new here and looking for answers

[Guest guest]

I have a 12 year old daughter who has had issues since she was about 2. I have

her in therapy but we are still unsure what her 'real' problem is. It is like a

good mix of OCD, anxiety and anger. I can deal with the ocd and axiety but the

big problem i have is the anger. I dont know to react to it and I end up getting

angry too. any ideas on how keep things calm and still help her deal.

[Guest guest]

Hi,

Sorry to hear that you are having a tough time. Anger, typically " out of

control meltdowns " (what you would call a tantrum if the child were two only

more intense and less age appropriate) is quite frequent in children with OCD,

and possibly in other anxiety disorders too. We used to tell our 9 yo daughter

that we thought she found it easier to fight us than to fight the OCD. In OCD,

too, the child either has no idea what is happening to him/her or knows that it

does not make sense, but cannot stop. This is a very scary feeling. We found

that we needed to just back off and disengage if she was just screaming. If she

was in the car, we locked the doors and tried to prevent her from hurting

herself or anyone else. At home if she was thrashing, hitting, or throwing, a

bear hug worked well. You sit behind the child and hug him/her tightly to you

with the child facing away from you. The goal is to contain the anger and help

the child avoid hurting

him/herself or anyone else. Often the child cannot calm down by him/herself

and needs help to calm down, but can't ask for it. You can't reason with a

child in such a state. Imagine if you thought an angry dog was about to maul

you and someone tried to discuss your favorite breed or where to go for lunch!

With our daughter, we found that she would start to cry when the anger decreased

and at that point we could hold her more gently and try to comfort her. Our

daughter also takes Zoloft (for over a year now) and this has helped enormously.

She is not all the way out of the woods, but she is a child again with a

life--and we are feeling a bit saner ourselves. I also ended up getting help

and going on Zoloft myself when I realized that my frustration and irritability

were not helping and were not getting better (and I have OCD and a history of

major depression). Best wishes to you.

>

> Subject: new here and looking for answers

> To:

> Date: Thursday, January 14, 2010, 9:03 PM

> I have a 12 year old daughter who has

> had issues since she was about 2. I have her in therapy but

> we are still unsure what her 'real' problem is. It is like a

> good mix of OCD, anxiety and anger. I can deal with the ocd

> and axiety but the big problem i have is the anger. I dont

> know to react to it and I end up getting angry too. any

> ideas on how keep things calm and still help her deal.

>

>

>

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[Guest guest]

answered really well. Not much I can add except our personal experience.

Our son would have moments of sheer frustration due to the OCD's demands and

would strike out at us in anger if we even talked to him at that moment. I

would sometimes react in anger too, because I felt he was being disrespectful.

One thing that his therapist helped me to understand was that he was in the grip

of OCD at that moment, so my anger was really at the OCD, not Josh, who was at

it's mercy and didn't know how to get himself disengaged from it. Once we got

on the same side, against the OCD, it helped us both.

What does the therapist have to say about her anger? Does he/she think it is

OCD related, or something else? It's so hard when they are that age because

there is puberty and hormones at work too.

BJ

>

> I have a 12 year old daughter who has had issues since she was about 2. I have

her in therapy but we are still unsure what her 'real' problem is. It is like a

good mix of OCD, anxiety and anger. I can deal with the ocd and axiety but the

big problem i have is the anger. I dont know to react to it and I end up getting

angry too. any ideas on how keep things calm and still help her deal.

>