Son revealed part of OCD

[SarahJane]

Yesterday, I was talking to my son & had given him 7 more pieces of popcorn (he turns 7 on Sat)...he asked for one extra piece & I didn't think anything about it. Then a few minutes later he says "I'm the kind of person who does things in two's." Whoa! I had him clarify & it turns out he wants to do things in even numbers. Said he'd been doing it for a long time, but when I asked if he was doing this last spring, he acted like I was crazy to think it had been that long. I have no idea when it started but he thinks he was doing it before we went to Chicago for IVIg in Nov. So WOW! We were at Target when he told me, so I was trying to get him to talk about it while he was being chatty about it, but not in an overt way. We've quizzed him a bit about it, but at 7 it's hard not to lead him to answers. It does seem like it's a real thing. Not that I would think he'd make it up, but I'm trying to be sure that he's not heard it somewhere or on a cartoon. I don't remember seeing any OCD characters on any shows tho'. He also didn't want to tell me too much about it since he thought I might want to start doing it too if he did. And tonight he told my husband that if he does have to do something to an odd number that his tongue is rubbery & his stomach feels wobbly...he actually quoted a little something from a character in his Grumpy Bunny books about feeling like he had caterpillars for breakfast...I knew what he meant. He has a splash obsession and did tell us that if he sees a splash on a show/DVD that he has to watch it 4 times. That's pretty specific. And it explains why he gets mad (and then I do too usually) when I tell him one more splash in the bathtub & he does more than just one. If he's on an even splash & I say one more, then the 1 is an odd AND it puts him on an odd number of splashes. Also sometimes I'll say 3 more splashes, but if he's on odd then that keeps him on odd & 3 is also odd. I'm supposing here, but it does make sense. I'm going to see it everywhere now, even if it's not that, so I have to be careful. I counted & we have 7 stairs but sometimes he jumps from about the 4th stair down...could OCD or he could just like to jump.

 

For the most part IVIg has been good to us. We are in a MUCH better place now than before. Still some kinks and things that will throw us for a loop (like revealing OCD, but I'd rather know than not know...wonder if he'll reveal any others). We've had the flipping of the pages back, but it has been more positive days than negative ones now. I hope we can just get thru flu & strep season. And since undx'd PANDAS hit around the end of Jan, we're coming up on some days that stand out to us (1st public rage, 1st time being called to school, etc...). He's still pretty immature, but that's better some days. Still has anger issues now & then and a few other things. There's still more healing to go. It gets hard now to tell what's PANDAS, what's regular "7" year old, and what's general brattiness...and what's just our PTSD/stress blowing something out of proportion.

 

So...I had no idea he had this type of counting OCD. Glad he's talking about it tho'. Thanked him for sharing & told him that he can share anything like that with us whenever he wants. Since he's not a teenager yet, I'm hoping he will keep talking.