Hi everyone. Any advice on how to help a teen with severe OCD, a teen that absolutely does NOT want to participate in therapy and continues to say “I like my life the way it is.” “You are just trying to change me.” Keep in mind, she does not eat anything at our home, does not touch anything certain people have touched, has special clothes for riding in the car, sitting in bed, and being out in the house, will not ride in the family car, will not touch people-any people, will not touch school books so she is falling behind in school. She more or less spends her entire day in her room. She used to be so social and fun and adventurous. During therapy she is sassy and defiant, completely different than her normal self. I have tried everything and can use all the help I can get. Thank you in advance!

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.

I'm writing today as a concerned sibling. I respect you all for your hard work, sharing and the guidance everyone provides. I've been reading comments about how helpful OCD therapy is, but have yet to convince my sibling that it can help. They respond that they probably wont learn more than what they've already realized and that they can't actually stop the OCD behaviors for them.. I say that there are professionals with tips and would help to consult on ways to battle OCD. My sibling has realized that they cant give into the thoughts, but from that realization to action, is hard, as folks know. I've been taking note of people's reviews of getting better and plan to share those with my sibling, but does anyone else have other advice how to help them get more help? It seems the issue may be Contamination OCD and general (heavy) anxieties and depression (which has been around for most of their life). Thank you in advance for any more guidance.

Hi. My 15 year old daughter is just getting started with her OCD journey. We have only so far done 2 intake sessions with her therapist. It seems like in past week her anxiety has been getting worse. She goes to church camp tomorrow for 5 days. Any advice things to say to help reassure her without fueling the fire? . Or any tips your kids have done to work through the anxiety and panic when away from home? She has very negative thoughts about herself/appearance, contamination. I’m just worried how the week will go. She has been having difficulties even on family outings this week, feeling overwhelmed, panic, wanting to go home. Thanks in advance.