Re: Two children with OCD

[Guest guest]

Hi Kim,

I'm glad the medications have helped both your daughter and your son, it can

make such a difference when they are needed.

Our son also has APD, and over the years I have found this and LD stuff a big

challenge in all areas, but esp school. We have more recently determined that

there is PDD-NOS, which helps explain the mixture of issues beyond OCD.

Many of these kids seem to have a combination of brain based things going on,

when there is OCD. Makes it difficult to know how to target them all, when

there is a lack of clarity around what is the underlying thing causing an issue,

and there is an overlap anyway. Many here have suggested we need subcategories,

much like autism spectrum disorders, so that medications and treatments might be

more specific to symptoms and issues.

To address the OCD, ERP is what worked in the end with ours. Sorting through

medications and reaching a point of stability was a big challenge though, and

ERP could not be done until that point. Also, teen stuff and maturity played

into it all.

You don't mention if ERP is being done, or has been tried? If not, I have to

really encourage you to find someone with the highest level of expertise you can

find. This is critical.

The aggitation/impulsiveness after school, I can say we had as well. Most hold

it in all day at school, or as much as they can and let it out at home, the OCD

stuff I mean. Plus, with APD school is debilitating and just not fun, and ours

would tend to lash out and unload when he got home, when he was younger. We got

a free standing puching bag that ours used as a release.

Also found ours just needed to vent verbally, to get it out, and then it might

be done - not fun for Mum, I know, but I have learned to just listen, say back

what I have heard, without comment mostly, and that would often satisfy. Have

to say I am somewhat the same, need to express and be heard - a way to

decompress the emotional stuff perhaps?

I would still set boundaries on what can be said and volume, although we tended

to give room on the volume part. I sometimes reframe what I hear, into more

acceptable words, to teach this - with a teen this is somewhat less

accepted...but he knows when he's over the line.

Some of this is OCD venting as well, with ours. He will rant about something as

a way of getting it out, and then it's done. It's a way of not letting the

thought take over, but expressing it at it's worst and then he's taken the

charge out of it, it no longer has power over him (he has taken the fear of it

away by saying it out loud, rather than supressing it). Took me a long time to

figure this one out, and it doesn't happen that often anymore, mostly under big

stress. And now he will tell me it is the OCD, after the fact.

Actually, I have to give my kid a lot of credit for the creative ways he has

figured out to counter the OCD, on his own. In the end this is what needs to

happen, as the content of the thoughts can be so individual, and the responses

so personal, they need to be the ones catching it and not responding or

suppressing.

Better get off here and get some things done! Keep posting Kim, you will find

many here who understand and have similar stuff going on.

Warmly,

Barb

>

> Thanks for the words Barb! Our daughter was diagnosed three years ago at 16.

She definately is both compulsive and obsessive. She has been on the same

medication for three years and it appears to help with the compulsion to wash so

much. She is still very focused on germs but not to the same degree. She also

takes a mood stabalizer for anxiety and ups and downs.

>

> Our son who is eight was just diagnosed in the last year. He was diagnosed

with CAPD, Central Auditiory Processing Disorder at 6. He had moderate to severe

speech delays as a toddler. Then became apparant he was ADHD in Kindergarten,

did I spell that write?

> When I changed from Pediatrition who was managing the situation to a

psychiatrist and described Seth intense fears- being alone, all bugs, dying, his

family dying ect...she looked at me and said no doubt OCD. He takes lexapro and

it has helped significantly! He will go outside on his own, go to the bathroom

alone and talks alot less about dying.

>

> He does however pick his nails and cuticles frequently. He peels the skin so

far down it bleeds. Definatley a compulsion...does anyone else have this issue?

Also,he is very impulsive and aggitated after school and sometimes in the

morning when he gets up. I guess he holds it together all day long and then

comes home to let it all out. I worry about how much back talk and yelling to

allow?

>

> Thanks for listening?

>