Fear of death - linked to contamination fears?

December 2, 2008

I've been pondering my daughter's OCD all weekend and I have a question for all

of you. One of the " triggers " that began all this and perhaps the main one was

a discussion at my DD's birthday sleepover on Aug. 23 about dying in your sleep.

Everything got worse after that.

All of 's OCD fears center around getting sick and dying, though you

wouldn't automatically know that. But every once in a while, when she's

bothered enough by one of her fears, she will completely succumb to it and blurt

out, " well, I know it's going to kill me! " or " I'm going to die! " . So I feel

this entire problem is linked to this one main fear; I feel this is her true

obsession.

If she's willing to do it, I plan to have her talk to our preacher and just ask

questions about death. Maybe if she can actually talk about it and face it a

little bit, it would help calm it a little, and in a domino effect, help with

the coinciding contamination fears. I remember having a terrible fear of death

myself after my Grandpa died at 13; whenever I would think about it, I would

feel the anxiety rise, but I was able to squash by just refusing to think about

it (total mental avoidance). Apparently, 's not able to do this. She's

also experienced death twice; her uncle (who lived with us right before his

death) died tragically at 34 yrs (Jess was 6); then her Grandma died in 2007

after a bypass surgery and 4-month hospital stay during which I was flying back

and forth between MO and NC whenever I could.

Soooo, has anyone else ever seen this in their child; I mean, one main obsession

leading to the many little ones? And how do you do exposure therapy for the

fear of death??!! Any other ideas for how to address this particular fear?

Debbie

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