Overwhelmed

April 25, 2012

I am new to this group and am feeling grateful to find such a wonderful sight.

My 8 year old daughter was official diagnosed with ODC four months ago. These

past four months have been a total emotional rollercoaster for our entire

family. We have been trying Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with her but have she

doesn't seem to be responding to this. She refuses to acknowledge that she has

OCD. She has this strong need to be in control of everything and everyone around

her. She has major melt downs and her behavior can be just awful at times. Most

recently she has started talking about wanting to " Kill herself " . Last night

she, she crawled up on her bunk bed and stood on her railing and kept telling

us she need to jump, over and over again. We got her down but she kept saying, "

I need to jump! " Our therapist feels that she is just not mature enough right

now to handle the CBT and all that she is going through and would like us to

start her on medication. We're meeting with our pediatrician tomorrow. I am

terrified to start her on medication at 8 years old but I also know that we

cannot continue to live like this.

April 25, 2012

Hi Kris, welcome! I think we all hesitate with medication, but so many children

benefit from it, and once it starts working it can help therapy go much better

too.

Is the therapist doing any exposures with her (Exposure & Response Prevention)?

CBT is used to treat other mental illnesses also, but the CBT needs to be

*specific* to OCD (different than, say, if you were using CBT for depression).

I guess another way of saying the therapist should have experience treating OCD.

Have you had a chance to look at children's books about OCD? She may enjoy some,

and " see herself " in some, might help her understand OCD and its treatment.

Being diagnosed 4 months ago, officially, had some of the behaviors been there

prior to that but seemed to worsen over time or new stuff began popping up?

Keep in mind that with OCD, it can be caused by strep or chronic other illnesses

if it seemed to come on sudden (PANDAS OCD if strep, or PANS for other).

My son , now 23, had his OCD begin in 6th grade, seemed overnight. But

he'd had his " quirks " growing up, OCD type. But in 6th grade, suddenly all this

" stuff " popped up and it was 24/7 OCD, compulsions, rituals.... Certainly

disrupted our whole family too. Briefly, we had no experienced therapists

around our area, so I researched OCD, joined this group and we just worked on

things on our own. Slow going that way but things did get better over time. I

was hesitant about medication also, so we went the " alternative " route for

awhile with some success. We did use Celexa (one of the SSRI meds for OCD)

later, and he did well on that too. It differs with people/OCD, but for

he said he had to do those things or something bad would happen to him, and he

also had to get a " just right " feeling - meaning he could get stuck repeating

things until it was " right. "

Let us know how it goes with the pediatrician!

Glad you found our group,

single mom, 3 sons

, 23, with OCD, dysgraphia, Aspergers

BS in Biology, graduated last August!!

>

> I am new to this group and am feeling grateful to find such a wonderful

sight. My 8 year old daughter was official diagnosed with ODC four months ago.

These past four months have been a total emotional rollercoaster for our entire

family. We have been trying Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with her but have she

doesn't seem to be responding to this. She refuses to acknowledge that she has

OCD. She has this strong need to be in control of everything and everyone

April 25, 2012

Hi Kris,

Welcome to our group. I think you will find many here who understand and relate

to what you are going through, and will have their own first hand learning with

all of it to offer you.

The initial stages with OCD feel like being in constant crisis, it really turns

your household upside down. You describe it perfectly - emotional roller

coaster, need to control everyone and everything - Been there, done that, not

fun!!! You are in the grips of the OCD and it has taken over. It can take some

time to sort through how to handle any of it.

It's good that you started with the CBT first, as this plants the seed that this

is the way to manage the OCD. Just to confirm, it is ERP (exposure and response

prevention) based CBT that is being done? While ERP is the way to go, it is

very common that it does not always go smoothly.

It sounds like your daughter may be " lacking insight " . It is the term used when

they cannot recognize the OCD as separate from themselves, or that the thoughts

are not true. They seem to fuse with it and form an identity with it. Our son

did this. They believe the thoughts and that they must do whatever they say, or

even that they are their thoughts. I can't tell you the crazy things our son

did and said. We had some very big behavior challenges.

Ways to help her with insight... You can help your daughter by talking back to

the OCD yourself, and referring to is as separate from her. You can suggest she

name the OCD, talking about it as a bully in her head that is trying to control

her. Anything that you can do to focus your attention on the OCD as separate

from her. Along the same lines, you might be able to address her behavior by

first letting her know that you understand the OCD is making it very hard for

her and that she finds it hard to control herself - let her know you understand

how hard it is for her, and that you want to help her learn how to manage this

bully in her head.

I can understand your concerns and fears around medication, I think most feel

the same. Think of it as an assist that may be needed only temporarily, to

enable the ERP therapy. We waited three months until it became clear it was

needed. Our son could not do the ERP either, so that route was not working.

Thing is, the medication helps with the volume and intensity of the thoughts as

well as the anxiety that comes up with them. It is very common that medication

is needed before they feel able to do ERP. It truly can make all the

difference! I know I felt after, given the relief my son got, why did I wait so

long?

Ask your doctor about going slowly with the dosing of the medication. If you

can start with the lowest dose and increase slowly. This will allow you to see

changes and find the lowest optimal dose. We found this was the single most

important thing with medication, going slowly. It also allows the body time to

adapt. It can be hard to do this when you want things to get better fast, but it

will prevent going the other direction and then having to back track. We

learned this the hard way!

The incident you describe with the bunk bed. I know it all looks and sounds

awful, but your daughter is expressing what the OCD is telling her she might do,

and that she is afraid she is going to do. She may think the only way to make it

stop telling her this is to do it. Our son used to say this kind of thing. He

talked about wanting to kill himself repeatedly - mostly he wanted to kill/end

the OCD - frankly so did I!!!

The OCD basically targets whatever they are afraid of, or afraid they might do,

or the worse thing they could do or think or say. It can target anything, and

then make them worry they will really do it, to the point where they will

believe they WILL do it, or have to do it, or even that they did do it, then

they have to confess that they did it, etc, etc - no end point....

What you want to do, is take the power away from the thought, to the point that

it is boring and meaningless. Instead of taking it seriously you treat it as if

it is no big deal - which I know sounds impossible when your kid is talking

about jumping off her bunk to kill herself. But this is not real, she's just

afraid that it is, and when you take it seriously it sends the message to her

that it is something to be afraid that she might do. The more neutral and calm

you can be with these situations (which I know is impossible!!), but it will

help her to calm down faster.

Then talk about it when she has cooled down, and plan for next time. See if she

will talk to you about her thoughts, and brain storm together how you will talk

back to them. This is a process, not suggesting it will happen overnight, but

keep attempting.

It sounds like your daughter has the added trait of intensity. Ours is/was the

same. They go from 0 to 100 in an instant. They overwhelm easily, easily

overstimulated, reactive. I have to tell you, the medication really helped with

this. I used to think it was my son's temperament, and it may be in part, but a

lot of it is brain chemistry based, I believe. He is not the same person now

that the anxiety is calmed.

Ok, I feel like I wrote a book, not short on words Saw that no one had

replied to your post yet, so wanted to pack it all in I guess.

Keep posting and ask others how to handle situations. This is a great group

with much experience to offer. Let us know how the appointment with your

pediatrician goes.

Warmly,

Barb

Canada

Son, 20, OCD, LD Plus