Tired of OCD running MY life....

[wornoutmom]

Wish I had the energy left today to say something really insightful and helpful, but alas all I have to offer is empathy. I don't think it's selfish to want some time and space and feel frustrated and angry sometimes. This is an abnormal situation we're all dealing with and we cope the best we can.

[coco]

DCmom -- your note tugs at my heartstrings. There are days when the patience is thin, as we are all just human, and as my grandma used to say, "even the strongest horse has its limit." Sometimes I find that even just an hour alone taking a walk or sitting in the car having a cup of coffee outside the local coffee shop can help me gain perspective, or at least give me some reprieve for not having to be "fully engaged" in something that demands attention almost 24/7. I, too, consider myself a very affectionate, loving mother and totally dedicated to healing my child. But this type of dedication does take it's toll, no doubt, on all or our spirits.

 

Before we knew what pandas even was in my house and my daughter was experiencing what we now know was a severe pandas episode, for my dh and me sleeping in our own bed was next to impossible for many, many months. Picture this: My daughter age 7 at the time had this lovely little girls room, canopy bed, white ruffles, pink gingham curtains...a little girl's dream, right? Now, here's my husband 6 feet tall, 210 pounds having to lie down in the bed with her every night until she fell asleep. Often she had a death grip on his arm and when he thought she was "out" after about 2 hours of lying there and all body parts began to go numb he comtemplated his escape and inched himself off the mattress and began crawling on the floor on all fours heading towards to door, heart beating with excitement thinking about his own bed...then just as he begins to pass through the threshold he hears that dredded little word, "...Dad??" My dh would try to spell me off and "take the night shift" from time to time as he could to give me a break from the long days. When he was travelling out of town on business I would take over the night time ritual by myself. On one particular night after lying there in that bed myself for what seemed like an all-nighter waiting for her to fall asleep I just decided to get up and go to my own bed. I declared to myself that I was done with this. I got up, crawled in my own bed and turned off the lights. She followed me like a puppy and was completely bewildered as to what the heck was going on. You can imagine the tirade of words that exchanged. But I was done with this. Flat out done. She could sleep on the floor, in the hall, in her own bed, wherever, but I WAS NOT GOING TO LIE THERE like a prisoner to this OCD any longer. Well, she wandered all over...at one point literally breathing on my face to see if I was alive, I suppose. She was in complete shock. She finally fell asleep at 8 am, in a leapfrog position on the floor in front of my bathroom door. I then slept, too. We talked about it the following day and I pumped up her ego and strength to tell her how she could do this and be such a big girl, etc. The next night we went through the same thing, but she fell asleep about 3 am. And then after several more days she fell asleep in her own bed. She was still totally stressed out, mind you, but she found it within herself to cope with this compulsion. Don't get me wrong, we still have cyclical bedtime issues, but neither my husband or I have spent another night in her bed.

 

Clearly this won't work for all circumstances, but as much as I know my daughter's limits, I also know my own. And if I collapse all is lost.

We have to try and take care of ourselves at least of fraction of the time we are devoting to our children. Big hug, dcmom!

 

Coco

[simplygina]

Wow! My son and your daughter have so many similar issues! My son has similar issues with his little brother. He admitted that he feels like he is "contaminated". I can tell how well he is doing by the way he treats his brother.

 

There are definitely some things that I am tough about, and others that I let slide until I feel we can tackle it successfully. That said, I refuse to be tapped on!

 

Sleep is one that we've worked on incrementally, but an issue that I refuse to go backward once we've progressed.

 

DS slept in our room from 6 weeks (after spending a week in the hospital with RSV) until he was almost 9. Even as an infant he just slept better with us. But I always insisted that he at least fall asleep in his own bed first. Until he was 3 I would cuddle him until he was asleep. Finally at 3 I told him we would cuddle with him for 2 songs of his lullaby CD, then he was on his own. The first night was brutal and I was in tears, but by the 3rd night he just did it. The hope I had at the time was that once he got used to falling asleep in his bed, he'd stay there. Well, he didn't. He would wander in at some point in the night and climb into bed with us. And I was OK with that.

 

When he was about 7 I decided he was getting too big and just didn't fit in our bed anymore. He also needed to be touching me to sleep and it was beginning to drive me nuts. So I told him he could still come in, he just had to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor. Every so often he'd try to climb into bed with us but I would tell him no. There were a few tears but he knew I meant it and seemed to accept it.

 

At 9, following his tonsillectomy and a round of abx, he actually slept in his own bed all night a few times. I was so amazingly well rested the following day that I realized I'd been seriously sleep deprived for 9 years! So I told him he had to sleep in his own bed. Of course he tested to see if I was serious, but again, after about 3 nights, he was sleeping all night in his own bed.

