cousin, who understands. Or his Aunt who is a RN and understands the situation, until we get home. But believe it or not you will learn ALL these things and feel more comfortable and normal. I will be praying for you as well.
Any other questions plase ask, I will help the best I can.
My 10 year old daughter was recently diagnosed with ocd. She has had a lot of intrusive thoughts that have been really hard for me to handle because she too did a lot of confessing to me in the beginning. She is on prozac and respridol. She sees a therapist once a week and is also seeing a psychiatrist. The therapist is very helpful. Right now, instead of confessing to me...she is teaching her other ways of dealing with the thoughts. I know how hard all this is as a mother...if there is any way I can help, just let me know. :-)
Kim
Hello Kim, My 10m year old daughter also has just been diagnosed with OCD and Panic attacks. She is on 2.5 mg of Celexa as she follows her moms genes and is very sensitive to meds. I have a very hard time knowing how to deal with the OCD.........it ranges from health issues to sex to you name it. And she says she feel "guilty" all the time. I feel so bad for her. I deal with panic attacks and my meds are not right at this time so I can relate to the anxiety and panic but the OCD is a little more for me to learn about. I would love it to hear more from you on how you are haveing your daughter treated for this.
HUGS!
I am at work today and will try to respond to your post throughout the day. I too have a lot to say so bare with me. I just wanted to say a quick thank you though for your reply. our sons seem to mirror each other and I so relate to all you have said. I will get back to you today. THANKS A BUNCH you are a big help... Hope
My daughter was just diagnosed in Feb. This year has been really bad for me emotionally so far. For our whole family really. So far this year we have had to deal with our daughters diagnosis, my husband has been laid off from two different jobs and there have been two deaths in the family...one was my husbands grandmother and the other was the suicide of a friend of mine from high school. And this is only April...I keep telling myself things can only get better.
The weekend before Valentines Day, my daughter started showing some strange behavior. One morning she was getting a spoon out of the drawer for her cereal and when she saw a knife in the drawer she told me she had this strange thought that she was going to hurt me with the knife. I was kind of freaked out that a ten year old would say something like that and it struck me as really strange. I didn't really know what to think. In talking to her further...she kept mentioning something that she had seen on tv. I am pretty strict on what kind of programming my kids watch on tv but I guess she caught part of an episode of a show I was watching that had a character on it that had a voice/person in their head that would tell them to hurt people. She kept telling me "It is that soap opera, I can't get it out of my head and it is really bothering me". Well, I didn't know what to think...so I called my Mom for advice. She thought my daughter was just having an active imagination and maybe just doing it for attention. You have to understand...no one in my family has ever been diagnosed with anything like this and we were totally nieve on the subject. So, I let it go.
The next day it was not too bad. She did say a couple out of the way things though. Like that morning she had told my husband that she had this thought in her head that I was going to get breast cancer. I thought that was kind of weird too. Then after thinking about it for a while I realized that the night before my husband and I had caught part of the red carpet thing for an awards show and when my husband saw Melissa Etheridge with out any hair, I explained to him that she was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and was undergoing chemo. Then I started thinking I guess my daughter can't see anything on tv without it causing some sort of problem for her. I still didn't know what to think but I didn't think anything was really wrong with her. I just thought she was going through some sort of stage. Again, totally nieve.
The next day was Feb 15th. She came home from school and had some sort of a break down. She was running back and forth with one thought after another going through her head and then coming out of her mouth. She was like pacing back and forth and sweating. She was saying all she wanted was to get these thoughts out of her head. She was saying things like...I wouldn't kill this person or that person, no I wouldn't hurt my dog, I don't hate God....just all these things. I called my Mom and turned the phone on speaker phone so she could hear what was going on. She agreed there was something definatly going on so she suggested I call her pediatricians office. It was like almost five pm by then but fortunalty a nurse did answer and she told me to take her to this mental health facility. I called my husband at work and told him what was going on and he called the hospital and got her an appt for that evening. We took her in and they admitted her. To be honest, I was still thinking nothing was probably really wrong and part of it was for attention. I was shocked when they kept her for 10 days and we ended up with a diagnosis of ocd. I always thought ocd was just hand washing I had no idea it could entail these other sorts of things.
Right now she is seeing a therapist about once every 7-10 days. Tomarrow will only be our third session but I see a great difference so far with just the two appointments we have had plus the meds she is on. Right now they are working on "mapping" out her obsessions and compulsions. One thing that has been a huge relief for me, and I don't mean to sound uncaring because I do want to know what is going on in my childs mind...is when her therapist told her she only needed to tell me her "thoughts" when she is having a particulary bad day. This was a relief to me because her "thoughts" were causing me great stress.She was telling me all of them and a lot of them had to do with causing me harm which made me really uneasy since I didn't really understand any of this in the beginning. Since finding this board, I realize that this is "normal" I guess for the disorder. That helps a lot too.
