Dear Hive, please help! OCD Child

[scrapbabe]

Where to begin. My 9 year old son is suffering from OCD. It started in the fall when I was diagnosed with cancer. I'm cancer free now, but he's afraid of germs and touching anything. It started out with him putting germ x on his hands literally every 5 minutes. Then he became concerned about too much germ x so started washing his hands with soap and water. Every time he touches something - it doesn't matter what it is - he'll come and say "mom I just touched.... is it okay?"

We read a book together written to the child to help him cope with OCD. But he wasn't trying the things it said. He'd still just come and tell me what he touched. Then it escalated to yelling out every 5 minutes "Mom, Brayden almost touched my leg!"

I gave him 30 $1 bills a few months ago and said every time you come and tell me something with OCD, you give me a $1. When the week is over, you get what's left. He ended up with $26. So I know he can do it. But over the last few months he's gradually gotten worse again.

I'm beside myself - I honestly don't know what to do now. Does anyone have any advice. Has anyone had a child like this? It's driving me crazy!

 

Thanks for listening.

 

Shalynn

[BikeBookBread]

:grouphug: I don't have any advice, just lots of hugs. I can't say my DD is officially OCD, but I have my suspicions...more Mommy's Intuition than anything. But I really do want to send you a hug...

[Wendi]

I'd recommend cognitive behavioral therapy, and/or medication. A child psychiatrist can help.

 

In the meantime, make sure your child gets plenty of omega-3 (fish oil). Try to find something your dc enjoys that takes his mind off of the obsession, that he can do when he's feeling obsessed (for me, it was playing the keyboard).

 

I have OCD. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. There are a few of us here on this board.

 

Wendi

[TravelingChris]

I agree with Wendi and recommend you do this very soon. OCD just hets more and more ingrained and harder to deal with as time goes on.

[bettyandbob]

I'm sorry your family is dealing with this. One of my dc exhibited OCD behaviors a few years ago. It is very hard.

 

You may know this, but I wanted to point out that OCD is an anxiety issue. My ds has serious anxiety issues that we have dealt with in a variety of ways (diet, exercise, change parent behavior approaches, home structure, outside therapy, and pharmaceutical). I'm not sure why my ds developed anxiety, but it would not be surprising for a child to develop anxiety issues when a parent was seriously ill. Anyway, I don't have direct suggestions. You can start with basics. Provide a consistent predictable environment and watch for triggers.

[Momma2Many66]

I had the same problem with my now 11 year old son right around the time he turned 9 too.

 

My son always had little "worries", but when my oldest daughter was diagnossed with cancer, he got much, much, worse.

 

He was worrying all the time and like your child, needed constant assurance that he wasn't going to get cancer too.

 

My son also did the constant hand washing and wouldn't touch anything his sister came in contact with, which was very hard in our household since she was around everything.

 

My son would also worry about his other siblings getting it, especially our younger sons who he felt were not as "diligent" on hand washing as my nine year old was.

 

I assured my son that the cancer was not contagious, but this is how he processed it and manefested it in his head.

 

Kid's see things in a different way then we do as adults. At nine years old, he had not yet gotten real logical reasoning skills.

 

Heck, even my own mother (my daughter's grandmother at 70 years old) was afraid she would catch the cancer from our toilet seats or something, so I understood the reasoning skills of a 9 year old were even harder to explain things too.

 

What I realized was he was just living in fear, he just came to me to ask all these questions because he needed assurance. He wanted to have something stable to hang onto during this rough time of dealing with his older sister's cancer.

 

He wanted me to tell him all was okay, he was okay and he would continue to be okay.

 

He was worried about the what if's, he was worried about his own mortality.

 

I get that, I just needed to find a way to make him understand that he was going to be okay too.

 

It took a lot of reassuring, a lot of talking to him about how he was just fine. He was not ill and he was not going to get this cancer. He was going to be just fine.

 

I just comforted him each time he came to me, instead of telling him he need not worry about catching a germ from that particular thing that he touched. I just told him that all was well, he was well, he was healthy and calm.

