Has anyone else's child shown this much paranoia and dellusion?

April 24, 2010

My daughter (19) was diagnosed with OCD in elementary school. A combination of

meds, therapy, and being active in high school drama seemed to do the trick. In

September she started college and was living on campus. We live in Japan, so we

could only call her weekly and email several times a day. She has 2 cousins

going to the same school and 5 uncles and aunts that live within an hour of

campus. We thought she had a support network nearby. When she came home for

Christmas she was thrilled with school and couldn't wait to go back. Winter

quarter she started to withdraw a bit from her relatives. We wrote it off as

just being 'independent' and kept up with the calls and emails. Two weeks into

spring quarter I noticed she didn't want to talk on the phone. I thought she

was just homesick and, thank GOD I called her back later that same day. She was

just not sounding like herself. I called again. Things weren't adding up.

Long story short- after 4 hours on the phone, I discovered she had dropped out

of school earlier that week and had taken a bus 800 miles to LA to 'follow her

dream' of being an actress. Her 'plan' was to work part time jobs and land a

role in a movie. This is completely delusional and it is a miracle she wasn't

killed. It took me another 4 hours on the phone to talk her into going to the

airport and getting on a plane to come home.

Within 2 days she met with a doctor and he wants to see her 1x per week for a

month and then reassess. I keep having panic attacks every time I imagine her at

that bus station. She told me she was miserable at school because 'everyone was

judging her.' Today we went to lunch at a sushi bar she has been to dozens of

times and I could see she was agitated. I asked her what was wrong and she

said, " everyone is talking about me and judging me. "

Is this paranoia typical with OCD?

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