I hope you write back and tell me all about you and your daughter. I have searched the internet high and low looking for other parents dealing with this and had given up!
My daughter was just diagnosed in Feb. This year has been really bad for me emotionally so far. For our whole family really. So far this year we have had to deal with our daughters diagnosis, my husband has been laid off from two different jobs and there have been two deaths in the family...one was my husbands grandmother and the other was the suicide of a friend of mine from high school. And this is only April...I keep telling myself things can only get better.
The weekend before Valentines Day, my daughter started showing some strange behavior. One morning she was getting a spoon out of the drawer for her cereal and when she saw a knife in the drawer she told me she had this strange thought that she was going to hurt me with the knife. I was kind of freaked out that a ten year old would say something like that and it struck me as really strange. I didn't really know what to think. In talking to her further...she kept mentioning something that she had seen on tv. I am pretty strict on what kind of programming my kids watch on tv but I guess she caught part of an episode of a show I was watching that had a character on it that had a voice/person in their head that would tell them to hurt people. She kept telling me "It is that soap opera, I can't get it out of my head and it is really bothering me". Well, I didn't know what to think...so I called my Mom for advice. She thought my daughter was just having an active imagination and maybe just doing it for attention. You have to understand...no one in my family has ever been diagnosed with anything like this and we were totally nieve on the subject. So, I let it go.
The next day it was not too bad. She did say a couple out of the way things though. Like that morning she had told my husband that she had this thought in her head that I was going to get breast cancer. I thought that was kind of weird too. Then after thinking about it for a while I realized that the night before my husband and I had caught part of the red carpet thing for an awards show and when my husband saw Melissa Etheridge with out any hair, I explained to him that she was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and was undergoing chemo. Then I started thinking I guess my daughter can't see anything on tv without it causing some sort of problem for her. I still didn't know what to think but I didn't think anything was really wrong with her. I just thought she was going through some sort of stage. Again, totally nieve.
The next day was Feb 15th. She came home from school and had some sort of a break down. She was running back and forth with one thought after another going through her head and then coming out of her mouth. She was like pacing back and forth and sweating. She was saying all she wanted was to get these thoughts out of her head. She was saying things like...I wouldn't kill this person or that person, no I wouldn't hurt my dog, I don't hate God....just all these things. I called my Mom and turned the phone on speaker phone so she could hear what was going on. She agreed there was something definatly going on so she suggested I call her pediatricians office. It was like almost five pm by then but fortunalty a nurse did answer and she told me to take her to this mental health facility. I called my husband at work and told him what was going on and he called the hospital and got her an appt for that evening. We took her in and they admitted her. To be honest, I was still thinking nothing was probably really wrong and part of it was for attention. I was shocked when they kept her for 10 days and we ended up with a diagnosis of ocd. I always thought ocd was just hand washing I had no idea it could entail these other sorts of things.
Right now she is seeing a therapist about once every 7-10 days. Tomarrow will only be our third session but I see a great difference so far with just the two appointments we have had plus the meds she is on. Right now they are working on "mapping" out her obsessions and compulsions. One thing that has been a huge relief for me, and I don't mean to sound uncaring because I do want to know what is going on in my childs mind...is when her therapist told her she only needed to tell me her "thoughts" when she is having a particulary bad day. This was a relief to me because her "thoughts" were causing me great stress.She was telling me all of them and a lot of them had to do with causing me harm which made me really uneasy since I didn't really understand any of this in the beginning. Since finding this board, I realize that this is "normal" I guess for the disorder. That helps a lot too.
I hope you write back and tell me all about you and your daughter. I have searched the internet high and low looking for other parents dealing with this and had given up!
Take care and I would love to hear your story!
Kim
Kim I can relate to the stress of the thoughts. My daughter gets the same ones or ones that she is scared she may kill herself and not know it or that I am going to get sick or die. So sad
Can I ask what medication they have her on? How old is she again? We have been to therapy but the first on was a waste of time. Just started with a new on and only been 2 x but no difference there.
Thanks for the story anhd hugs to you as you are dealing with quite alot
She is on respridol and prozac. These seem to be working really well for her. I guess we got lucky there...also her therapist is awesome. I read somewhere that it can take a while to find the right one. I guess we got lucky on that point too. I think the one she sees specializes in ocd...maybe that helps.
She is on respridol and prozac. These seem to be working really well for her. I guess we got lucky there...also her therapist is awesome. I read somewhere that it can take a while to find the right one. I guess we got lucky on that point too. I think the one she sees specializes in ocd...maybe that helps.
Kim
Hi Kim,
Can you tell me how the Resperidol affect her? What is her dosage? I know it can cause alot of weight gain and make you really tired.