 

We got some great children's meditation tapes, called "The Indigo Child". I put them on at bedtime to help him sleep. They helped relax him and destress him.

 

I put up some little signs around the house, signs that read "I am healthy", " I am confident", " I am calm", " I am peaceful", " I am positive", " I am strong". These signs helped to subconsiously assure everyone in our household, we would read them everytime we passed by them without even realizing it that we were reading them on a subconsious level. They motivated us, they gave us peace, they gave us confidence, they were a contant assurance in troubled times. My daughter who was battling cancer benefitted from these signs greatly too.

 

I changed his diet to lots of whole foods and fresh fruits and veggies, just like his big sister's. Good vitamins and lots of omega 3 oils. I actually did this for our entire family also, it benefitted all of us.

 

I read him beautiful bible stories and built up his trust in God and about how God loves him and wants the best for him.

 

We stopped listening to the radio and tv commericals that constantly were "hawking" products for some medical illness or another, because these scared my son into believing he had one of those illnesses too. Even if they were for something totally out of his realm like heart disease or errectile disfunction.

 

I tried to make the world around him calm and relaxing. It not only helped him, it really helped us all through these troubled times. It gave us all peace, our house became a haven and an oasis of peace and calm.

 

The healthy foods changed our health and our outlook, the mediation tape's helped us learn to self-cope and relax, we read some children's books on dealing with anxiety the natural way and self coping techniques, we got rid of the doom and gloom of radio and televison commericals that were trying to scare the beejubus out of us so we would use their products. And we built a stronger more secure belief in the "after-life" and our trust in God. We brought peace and calm into our world.

 

These all helped to build up my son's confidence, they helped to errode his fear.

 

Now two years later, my daughter is healthy again and well. My son is now 11 and doing very well with his coping skills.

 

Sometimes he still comes to me with questions about if this or that is okay and I ask him "Ben, tell me why it is okay, use your reasoning skills and explain to me why this couldn't happen" , "use your logical mind and not your emotional one and tell me why this isn't so". This technique helps him to rationalize his fears and realize that he isn't thinking logically.

 

He will tell me why it can't be so, he will then smile at me and say, "your right mom, I wasn't using my rational mind, I was using my emotional side and allowing irrational fears to creep in".

 

But the most important thing is, he now has coping skills, to assure himself on his own, but he also has me and daddy, to help alay those fears and set him right again when he needs to discuss them.

 

I always let him know that I am constantly here for him, I will always listen to him and I will never discount his fears.

 

But I will help him rationalize them, realize his flawed thinking in allowing the fear to take over and help him build up his confidence that all is well.

 

He is now 100% better then what he once was, and he had good reasoning skills now that will help him in his future. I think this is most important, teaching him how to cope with his fears, since there will always be fears that crop up in his life.

 

By teaching him to understand where and why the fears happen and how to cope with them, he is becoming more secure in his logical reasoning skills.

 

Nine is a hard age, I truley understand. Give him time, give him lots of love, listen to him and tell him to come to you when he is afraid and build up his confidence. Try to find ways to make the home peaceful and calm. Perhaps work on his diet and help him to eat a more healthy diet, diet really does play such an important role in our emotional health as well as our physical one. Let him know that you will always help to alay his fears, until he is a bit older and can learn to do it for himself.

 

Good Luck to you, I will be praying for you and your son ! :grouphug:

[scrapbabe]

Momma2Many,

Thanks so much for sharing your story. I was very touched by it. I am going to try some of the things you suggested. He is a very tenderhearted little boy and does need lots of reassuring.

I appreciate all of the responses.

 

Smiles,

Shalynn

[tex-mex]

I'd recommend cognitive behavioral therapy, and/or medication. A child psychiatrist can help.

 

 

 

I have OCD. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. There are a few of us here on this board.

