- Date posted
- 4y
- Date posted
- 4y
Hey I’m glad you are trying to help your son. I actually had a little of moral ocd and feeling like I should do certain things. I also experience intrusive thoughts. My advice would be to lean in to the anxiety. It will be hard at first, but with slow steps your son can get through his ocd. For example, if he sees a piece of trash on the ground, walk past it and don’t pick it up. Sit with the anxiety and recognize that it will decrease. Regarding the thoughts, my therapist would tell me that the thoughts are just thoughts. You can tell your son that just because he is having these thoughts, does not mean he agrees with them. Just because we are having these thoughts does not mean that they are true. Usually ocd blows things out of proportion, hense why these are called intrusive thoughts. Last, the hardest thing for my parents to do was to not give in to my ocd. My therapist stressed how important it is to not give in to the ocd. This would be giving reassurance because over time, giving reassurance and doing compulsions make you feel better in the moment but the thoughts will come back. In the long run, not giving in during the current moment will help you not give in down the road. It is crazy how our brain works and that if we stop trying to get rid of the thoughts, they will eventually go away. If we continue to try to get rid of the thoughts, they will come back stronger.
- Date posted
- 4y
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!
- Date posted
- 4y
Don’t let him confess! Right now his anxiety is beginning to peak and by not confessing he’s breaking the ocd cycle and his anxiety will eventually decrease and the thoughts will be easier to manage for him. Remember it may get worse before it gets better with ocd. With kids I’ve heard an analogy about “not feeding the monster” used to make it easier for them to understand their ocd. By not “feeding the monster” they are starving it and making it weaker and less scary.
- Date posted
- 4y
Thank you so much!!!!! I can’t believe how you named the verbiage we’ve been using! You’re absolutely right! The anxiety went crazy when we stopped him from confessing! Last two days have been brutal with anxiety. From where we were this morning to now, is night and day.
- Date posted
- 4y
That is so crazy that you put it in those terms, because that is the terminology we’ve been using. Another thing I’ve noticed is that I haven’t let him confess any negative thoughts for the past 48 hours, and this is the highest his anxiety has ever been.
- Date posted
- 4y
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to this post.
- Date posted
- 4y
I started reading a book called “Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts” by Winston and Seif. It’s a book you can probably read with your son or on your own. I found it to be helpful in a way that’s not too heavy but useful / practical. More books about children and adolescents with OCD. https://tourette.ca/books-for-teens-and-children-with-ocd/
- Date posted
- 4y
Wow!!! Thank you SO MUCH!!!!
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- 4y
Great book BTW
- Date posted
- 4y
I actually feel the same way as your eleven year old, just my ocd does affect my everyday life, but I’m getting better. When I confess to my mom, she says “ocd has no place here” because we learned that reassurance will actually make the ocd increasingly worse. Try telling him that ocd has no place here. I wish the best for you and your 11 year old!
- Date posted
- 4y
Great Advice!!! We’ve stopped the reassurance and allowing the confessing!!! Just working on him applying these tools! Came up with a little song about him kicking OCD’s butt!!! Appreciate the feedback more than you know.
- Date posted
- 4y
💙
Related posts
- Date posted
- 23w
I’ve been feeling the urge to avoid intimacy or purposefully engage (for reassurance that I won’t give into a compulsion) because of intrusive thoughts and fear that I’ll “check/test” my reactions. My OCD is making me so scared that I’ll purposefully think of a child and try to see if I like it. It’s so complicated but I guess I’m mentally checking if I would mentally check during intimacy. I’ve even envisioned myself checking and it’s making me so nauseous. I know it’s a compulsion like any other but the sound of “touching yourself to the thought of a child” sounds atrocious and vile. I’m terrified I’ll automatically start checking next time I am being intimate. I truly feel so worried. If anyone has gone through something similar, I’d appreciate hearing your experience. Or if anyone has any advice?
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- "Pure" OCD
- Date posted
- 22w
Please read this. I’ve had ocd pretty much a lot of my life but never knew what it was until my senior year of highschool. I’m 21 with 2 kids and i believe i’ve had pocd a little bit before my daughter was born (which was 8 months ago). It made me start looking at all kids differently and i hate it. But it really started triggering me about 3 months ago. I’ve been thinking if i’d intentionally touched or harmed my kids the wrong way, or any kids for that matter. This started giving me false memories (or at least hope they are). I’ve been having panic attacks, yelling at myself, punching walls, praying, and even thoughts of ending my own life. I grew up in a severe toxic household throughout my childhood and teenage life. I’ve never wished that on my kids since i became a dad. I wanna give them the life i never got. I look back my photos of my children and i feel like i’m a complete fraud of a dad. I cannot look at my kids or be around them a lot of times. I can’t hold my daughter right. I can’t change their diaper when they need it. Even my son came and was hugging on me the other night while i was watching tv and i acted like a stranger to him. I can very little do this stuff sometimes because it’s either i get relief or i push my thoughts as far back as i can. I get scared if i did something to not just my kids, but any other kids in the past. I have such a a great life and such a beautiful family. It was hard and stressful at first being young with a family but i couldn’t be more thankful at all for them. I’m just so lost and stressed right now that i just don’t know what to do anymore
- Date posted
- 19w
I just got off my session today and after having a confession to my husband last night with a compulsion, he obviously is going to have more questions. My therapist says not to confess because I am growing my OCD . However, this is really OCD and is about something that actually happened. My husband said, that it sounds like I have someone in my life who is justifying withholding information or lying to him. Of course when I have my obsession compulsions, he makes sense. Can somebody help explain this to me? How is my husband not right or is he?
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