Re: Re: Assessments

July 21, 2012

With my son's therapists, each one has talked with him about what his longer

term life goals are, or even what he'd like to be doing now, such as sports,

friends, etc. Then they talked with him about whether those things are happening

as he wants them to. Then they moved on to why those things are not happening.

Eventually the focus comes down to his behaviors and discussing how those

behaviors are impacting his life. Then talking about how a great number of

people have those same behaviors, and what those people have done to keep their

lives from being roadblocked. Saying how much they want him to have those things

for his life and how with the right interventions, he can have those. No blame

at all, being very careful not to sound like something is " wrong " with him. He

was then ready to accept that he did need help and it was okay.

You didn't ask for advice on the disagreements, but maybe you could give

yourself permission to end the conversation, saying, " Fine, you can stay home if

you don't like the restaurant, but that's where the rest of us are going. " You

aren't a bad parent if you leave him at home. You're letting him know you are

not afraid of the OCD, or whatever it is, and that helps him get empowered as

well. Just some thoughts.

Rhonda

Re: Assessments

May thanks for your post. We recently reflected back and realized how

sensitive he always was and difficult, much moreso than our other children. It

did seem more behavioral which is why we started with regular counseling. Our

biggest source of stress relates to how our household is under his control. What

we do, when we do it, how we do it, etc. For example, we decide on going out to

dinner. If we select a restaurant he is not satisfied with, he puts up a fight.

Not just an ordinary fight, but a long drawn out discussion. During these

discussions, he demands that we shut up and listen. To avoid this pain and

frustration, we now tend to accomodate, which we realize only enables this

behavior. We have learned the triggers and tend to avoid them. However, this

runs our entire family and is not fair to our daughter or ourselves. This is the

predominant issue that is combined with the other symptoms noted. So we do see

rituals and obsessions, however,

these are mild in comparison to what I read and hear with others. It is why we

are thinking Asperger as the predominant issue combined with OCD. But at this

point we believe it is best left to the professionals to make the assessment. It

is too confusing for us, and we have run out of energy.

The challenge is that he is highly reticent and does not admit to any of the

symptoms noted. We are hoping that he gets to the daily evaluation. If not, we

will have to have him as an inpatient. In any case, we need a better

understanding what is going on, and most importantly to get him to understand

that he has a challenge to accept and deal with. Until we can achieve the

latter, we go nowhere except living in stress!

How do they or anyone help them recognize that they have a challenge, whether

it be OCD and/or Aspergers, etc.?

July 21, 2012

, I think you put your finger on what is going on: You have acquiesced

to avoid the aversive behavior, which only has served to feed the aversive

behavior because he has learned that it works. I don't know if your son has OCD

or not, but when my OCD was bad, I used to refuse to go to most restaurants due

to my contamination fears, but often my parents would just go without me,

letting me know that it was my choice to go or not. They would do this no matter

how angry it made me or how hurt I felt. I am the same way now with my own

daughter. I am very understanding of the stress that her OCD cause her, but at

the same time, I have never allowed her OCD to control what we did or where we

went. Maybe it is easier for me because I have OCD and know that each time you

allow the child with OCD to avoid something or some place, you are giving the

message that his belief that he shouldn't do something was actually correct,

rather than due to a disorder. After a while, the compulsions will snowball and

the behavior that got him the control will become habitual because it feels all

the more necessary to avoid. You probably would be helped by seeing the OCD

specialist who might treat your son in additional sessions apart from your son

to learn how to cope with your son's anger when you don't give into the

compulsions. I remember once driving to a restaurant my daughter had OCD issues

about and didn't want to go to as a result, all the while having her tell me how

mean I was to take her and hearing her tears. The interesting thing is that

although she was sure that she couldn't be there, once we were there, she had a

good time. Later I again explained to her the reason why I can't give into what

her OCD would have her do: It would cause her world to become smaller and

smaller as we avoided more and more things/places/people, etc. and thus

reinforced to herself that these avoidance are necessary. I told her that I

loved her too much to allow this to happen to her and that anticipatory anxiety

is so much worse than what we actually fear, so we need to not give into it.