New here- 11 year old DD diagnosed with OCD and Anorexia

[Guest guest]

Hi there. My name is and I joined about 2 weeks ago. I have

been reading the posts and have gotten some good information. It's

nice to know that I am not the only one going through this, but wish

that none of us had to.

Just a little hx of my daughter. My daughter is one of those kids

that is a perfectionist and sees things as very black and white. When

she was in preschool she was worried that her teacher was going to

jail because she had a kid and was not married.

I did not notice the OCD for what it was for quite a few years. In

First grade she started not wanting to ride the bus. She would freak

out and refused to get on it. She did fine at school once she was

there but I guess looking back she was worrying about what could

happen. Mostly now she tells me her fears were about something

happening to me while she was at school.

Other signs that I still did not pick up on were that she would be in

a class such as gymnastics, doing fine, nothing going wrong, but all

of a sudden out of nowhere she would not want to go and have a

complete panic attack. To the best of my knowledge I believe this

happened when she felt that she was not the best in the class. When

she was in a class where the majority of the kids were younger she

did fine- but when there was varing levels of skill and she was not

in the higher skilled end she would feel anxiety.

She has always been a people pleaser.

About four years ago on a summer retreat with my church worship group

my son who was about 5 at the time, got sick and threw up on his

sleeping bag. For over a year my daughter would not get anywhere near

that sleeping bag. It was contaminated in her mind, even after it had

been washed several times, she was certain she would get sick from

it. That winter her hands were chapped and since it was winter I

assumed that it was from the wind and cold weather. But one day she

was taking a shower and I asked her why she was taking another shower

because she had showered earlier that day. She said she was afraid of

getting sick. That is when it clicked on about her hands and she

admitted that she was washing compulsively.

We started seeing a counselor and by the end of the year she seemed

to be fine for the most part. She was doing well for awhile and then

was in a car accident with her grandparents (my inlaws)- it was not

too bad but it caused a lot of mental trauma for my daughter and she

went into other ocd behaviors and fears and still to this day does

not want to be alone with the inlaws because she is afraid something

bad will happen. Her grandparents would never intentionally hurt her,

but they do have poor judgement and my MIL says things that are

inappropriate to say to a child and things that make my daughter

stressful. That is another story but for example, after my daughter

returned from a trip out of state to visit my parents, my MIL asked

my daughter if she had a good time with her Nana and when Kaitlyn

said Yes, she said something to the effect of " Well i guess you don't

like it here in the country anymore " . Just things that make my

daughter feel guilty.

She started seeing the counselor again to deal with the car accident

anxiety. Fear of travelling a certain distance from home. etc. then

and that was the summer before 3rd grade. During the school year

another thing that happened is she started to beg to be homeschooled.

I would ask if anything happened at school that I should know about.

The answer would always be no. She was doing fine with school (always

has been a good student)- had friends. etc. When I would tell her

teacher she had anxiety they could not believe it. She would hide it

well at school and it would come out at home. She would do well

during the week and during the weekend she would get more and more

upset about returning to school on Monday. Finally in April I agreed

to homeschool. So, I pulled both kids out of school and started to

homeschool. In September I put my son back in school and Kaitlyn was

still getting counseling from the accident. Around February she was

starting to say she really did want to go back to school in Jr High-

but I said that if she went to public school for 6th- then she should

go to 5th grade and then because I was dealing with depression of my

own, and felt we werent doing enough schooling we both decided that

she would go back to school. So, she entered into the 4th grade and

now is in the 5th and as far as school is concerned she loves it and

does not really have any anxietys about school. She stopped seeing

the counselor by the end of the school year.

Then this last summer towards the end of summer I noticed that she

was exercising a lot. She is a very thin girl and never has had a

weight problem. I was noticing that she was being compulsive about

it. She had to walk a certain amount of times around the cul-de-sac,

lift a certain amount of reps of weights,etc. School started and she

continued this routine. I did not notice that she was eating so very

little and really did not notice a sudden weight loss. I was

concerned with the obsessive nature of the exercise. I told her it

was fine to exercise but when she felt that she HAD to do it no

matter what, then that was a problem. One day I came in the kitchen

when she was making her lunch and saw that she was only packing 1/2 a

sandwich and putting a trace amount of peanut butter on it and that

was her whole lunch.

I scheduled a physical for her in November and she brought a list of

questions for the doctors. The list went something like this. " what

is a calorie? " " Do I burn calories when I am sitting? " , " what is the

difference between a fat calorie and a regular calorie? " etc. This

combined with my daughters weight 63.5 pounds for an 11 year old girl

who is 4ft 9 " the doctor told her she was concerned that she may be

starting to be anorexic. She explained this to my daughter. Gave her

some guidelines to follow and asked to see us again in two weeks. My

daughter came back in with a weight loss bringing her down to close

to 62 pounds. The doctor officially diagnosed the anorexia and we

discussed the OCD behaviors. My daughter had to be back in another

week. Had a small gain, another week had a small loss. Last

appointment, 2 weeks ago the doctor decided to start her on prozac-

(very small dose)- since the OCD symptoms seemed to be getting worse.

My daughter told the doctor that she noticed that if she kicked her

leg once, then she would need to kick it 10 more times or she felt

something bad would happen. The same thing with shutting cubboards.

We went back in for a visit after 2 weeks on the meds and she did

have a little over 2 pound gain, but it is still like pulling teeth

to get her to eat, and she is getting too many of her calories from

sucking candies, treats, etc. She says her OCD is better though and

does not feel compelled to do any of the compulsive behaviors that

she was doing. She is still focused on calories though.

My husband recently got laid off and we are now on state insurance

and it was hard finding someone in the mental health field to see

her, but we do finally now have an appointment for monday so I am

hoping that the counseling in addition to the medication will help

her with some coping mechanisms. I have also ordered a book that was

recommended on this board and have talked to her about naming her OCD

and she seems to like that idea.

I am curious if anyone else here is dealing with an eating disorder

in addition to the OCD.

I am also curious about the heredity link with other mental illnesses

and OCD. I ask this because a few people have mentioned their own

illnesses and I take medication for anxiety/depression and my mom was

Bi-polar (she is passed away) and my husbands Dad is.

I know this is a long post. Thanks for hanging in there. Looking

forward to " meeting " more of you. Thanks for the support.