My 16yr old daughter has been exhibiting OCD behaviors throughout the school year and now things are unbearable. Every night between 6pm and 10pm, she excessively washes her hands. These episodes may or may not include a shower but water is running for 4 full hours. She is now using up two full bars of soap per day. It is out of control.
During these 4 hour episodes, her eyes are wide and she's clearly not all there. It seems like she is almost in a trance like state. I don't know what to do.
She not only uses up all of the soap, she uses up all of the cleaning products. Yet she doesn't clean up after herself. She cleans small spots on the floor where she claims there is contamination or small areas on the sink. She doesn't clean the entire bathroom or her bedroom. These areas are in fact left in a complete mess. She leaves paper and trash all over the bathroom and her bedroom.
I'm confused as to why she feels the need to excessively was her hands but she won't clean up the mess around her.
Can anyone give me any insight as to what may be going on with her and how I can help her?
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cncrndmom
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It does sound like your daughter is experiencing OCD. I would try to get an appt with a Doctor as soon as possible. You can start with her Primary Doctor.
Don't try to find logical explanations to your daughter's behaviours. Just understand that a glitch in her brain is causing terrible suffering that's called OCD. Everything else could be dealt much more appropriately by bringing her to specialists who know how to deal with this. CBT and ERP therapy are the science proven methods for OCD treatment. My heart goes to your and your daughter. I remember when I was a kid in primary school.. all my crazy hand washing habits, and water tap turning on and off routines according to some lucky numbers I've came up that day. OCD is a tough condition, but good news is in majority of cases it can be overcome with proper help.
This posting, as well as your comment, summarizes my behaviors as well. I can leave things messy but excessively wash my hands, and the magic numbers constantly changes multiple times a day.
Try not to do compulsions as much as you can. If it feels too overwhelming to not do it alone, you need to find an OCD therapist who would teach you how to do response prevention. If you are not a hardcore case, usually quite soon after starting ERP you will start noticing that the obsessive part of the OCD bitch is being starved, it will screech and nag you non-stop to come back to compulsions but no compulsions means that the bitch eventually will have no gas to run on and will have to stop. Good luck, my friend.
I'm so sorry to hear about what you and your daughter are going through - OCD is something that is so tough to go through and to watch someone else go through.
The best way that I can explain it is, for those of us with OCD (or at least with my experience), we often know deep down that there is a chance that what we are doing doesn't make sense or won't actually help - but the fears we are experiencing are so strong and intense that we figure we may as well do it anyway. OCD is like your worst nightmare is real, and so if you think you have a chance to do something that will prevent it or that will help to reduce your fear, of course you are going to do it. There are some things that you just have such a strong urge to do as you feel like this particular action is what you need to do in that moment - for example washing your hands as opposed to cleaning the mess around you. I hope that explanation helps a little bit!
My main advice with her is to just be patient with her until she can get some professional help, even though it's frustrating and difficult. Don't condone the behaviours, but don't just simply tell her to "stop" or get mad at her, as it won't be very effective and could only make her feel worse. Just remind her that she is safe and loved and that she doesn't need to be worried. You could also try to gradually reduce the number of cleaning products that she has access to, however be careful with this as you don't want to make her even more anxious.
The most important thing is definitely to speak to a doctor or psychologist - for me, my parents took me to my GP and then I was diagnosed and recommended a psychologist to go and see.
She may be too physically and mentally exhausted from the OCD to clean up after herself. OCD compulsions provide a very temporary relief to her anxiety from chasing certainty. OCD will always try to throw another “what if” our way. What if I didn’t clean that spot properly and it’s still contaminated? What if contamination is lurking over there? When OCD is unmanaged, the person is afraid X will happen and they can’t cope with it if it does. It doesn’t matter how small the probability of X happening is. A licensed mental health provider who specializes in OCD and is appropriately trained in ERP would be worth finding. Jonathan Grayson’s book, Freedom from OCD, is one of the most recommended books on OCD. The IOCDF offers free livestreams every Tuesday and Wednesday that are helpful for support although they don’t replace treatment. You can learn more about them at iocdf.org. These are also recorded so you can watch them later.
I can't add more advice from what has already been said, but as an adult with contamination OCD (which started when I was 17 in the late 80s when few knew about it and there wasn't the help there is now), cleaning spots is more important as that is the focus of the contamination fears. Sometimes cleaning other areas could actually just result in more hand washing and it is so tiring as it is. Or those areas could feel even more contaminated to her that she can't even touch them. I actually have some items on paper towels that my sister took out of a drawer at my Mum's house that need my attention right now but I can't find the right time to touch them. When I am at home in the US I can still end up with something that I leave until later because picking it up just means a shower or more handwashing.
I go through stages and have been a lot better and a lot worse. I have been bad at not being able to fully engage in ERP, but meds help and I did start some ERP in because I basically hit rock bottom and I was spending 5 hours in the shower, some of which was just waiting for water to reheat, and I wouldn't be able to talk for many, many hours after eating until I felt my mouth was clean enough that I wouldn't send particles of contamination into my nose by talking or even breathing normally which included lots of mouth wiping for a few hours and then each hour for more hours after that. It would also take me over two hours to feel that I was clean after using the bathroom (bowel movement) but this was quicker than taking a 5 hour shower where I would sometimes feel more contaminated in certain ways. I went down from a size 12 to a size 2 because some days it was just easier not to eat.
So please know that her behaviour seems excessive (which it is) but please don't get upset with her. Her brain is experiencing fear in an area of her brain (Amygdala) which doesn't have a connection with the thought part of the brain so no use trying to talk her out of the fear. The only thing that works is teaching this part of the brain that there is no true danger but this must be done with an experienced therapist who SPECIALISES in OCD. Try looking at those listed with NOCD for a start.
Although those with OCD feel that the fear is connected with something in particular and it may seem silly/irrational even to us, the brain is actually signalling that you may actually be in mortal peril and learned behaviours relieve that (although by doing so you just teach the amygdala that there really was danger that was then remedied and so the next time the fight/flight reaction in the brain is the same or even strengthened in response to the 'threat'.
If it is that bad she may also need medication to just help with the ERP at the beginning. Having her officially diagnosed and under the care of a Psychiatrist is also very important as they will evaluate her need for this, but if she can do therapy without meds then that would be amazing.
I would also recommend that you both check out youtube and these channels:
Natasha Daniels who specialises in OCD in children:
Reid Wilson (who has some videos explaining about the Amydala which is helping me immensely) as well as others and I HIGHLY recommend for you to watch:
She prefer being messy , because if she doesnt do this she has to wash more and more and more. Now at this time, my room is so messy. I can not touch my outfit because if I do that I can not prevent washing. so ../. But in comparison with few months ago I am better now and I owe this channel in youtube :
There's two issues here, her wide-eyed state is her in panic trying to do rituals, for me I use the term "mazes in the mind" where I cannot see the world or function until I escape
2nd, she's too exhausted to tidy up following the episode, she found the small relief she was looking for when finished which causes her to not see the mess she left
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