- 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.
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- 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/
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- 4y
Wow!!! Thank you SO MUCH!!!!
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- 4y
Great book BTW
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- 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!
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- 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.
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- 4y
💙
Related posts
- Date posted
- 20w
I have been really really struggling for the past 3 months and haven’t been able to stop intrusive thoughts/ rumination and confessing. It’s making me question my entire life, my relationship and even who I am as a person. It’s mainly effecting my relationship, I am so afraid that I did something or think things that are definitely hurtful to my partner. I know my brain is contorting my own memory and making things seem so much worse. I also know I haven’t done anything bad, all my things I’ve confessed about have been considered “normal” and I’ve been told that “you’re normal, you didn’t do anything wrong”. But I have felt this intense sense of guilt and shame and it doesn’t go away, I can’t even be a normal person anymore. And I keep searching for “just one more thing I need to tell” and I don’t want to keep searching my brain of every time I’ve said or done anything that I can distort and make seem 1000% worse. I’m isolating myself and just feel like I’m a bad person. I keep confessing my thoughts, feeling, urges, etc. to my partner and while I know I would never do any of these I feel like my ocd is trying to convince me that maybe I would because “why else would you think it or feel guilty” and that makes it so much worse. I really need guidance on how to handle this. What do I do to stop feeling like this and heal?
- Date posted
- 19w
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?
- Date posted
- 18w
My husband and I have 3 kids.. ages 13, 7 & 1. Our 13 year old has always been somewhat “different”, even as a toddler. He was very quiet and socially awkward. Not much has changed in that department. He isn’t into sports and has a very hard time finding anything at all that interests him. He doesn’t have many friends as he is still awkward and has a hard time fitting in. He has OCD. Specifically moral OCD. He feels like he has to confess everything to me that he feels isn’t appropriate. Curse words he hears on tv, something off-color that he or his friends said at school, anything sexual he hears on tv or in a joke. He laughingly tells me but he is reading my face to gauge my reaction on the subject every time. We tell him constantly that he doesn’t have to confess to us but, of course, those who know much about OCD know that this is harder than just simply telling them they don’t have to give into their compulsions. He is very anxious and worries about everything. He also has inattentive ADHD so he’s currently on medicine for that but can’t tell if it’s actually helping anything or not. He’s on anxiety meds too that we are trying to assess. Honestly, we have also wondered if he may be on the spectrum but high-functioning. Not sure. We are very worried about his future. He is not maturing and doesn’t care to learn how to better himself since he’s getting older. Anyway, now that I’ve given a little background, my reason for posting is that I wonder if we have created all of this. First of all.. I am a hovering mom. Im very overprotective and have a hard time letting my kids do much because I’m anxious myself. I grew up with a yelling mom and stepdad. Sadly, I have resorted to this trauma behavior much of my son’s life as well. I try my hardest not to lose my temper and yell but, I am very ashamed to say, that I haven’t been able to do a very good job with that. I have been overly critical also. Learned behavior. I will add that we are also a religious family that goes to church and follows the Bible. My husband was raised differently. His parents are very mild mannered and calm. Very sweet with my husband and his sister growing up and they aren’t “yellers”. They live out in the country and are very lax about many rules when my children go out there. Not that they let them do whatever they want but at the same time… they do seem to have a hard time saying no. My sister in law and her family live across the street from my in laws so they’re all out in the country together living their peaceful, carefree life. 🙄 They seem to think that my husband and I have brought all of this on ourselves with how we have so many rules and boundaries. They’re of the mindset that we should be exposing him to movies with curse words and letting him hear innnapropriate things and curse words more. This is how they parent their 10 year old (who is homeschooled so.. in my opinion they don’t have to worry so much about him repeating the curse words at school. We are at a Christian, private school where I also teach so it’s a bigger deal making sure my kids don’t hear those things and repeat). Anyway.. first and foremost, I’m looking for advice on how to reverse the damage from me losing my temper these last 13 years. I swear I am trying my hardest and strive everyday to be a good mom. I want so badly for them to WANT to keep a close relationship with us when they become adults living on their own. But I am so scared I’m ruining them. Does it seem to be the case? Also, do you think we have caused this OCD? Be honest with everything please. I am constantly very worried we are doing this wrong.
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