Chris - ERP

[Guest guest]

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I'm looking at how you did ERP with your son. It sounds like it was pretty quick

-- just let him experience that he can do the thing he thought he couldn't. Our

therapist has us doing a long, drawn out sequence of stuff, where my ds is

supposed to sit and think about the dirt he got on himself for 20 minutes or so,

waiting for the anxiety to come down. This is driving ds crazy - his mind isn't

cut out to sit and think about dirt for 20 minutes, whether it's on him or on

the moon. I don't see this in Audrey Wagner's book either - she has the child

having fun & doing other stuff while experiencing the feared behavior.Sure,

maybe talk about it some but not drive the child crazy. I mean, you didn't keep

saying, " Look son you turned the light switch off once - now think about it til

your anxiety comes down! "

Your thoughts? Son is not wanting to do the ERPs because of this. I think he

would be okay getting the dirt on and moving on.

Rhonda

Rhonda - re my son

Hi Rhonda, gee, how to keep this short! so much to cover.

OK - in 6th grade, age 11.5 or so, OCD just seemed to come on overnight.

He'd been in school just 2 or 3 weeks, was fine. I noticed him erasing a lot

one night during homework and writing/paper looked odd. He would erase and not

rewrite, or if a letter didn't look " right " he had to draw a line from the

letter to the top of the page. His writing, which used to be a bit large (motor

skill) was much smaller and what I called " chicken scratch " it was just

illegible. He started crying and said he had to draw the lines, etc., or

something bad would happen to him. OCD immediately popped into my head.

From that moment on, it was like a floodgate opened. 24/7 OCD, all these new

rituals/compulsions. His was a lot of touching. He may touch an item/thing for

minutes or hours, couldn't stop til it felt " right. " A pencil. If he touched a

wall or a bag, would be feeling of it for a while. Even if his elbow hit the

wall. His foot and the floor? yes, in certain spots of the house. Got so I had

to shove him thru the bathroom door (stuck in a doorway, he needed a push).

Reading - had to repeat some things in his head until it sounded " right. " Or

would get " stuck " on a page. Would want to get on my bed (extra TV in my room

that kids watched) and might get up/down for a few minutes or 2 hours because he

couldn't get on it " right " . Same with his bed at bedtime. He avoided some things

(like a certain chair) or avoided because he was afraid he would get " stuck " if

he didn't. Had a " thing " about looking at clocks, never did get the " why " of

that. Kept him away from switches/on/off as he had to repeat. List goes on!

I was the mom who had the son with the " weird " OCD, lol, couldn't find

anything in any book about his behaviors. And I began to feel like he was like

" super glue " on his skin, I didn't want him touching stuff some days!

I was hesitant of prescription meds too, googled crazily. Found out about

inositol powder and decided to try it. Found this group!!!

Inositol eventually began to work (tho at first thought it might have made him

worse, but hung in there). And he got better and better over months. OCD

lessened up. Eventually, long months later, was doing real well. This was all

during the 3 middle school years.

When we worked on things -- No therapist around here, and I worked at our

local mental health. Sort of rural county where we live. So with the research

reading and this group, I would pick 1 or 2 things to work on with ,

suggest them to him, he would okay, and we just took baby steps. One time he was

turning bathroom faucet..or light switch, one of them he had turned on, I went

to the doorway and told him to just try turning off once. He was like, I don't

have to do it more than once (yeah, uh-huh) so he did it just once to prove it

to me. Tho he wanted to do it again, on/off. Anyway, that one went easy, lol,

he didn't repeat in the bathroom any more.

He couldn't use the TV remote to change channels, would holler at one of us to

come change the channel. Yes, in the midst of chaos I just changed it for him

and told him I shouldn't! But often I would suggest to him that he try, he would

get that anxious look and not, so I would go ahead. Over time, much time, he

would hold it a minute but not be able to. Finally one day I suggested he just

push a channel number (not the up/down buttons), and he actually managed that.

So from that day he used the channel/number buttons, ignored the up/down ones.

Just a couple examples. He stayed on inositol thru middle school, we had even

lowered the dose to just once a day by 8th grade. Then OCD seemed to spike back

up. I'd always wondered if prescription meds would really get rid of OCD.

( said that it was always there, even when I saw no sign of it and asked

him did he still have OCD) So he was willing to try Celexa in 9th grade. Started

it, did great on it. Stayed on it 9th and 10th grades. Then he wanted to quit

it, felt he could handle OCD on his own.

He will now say that neither the inositol nor the Celexa helped, that OCD just

got better on its own. Talk about perspective!

So he quit Celexa at end of 10th grade, we weaned him off. I was concerned

about OCD returning but months went by. It was...the middle of 11th grade,

surprise, came back whole new way! Scrupulosity. He had made all these promises

to God not to eat this/that, whew, a nightmare. Was down to a baked potato, and

not sure what liquid... Took him a few times to a minister who answered

's Bible questions (promises to God, having mean thoughts about

classmates, what he could/couldn't eat (had to do with meat/blood), and other

stuff; I waited outside but sometimes could hear when really quiet in the lobby

there at the church.

He refused meds, we did try supplements, nothing helped. He eventually pushed

himself (cuz he knew he had to) back to eating but a lot of it is till around.

It may have eased up too. He went to community college, had a great experience,

transferred to UNC-Chapel Hill, graduated from it last August with a BS in

Biology. His OCD does bother him but he goes on with his day/life. I can hear

him in the shwower though, where he'll pray/vent sometimes.

And this is the SHORT version!

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> If you ever have time, can you tell the story of your son again? I've got it

in bits and pieces but it would be great to hear all the way through. Did he

ever take medication? What recovery path did he follow? How did you do it

without a therapist?

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> thanks bunches

> Rhonda

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