How to help an 11 year old?

Hi, so I’m coming back to this app after a while because my own OCD has been flaring up quite a bit, that or I am just learning to be more aware of it and realizing I need help, not sure. Anyways I have a little brother who is 11. I’m 24, and I started experiencing OCD at a really young age. I think around 8 was the youngest I really recall having intrusive thoughts and persistent fears. My brother has Tourette’s syndrome, which is highly co-occurring with OCD, and he has shown signs since he was really little. Most of my family is undiagnosed but I see it in our mom, our grandma, and other family members too. Anyways my question is, how can I help him? Could a therapist on here help? I feel like we all deeply bury and internalize (and also normalize) our OCD in my family. We all mask really really well, and it’s not the best because we often “seem fine” when we are not fine at all. The same goes for him, so he lacks awareness of what is really going on in his head, or he tries hard not to think about it (which we all know just makes it worse). I think he also willfully hides his emotions out of a variety of different fears. I haven’t really been able to get him to be fully honest with me because he’s just always terrified of feeling like he’s in trouble or upsetting people. This is hard because I helped raise him and I really want to help him if he’d let me. He’s an extreme perfectionist too. He won’t ask for help from his teacher because he gets so terrified he will get in trouble (when he’s done nothing wrong). I always wish I had actual OCD care at his age when I was experiencing some of the worst of it. I remember just being totally clueless as to why I felt that way, and immensely ashamed. I tried to hide it at all costs. I see him doing the same. It makes me sad for him.

Anonymous

Date posted: 20h

I am sorry you and your brother are going through this. It sounds like a

Anonymous

Date posted: 20h

sorry, hit send before meant to. It sounds like several contributing factors. I struggle with perfectionism as well, self-esteem issues, had a somewhat similar family environment (we love and care for each other and are open and honest about many things, but we also have some lack of addressing issues at times and let things go unspoken). I read part of a book called Letting Go of Perfect by Adelson and Wilson when younger, and the awareness of what I was struggling with along with some tips it provided changed things drastically for me, as well as my parents being aware so they could help me. I have been through other mental/physical challenges, and we cannot always be aware of everything that is going on. My faith in God helps with that. However, the awareness when we can learn about "what is perfectionism?", "what is OCD?", etc. can be very beneficial in my experience. I am also 24. I showed signs of OCD when I was younger, but it never became a real issue for me until the past several years after a bigger life event triggered some stress/etc. Even if he learns a little through you or otherwise, that could help him to process what he is going through long-term. We cannot force others to do what we want, so that is probably hard. But continue to be there for him and support him as you can. Maybe at a time when he seems open, you might be able to share some of your own experience and that can help prompt others to realize it is okay to share.

Anonymous

Date posted: 20h

Also, I just found the Support Groups page on the NOCD app. It looks like there are some different groups that could be good for family/parent support and education. Might be worth exploring if not already aware of those. Not sure how the support groups operate. Hope things get better.

Anonymous

Date posted: 18w

What helped you, as a child with OCD?

My daughter was just diagnosed with OCD, and is in denial. Her brother is the source of contamination for her. Everything he does, triggers her. She will not be in the same room as him, and it's only getting worse. If you were a child in denial, refusing medication and therapy, what helped you to finally accept help?

Mum🌸

Date posted: 17w

Need advice how to help son with his religious OCD

My son has Pure O religious/scrupulosity with GAD and Bipolar. My son was diagnosed with Pure O religious OCD two years ago. He has to complete a task so that God doesn’t send him to hell if he doesn’t do it. These tasks are dangerous like doing multiple back flips on concrete, or jumping off balconies three times, doing MMA slams on his back three times. The thoughts are telling him if he doesn’t do this he will go to hell. Or he is so worried about blaspheming the holy spirt and loose his salvation. He knows this is his OCD. He knows the scripture and that God is one of peace and love. Been there and done that on quoting scripture and reminding him he is saved. I can see the torture he is going through and it is painful to watch. He also needs to be stuck next to me at all times cuz it makes him feel safe. This is impeding on my life as I feel I have a toddler again, he is 24 and a former 4 star football player. He wants this to stop, he is in therapy and working on it. He was free from these thoughts from November 2023 till April 2025. He is dealing with narcissistic trauma with his father and this triggers the OCD. My question is what can I do to support and help him through these episodes and not agitate him and to help him heal?

liz vrela

Date posted: 14w

Any advice to help my little sister with ocd

My little sister is 13 we’ve taken her to a child psychologist and she was diagnosed with OCD and social anxiety and I believe germaphobia. The psychologist said that he can’t properly diagnose her with autism until her anxiety symptoms are treated. But I am very positive that she is also autistic as I am autistic and know the symptoms vary well. She was given a medication at a low dose, I don’t remember what kind, she had been taking it even tho she did not want to for a couple of months. It seemed to be helping her anxiety immensely but I believe she is scared of how the medication changes how she feels and she doesn’t like the taste. So they switched medications and that one was even worse because the taste was too strong she didn’t even try it for more than a day so there’s no way of knowing if that one was better for her or not. These are both liquid medications btw we used juice for her to drink it. Since then she hasn’t taken any medication and she has said that she doesn’t want to. We can’t force her to take the medication as that would obviously be counter productive. But since then her ocd and germaphobia have gotten progressively worse. On top of not wanting medication she doesn’t like the idea of using any coping skills like deep breaths or breathing exercises to calm down and doesn’t like the idea when I talk about ERP or therapy or any kind of treatment that could help. It seems all the ideas either make her uncomfortable or scare her. I fear somewhat that my own ocd compulsions have made her think that this is normal and doesn’t need treatment and I don’t know what to do to help understand that treatment and change isn’t scary. I also fear that I’m not approaching this right and my mom doesn’t understand ocd like I do so I feel like it falls on me to help her through this and help my mom understand what we need to do to help her. I’m sorry this is so long. thank you for reading this. She’s really struggling and it’s affecting my own mental health too and I don’t know what to do. If anyone has any tips or advice please that’s all I’m asking for.

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How to help an 11 year old?

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