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[Guest guest]

I need help with " collecting " my thoughts on where I'm at. I wrote awhile back

regarding attending public vs private school for my son who is 16 and I

appreciated the feedback. Now what I really need is feedback on my situation. My

16 yr old has OCD that exhibits itself in different ways, I feel somewhat

" lucky " since he does function in respect to going to school, getting up on

time,   etc. His ocd manifests in fear of someone going in his room, need to

know 3 specific questions each day when picked up from school, not doing

personal hygiene without thinking through it well enough and several other

things. He is on 80mg celexa and 15mg abilify. He sees the psychiatrist for

medication monitoring and at this time is not using a therapist. We had been in

therapy over 2-3 yrs. and stopped. He really wasn't doing the work to change.

Then last year I got a serious health problem where I just had to let go of all

my efforts to try and help him via therapy to

change his ways. Luckily he hasn't gotten worse. I think the meds must be

keeping it from escalting. So in some sense I have accomodated all his issues

with some words to remind him how " this sounds like OCD " or I just answer his

questions 3-5 times without challenging him. The effort in the past to challenge

him was really work. So now that I am healthier myself I want him to start

thinking about his need to work. So I brought up the subject about going back to

therapy, his reply is no. Motivating factors is another tough one, I can't

really take away the few things he really enjoys. As for myself, I just don't

feel like entering a constant power struggle again, so in some respects I'm not

willing to change. I need to be aware of stress on myself. I thought maybe if

there is a book or video or support group for kids I could loop him in to hear

stories about how others didn't understand how ocd really interferred with their

life until they worked on it.

Maybe it would give him an idea that he would really be better off investing

time into fighting his ocd. He also is one of those kids with executive

functioning issues so I can't expect him to read any book on his own, it is too

much of an effort on his part. I also have to say off and on I am feeling a bit

guilty for not being more of a fighter like I see many who write in are, as

parents. I hope I made sense. It is always hard to fit ones life in a short

paragraph. Thanks for any  input. I sooo appreciate feedback given to me and

find it incredibly useful to hear other's  who write in.