 

Wendi

 

Find a professional who specializes in Childhood OCD and does cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). Son and I deal with OCD/anxiety. Stressful events do trigger OCD or a relapse, btw. This would be logical with your recent bout of cancer. Be careful that the resassuring doesn't enable the "compulsion" (i.e. hand washing or fear of germs) to get progressively worse. Your dollar method may not be helpful in the future as the compulsions get worse. Then he feels defeated and depression sets in. He is channeling his fear into a compulsion that in his mind he finds helpful -- but it ends up being a vicious cycle of worry and doubt trapped in habits to ward off the worry/fear. CBT can help him better understand deep issues like your bout with cancer and death at his level and help him overcome this fear. Very treatable with meds and counseling. We also attend a local OCD support group for children and teens. HTH :grouphug:

Edited March 6, 2010 by tex-mex

[sbgrace]

It is true you want to intervene as fast as possible as it becomes more ingrained as time goes on. Seek someone who does Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT..the effective therapy for OCD) in kids. Try to do this very soon. If he needs meds to make him able to do the therapy I'd do that. However, I'd look into insitol as a first try in that case (it's a b vitamin that in high doses seems to help OCD similar to SSRI's without the side effects and that includes in pediatric populations in my research).

 

As natural as it is (and it's what he's seeking) reassurance plays into and feeds the OCD in the long run. There was a recent study showing that when parents helped (say, by assuring the child their hands were clean) the OCD got worse. I found that true in my own life. The key to defeating OCD is to accept the uncertainty. Seeking reassurance is actually a compulsion and giving into compulsions makes the obsessions stronger. It's really easy for parents to make getting better harder in their attempts to help a struggling child. That's true even for me and I know about OCD and that reassuring my child or "helping" him in ways that feed the obsessions is detrimental in the long run. That said, you need professional direction and support on handling this in a way that isn't too anxiety producing for him and also doesn't make things worse.

[Orthodox6]

:grouphug: !

 

Don't try to "go this alone". Find a good child psychiatrist to work with you.

 

(BTDT in a major, major way !)

[prairiegirl]

Oh, Shalynn, your post has brought me to tears because our situation is so similar.

 

I was diagnosed with cancer in the fall, I am now cancer free and my youngest has been showing signs of OCD as well. My dd would be paranoid that she would give germs to others, though. She would come to me a million times a day and tell me that she breathed on her siblings' food and would they now get a sickness? She would wash her hands a gazillion times a day to the point where her hands would be bleeding. There were other behaviours as well that reached the obsession level. This broke my heart.

 

Things are much better now. I hesitate to tell you how I handled it because it is not in line with others advice to you in this thread. I didn't search for professional help. I didn't make a big deal out of it. Everytime she came to me, I reassured her that she was not giving anyone germs and that she would be fine and I would hug her and tell her how special she was to me. I spent alone time with her, reading to her (that is her favourite thing to do with me) I made an extra effort to fill her days with things that brought her beauty and comfort. And I prayed. And I prayed. And I prayed.

 

If things had gone on, then I probably would have taken her to a professional but, at the time, I selfishly thought that we had had our fill of doctor's, I just wanted to see if we could handle it ourselves. For us, it worked. She still washes her hands lots but not to the extreme like before. She still has obsessive thoughts and actions but, again, it is now managable.

 

I don't think my dd's problems are as severe as you son's so my post probably isn't very helpful but I wanted you to know that you are not alone. I don't even know if that helps any. Cancer, no matter how major or minor, is life-changing and not just for the person who goes through it. It is exhausting to go through it and then to have to deal with how others are affected by it, well, it is just so hard. (here come the tears again.) You are in my thoughts, Shalynn. :grouphug::grouphug:

[scrapbabe]

Thanks Julia. It's always a comfort to know someone else understands. I feel torn as to what to do. I've always been a little anti - doctor, anti - therapy. I don't want to take that route at all. I was getting better but the last little while he has started up again. I value your insight and will consider it in making our decision. I wish the best for you and hope you are feeling well.

 

Smiles,

Shalynn