Therapy? Medicate? What to expect!

I know many of you are as confused as I was and still am about therapy and medications for OCD. What works for some does not work for everyone! Let's keep that in mind as we move forward! Let me just share our experience a little, then I will share many options, and ideas of how to find a professional to work with, as well as what medications are used to treat OCD.

 First meet Selena, she is our granddaughter, but through adoption she is our daughter. We love her to death just like you love your children! When did I first recognize something wrong? From day one! Selena did not like being swaddled, she couldn't stand formula even dripping on her hand. She was not colic, but these things just drove her into a screaming fit. When we started solid food, she preferred vegetables over fruits, she would never even think of touching her food with her hands! She detested shoes on her feet and preferred to go barefoot, yet she was early to learn to read, she taught herself by age 3. It really wasn't until we moved from a tiny house to the large house we live in now before OCD and it's true symptoms even appeared. She did not take well to the change, and still will cry sometimes if we drive by the old house. (right now I need to let you all know she is also on the Autism Spectrum, but that is besides the point of OCD)

Her OCD did not make sense, to us. She showed signs of not liking germs, but yet she did a lot of things that we found just discussing. She couldn't go into the barn, because of the dirt, yet she was thrilled to play in the dirt, and watch all sorts of insects and even hold them. Her diet consisted of only a few dishes, and non of her food could touch, nor any new food could be on the same plate, she always had two plates. You didn't dare enter her space, try to help her cut her meat unless she asked, couldn't help brush her teeth, the list can go on and on.

At a loss as to what to do, we went to seek help, the first psychiatrist we seen was all about medication. We were not sold on that idea so we kept seeking. The second psychiatrist misdiagnosed her, which again we did not agree on and searched for yet another one. The one we have now is excellent, I can't even imagine having him not treat her. He suggested psychologists to work with Selena. The first one had her office in a house, because of that Selena's OCD could not except that. She couldn't go to see this person, because she was suppose to have an office not a house. The second psychologist was more concerned with behavior then the OCD. The third depended totally upon dietary changes, WAIT we were already living on a very restricted diet, how could I restrict it even more? The fourth made Selena feel less then normal. We turned to alternative therapies. I am not stating these things to make any of you feel that therapy will not work, I am just saying that you have to sometimes go on a search until you find the right therapy for your child! Don't ever be afraid to question the therapist, their personality, their method, and how your child might feel.

There are different types of therapy for OCD, one of the most popular is ERP, Exposure Response Prevention. The idea with this therapy is to expose the child with the things that create the OCD, and address the behaviors or rituals and try to find better ways of responding. This may work for some, and at first you might see escalated symptoms or behavioral issues. Some do not respond to this at all. Keep in mind not every treatment is for everyone. Also I believe the therapist MUST be a fit.

Some like to use the book, "Talking Back to OCD" which is a combination of ERP but also tries to explain to the child that OCD is a monster talking to them. This also takes in dietary changes. Depending upon the child this is successful! The child just has to know that monsters are not real and not everything is a monster! We tried this but everything turned into a monster, we had to finally line all the monsters up and kick them out the door and demand that they NOT come back.

For us most traditional therapies made Selena feel "Not Normal!" Though I know many who go through therapy with great success! Again not every therapy model or therapist fits every child!

Medications to treat OCD mostly consist of antidepressants, mild antidepressants given at small doses in hopes to treat the anxiety. I am very anti medication, and found that most of these medications made the OCD worse. Probably in our case due to the Autism we had going on too. Do these medications make our child a zombie? I have to say in mild doses probably not. I don't know about you but I myself have had to take antidepressants before, they didn't make me feel like a zombie. Is it something we want to give our children? That is a personal decision.

Now I want to talk a bit about non conventional therapies. I began my research in this area when I felt I was running into brick walls. Keep in mind we are treating not only OCD but Autism, but I have discovered allowing the child to do something they love or are passionate about with a person who has an understanding of OCD is very effective. As I mentioned earlier, my child had a hard time going into a barn, yet she loved horses. We found a person very passionate in horse whispering and began horse riding lessons. She had to enter the barn, but through her desire to learn to ride horses, and communicating with the horses she now can enter a barn. Not only that it built her confidence and has helped her to communicate with us on the other aspects in her life that bothers her. Any activity that your child enjoys, swimming, martial arts, so long as the teacher is able to understand your child's difficulties and has a willingness to work with you, can be an alternative therapy. Keep in mind they can be expensive and because they are alternative they are not covered under insurance.

I want to emphasize that we all get to a point we feel like we are at a loss, how do we help our child. It happens through trial and error. Sometimes somebody else might know of something that has worked for them, that is a perfect fit for our child. I do not want to create a community like some where all we hear is the negatives, while these are real, but we can ask positive questions, and receive positive support. I will not address all questions myself, I am not a mental health professional, I am first and foremost a mom just like all of you who have walked the same walk. I am more then willing to post to the group questions you ask and encourage others to share their experiences.

The Many Faces of OCD

As we move forward in our reading and working with the psychologist we are beginning to see so much more about what makes Sunshine tick. We have identified so many of her OCD monsters, yes, that is right the term used is monster when identifying the different voices that tell her things are wrong. She is then suppose to give them silly names. It is this area though that I am keeping private, only to her and us, these names make sense to her, and carry meaning that even we do not always understand, but since that is how she identifies them so we know who is speaking at any given time is all that matters. For those who do not have OCD can you imagine having this going on in your world all the time?

Just think of it this way, the more we play the game of allowing her rituals to control her comfort level, the more she feeds the monsters and the larger they become. The other term, I believe I mentioned in my previous post is that these monsters create what we call brain hiccups. In a healthy brain we might have scary thoughts that come through our mind, but we can easily dismiss these thoughts by identifying them as just that a thought, nothing real, but in OCD the brain doesn’t read them that way, our brain:

Then we perform something either mentally or outward that attempts to assure that this thought does not come true. A good example is that Sunshine is given a worried thought that something bad will happen to papa or myself when we are ready to leave, so her hiccup tells her to delay our leaving in any manner she can think of. Over time this becomes a ritual, especially when we do not allow her to perform her ritual, her world suddenly falls apart.

A few of the monsters we have identified minus their nicknames and too much information is:

1. She has a monster that tells her she can not learn and sits on her desk making school work impossible to do.
2. She can only have 6 of anything, anymore then that is too many, including the number of people in a room.
3. Everything is dirty unless she identifies a dishwasher or observes how it is cleaned.

There are many more, but some are very private in their context so I will not be identifying those.

One way that she can battle these is to blow them away. She has developed her own imaginary key that locks the back door, when the monsters start in, she asks one of us on her team to help her blow them out the back door, then she uses her key to lock them out. The idea here is for her to gain control and tell them to shut up, go away and to leave her alone.

She also learned a very valuable lesson, in that now that we are fighting back, these monsters are playing huge games with her by telling her all sorts of lies, such as “I will behave and be your best friend.” She is learning that there is no way she can trust them, and no way they can be her best friend. We still have a long journey ahead of us, but it is a journey worth going down just knowing that Sunshine is beginning to understand, we are beginning to understand, and it is fun to watch her gain control. It seems silly at times, but hey if it is going to work and help her then that is what we will do.

After her session she came home and got to play Queen the rest of the evening. Just so you know we will not participate in Halloween in the traditional manner, but we will have fun as Queen Sunshine with a lot of fun activities.