New here - 8 year old with scrupulosity issues.

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone -

I am new here. We are in the initial diagnostic stages of my daughter's possible

OCD issues. She has what appears to be scrupulosity OCD. My husband and I had an

initial consult with a therapist last week and our daughter will be heading

there on Monday for her first visit.

Here is a little background on her issues. This has been going on for quite some

time. She has a fixation with thinking " bad " things in her head. She will tell

on herself all the time and it is for things that don't make any sense to me or

for things that are so insignificant I can't believe it is even bothering her.

One weekend she " thought " she " might " have rolled her eyes at her teacher and

was a basket case the rest of the weekend. Completely destroyed any fun or good

times she might have had. I catch her tearing up out of nowhere and it is all

because she is " thinking something bad " in her head and then it turns out to be

something almost silly or something that makes no sense. My mom took her

shopping yesterday at the craft store and she picked out a t-shirt with some

iron-on cupcakes to attach to it. The rest of the day she would get really quiet

and I'd ask her what was wrong and she would say " I'm thinking about Nana. " She

was thinking that she kind of didn't want the t-shirt but she would just try it

anyways and she was afraid that since she didn't REALLY want it that she was

making my mom waste her money (this is a common fear of hers).

We have been cycling in and out of this for almost a year and it is starting to

get worse. Two weeks ago in church she started crying. I took her out and talked

to her and she didn't want to tell me what was wrong. She finally said she was

thinking something bad about god. I kept at her and she finally said she keeps

thinking that she hates god and that god is C-R-A-P. I tried to talk her through

it. I asked her why she was thinking that and she couldn't explain anything.

Somehow she was better after a bit. The next morning she wouldn't get out of bed

for school. It took 45 minutes to talk her into coming down for breakfast and it

was all about praying and god and she was bawling and telling me I wouldn't

understand. Same thing happened Tuesday morning. Wednesday night when I got home

from work at 9 she was still up in her bed. Crying. I asked her what was going

on and it took a while for her to articulate that she was trying to pray and was

trying to choose between two words and she didn't know why she couldn't choose

and it was making her very upset and she was getting more and more worked up.

The words were " so " and " very. " She was trying to decide if she should say " God,

I love you so, so, so , so. . . . . (insert 10 million so's here) much " or " God,

I love you very, very (insert 10 million very's here) much. " It appears the

praying is becoming a ritual for her and she has to say it however many times to

try and overcome the " bad " stuff she is thinking.

A few weeks ago we were watching the Olympics as a family and at one point she

got up out of her chair and stood up straight with her eyes closed and focused

straight ahead. My husband told her to sit down. Then she did it again and then

kept moving from place to place until he blew up and asked her what she was

doing. She said he wouldn't understand. Then she said she was doing it to pray.

She had to find the right place. Then she said she had to find a place where she

wasn't turning her back to Haiti . . . because turning your back to people was

disrespectful and the people of Haiti deserved our respect right now. He talked

her out of it and she " appeared " OK but I can't imagine what is going on in her

little head 24/7. There are tons more examples but I can't even go into all of

them right now. She has teared up several times because she thinks she will not

go to heaven because she is " bad " and thinks " bad things. "

She has also recently become a bit of a germ-a-phobe. She washes her hands to

the point that they are red and dry. I asked her teacher about any odd behavior

and she said she has not noticed much except that Halina is one of the brightest

girls in the class but it takes her forever to get her work done b/c she is so

meticulous. She whips through her math homework . . . because there is only one

right or wrong answer. Anything that requires open-ended answers require hours

of erasing and frustration. She will sometimes have the whole thing done and

then have to erase it all and start over again.

I have noticed, along with my mom, that she CANNOT make a decision because she

takes so many factors into it ( " should this person be spending money one me?

what if I pick something out and then don't like it that much . . . I don't want

to hurt their feelings, what if Eliza (her sister) thinks I'm getting more than

she is. " ) It is PAINFUL to watch her make decisions. Interestingly we had her IQ

retested last year (it is above average) for admittance into the gifted program.

She did great . . . except for mental processing - her scores were borderline

" mental retardation.?????? " I am certain this is due to her inability to quickly

make decisions because she is obsessing over the choice she has to make and

doesn't want to be " wrong. "

The odd thing is that sometimes she appears completely fine - like she doesn't

have a care in the world and then she goes through these waves where it seems

all consuming. Is this normal for OCD?

The bad thoughts/scrupulosity is so difficult because it is all in her head. It

is not like she is washing her hands a lot (she sometimes does this) or has

blatant rituals that are obvious. It just makes it hard to know how much this is

consuming her or if she is putting on a good show for us to make it seem like

she is not bothered.

Thanks for listening - I'm hoping to learn a lot from everyone here!

Amy