New to group and maybe still in denial

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

I am posting because it is becoming clearer and clearer to me

that my 14 year old daughter is suffering from OCD or something

similar. She has always been " high-strung " and, I suppose, I

have wanted to hope that all these " behaviors " were due

exclusively to that. When I say " behaviors " , I mean first the

excessive handwashing that started at age 6 and lasted a few

months then was gone (Whew,

did it really happen? Maybe it will never come back!) During that

period, she was also constantly afraid that she had swallowed

something like poison that might make her die. At that time, I

was involved in some forms of alternative medicine and we

treated her with homeopathy (Did it actually work or, looking

back, was this more the waxing/waning nature of the disorder

itself?) Anyway, for several more years she was relatively free (or

should I say functional?) Oh, there have always been the fears

around her small animals (Has she closed the bird cage?)

and the perfectionism which requires her to take hours to do the

smallest assignments. We overlooked these though, as

outwardly it appeared that she was doing well. She has been a

good student and is very active in extra curricular activities and

sports. She is well liked and has many friends. Now, however,

some of that is changing. This little bit of anxiety that always

appeared around test time or when projects were due has

turned into a massive anxiety which has actually kept her home

ill in order to avoid taking tests. She can't even think about

looking at a page to study or the anxiety increases so much that

she is hyperventilating, crying and screaming. She also has

mentioned that in the past year or so she has had many fears

(that she knows are irrational) regarding pregnancy. She is

afraid to sit or sleep in a bed that her father or another male

relative (child or adult) has slept in because she thinks she may

get pregnant. I have had to reassure her many times that she is

not. (I can say that I am 99.9% sure that she is not sexually

active at this time so that is not an issue). She is extremely

anxious if I try to discuss puberty with her. I am not sure if she

is

menstruating (she says she isn't)...Anyway, I'm not sure how

much of this is OCD and how much is a generalized kind of

anxiety. What I have noticed her doing lately is keeping busy all

the time or at least keeping noise going such as the television,

radio or a telephone to her ear (Isn't much of this normal

adolescent behavior though?) When she isn't occupied with

these things, it seems she is bothered by the anxiety which

causes her to be extremely irritable and angry. She shouts and

screams at me. She is a little better with her dad whom she only

sees a day or so a week (We separated 3 years ago). We were

in counseling for awhile last year. She never liked it and refused

to go any longer. She wants to tune out and I am so worried

about her. Does this sound like OCD, generalized anxiety, both

or something else altogether? I am needing support and help

with how to go about dealing with all of this. I am currently

working two jobs to make ends meet. The counseling last year

drained me financially. Somewhere on the web I read that

oppositional behavior in adolescence may also be a part of

OCD. How do we work with this? She feels that she is not

listened to and I have worked really hard on all the parenting

techniques to improve this. A. has never needed this so far. If

she

refuses at this age to participate in therapy, taking medication,

etc. do I wait and hope it " goes away " again? Have any of you

worked with adolescents with this mind set with OCD? Any help

and/or comments will be appreciated.

Sheri