 

Usually it goes pretty smooth now, but we've had some rough patches too. He went through a phase last Fall where he was totally freaked out about alien abductions. He just couldn't fall asleep or stay asleep for long. I laid down with him a few nights until he fell asleep but realized we were backsliding. So I told him I wasn't going to do it anymore. That night he kept coming out of his room, pale, wild-eyed, hyper-ventilating and crying. He was obviously in fight or flight. We've read "Up and Down the Worry Hill" so many times he knows it by heart now, so I reminded him that the way to get better was to go through the anxiety and he was just going to have to survive the night because I knew he wasn't going to be abducted. After some hugs and deep breaths together I reminded him that I would never put him in danger and that if I thought there was ANY chance of an alien abduction, I wouldn't LET him sleep in his room. I agreed to stay up until he fell asleep, but told him I wasn't giving in. Every time he would come out I would send him back and remind him to take deep breaths and tell himself he could do it. It was so heart-breaking, but cute to hear him talking to himself. Of course I was in tears again but didn't let him see that. He finally did fall asleep around midnight and was really proud of himself the next day. We also discussed it some more and he agreed that the chances of an alien choosing to abduct him were pretty low. The next night he was still nervous, but far more resolved. By the 3rd night he just did it. 3 nights seems to get us past just about anything!

 

We still have to work on it from time to time, but he knows I'm serious about this one. Last night I heard him get up at 4 am. The rule is he can't come in to cuddle with me until his dad leaves for the gym at 5 am. Every so often he wakes up and wanders in and I have to tell him it is too early. He asks if he can turn on the hall light and I always say he can. Last night I was getting ready to tell him to go back to bed, but instead he used the bathroom, turned on the light, turned on his "falling asleep music" CD and went back to bed. Those are the moments I realize how far we've come and how strong he really is. And he has told me that when he gets through something hard, he is proud of himself and knows he is strong inside.

 

Every book I've read about OCD talks about not enabling it or joining in the rituals. But it is soooo hard when you know they are genuinely struggling and you are exhausted and not wanting to deal with the resulting tantrum. Like I said, there are things I let slide a bit but usually I realize I'm not doing him any favors by expecting less from him.

 

I wasn't making him study his math facts because he was doing OK in math, and I didn't want to deal with him mean, crabby, snappy attitude. But one day he told me he was dumb at math and couldn't learn his multiplication tables. I realized I was fostering a disabling belief in him that wasn't going to help him at all in the long run. So we just studied one number each night for a week. He passed off all the numbers in less than a month and was soooo proud! And he learned that he can do it if he tries. He also learned that his thought about how hard it was didn't match the reality.

 

He also had a tendency to just go through the motions and not really work on improving. I realized that he is quite competitive. I decided to use his defiance and his ego as tools and started to use a little reverse psychology. I didn't say it out right, but I may have suggested that he had fooled his poor math teacher into believing he wasn't very bright. THAT lit a fire under his behind and he's been proving her wrong ever since! Challenging him or betting him he can't do something works well with him. And I'm not above using "incentives". He will do just about anything for money or a new book. He even picked up dog-doo last Saturday for $5. When his dad said "I bet you wouldn't be willing to pick up the yard for $5", I thought, "nice try. no way". To my utter amazement, I looked out and there he was with a shovel and bag.

 

Now he is applying himself more and more and doing his own ERP and CBT. Yesterday he told me he was struggling during a math quiz because he felt like his numbers weren't perfect so he was erasing and then he had to have all the little bits of paper and eraser off the paper before he could move on. When the teacher told them they had 5 minutes left, he looked down and realized he had only done 3 problems out of 20. He decided to just push through the "funny feeling in his tummy" and mentally told OCD to take a hike. Then he raced through the rest of the test and had time to spare. He told me it was because I won't let him go back and erase or rewrite when we sit down to do homework together. He gets mad that I won't, but agreed that the practice helped him realize he didn't HAVE to do what OCD tells him to do. He gets to choose.

 

So I guess I kind of am a proponent of the tough love approach because it works for us. I try to be kind while I'm being firm, but sometimes I'm tired and rotten too. And then he gives me a taste of my own medicine and tells me to work on it! When he starts checking or asking for reassurance, I kindly remind him I already answered the question but that he can tell OCD the answer if it really wants to hear it again. He has a good sense of humor, so being a little silly about it works pretty well. But, If I don't think there is any chance he can be successful doing something, I let it go. During our roughest times I really pick my battles. And I will totally concede that my son has never been so sick that he's been violent or destructive. That would definitely make it harder.