OCD odd/even numbers

[smartyjones]

i know i keep asking the same questions about ocd - it's just so darned confusing. i appreciate everyone's patience who keeps answering!

 

my son,5, is doing 'okay' - generally a 5/6 on buster's scale, composed of a couple of small issues. he does continue to have random situations of cognitive inflexibility probably once/month or 6 weeks.

 

tonight he had an issue with something he was supposed to do. he negotiatied to come out to do it in 3 minutes. when the time came, he resisted. then spiraled from there. finally, through much mostly explosive child techniques of repeating, he said he wanted to do 2 minutes because 2 is even and 3 is odd, although he initially agreed to 3. when i repeated and questioned this, he himself seemed confused as to why it mattered. then when fully calmed, he wanted to again negotiate the same way, came out with 3 and did it fine.

 

when i asked him if he has troubles with numbers being odd or even, he said not usually, just tonight.

 

i really don't think he has a 'web of thoughts', it's more something just doesn't sit right and then he can have issues. this falls into 'just right' ocd, yes? how do we work on that b/c it's impossible to know what and when will not just sit right in his mind?

 

much later, i discussed with him if he again had trouble with odd or even, to tell me that that is the problem. although, i'm not sure he even knew when he initially resisted what was the problem - it's more a fight or flight immediate reaction. if it comes up again, and he does tell me, can i allow to change it once and then be aware for a pattern? or do i not at all allow an odd/even to rule behavior?

 

thanks for your thoughts!

[Megs_Mom]

He is pretty heathy right now treatment wise - and you are not seeing these breakthoughs in a pattern with a increase/decrease of abx, correct? If not, and if the episodes are rare, short lived and reasoned through shortly after, I'd chalk it up to brain healing or to a brain habit pattern.

 

You have a pretty good language built up to communicate with your son about OCD now right? If so, I'd address this when it is not happening - and talk about how OCD can sneak up on us & make us feel really wierd. And about how strong we can make our brains if we beat up OCD when it comes. In our house, we discuss these occassional moments as times that we get to "exercise" our brains - and we discuss that practicing beating up OCD can be really helpful if the OCD comes to us for a few days. We still go back to "what to do when your brain gets stuck" and read about the particular type of OCD. Then we agree on some sort of a joint plan. So for example, we might practice the situation a few times when OCD is NOT bothering us. This helps her build her personal story that she CAN do the things that OCD tells her that she cannot. Reminding her of this if OCD rears up a little helps her to feel more powerful. Then, we look for an opportunity when OCD does bother her, even for a second, and we beat it up together & then celebrate. I will even say goofy things like "oh, I think this might be a moment for Megan Power - am I right" - in a pretty upbeat tone. If she seems stressed, I'll pull out the old reward program, and say "I think this one might deserve a prize box!" We used to do a pretty serious reward program - now we are very random about it - a hug and high five is usually enough.

 

I'll give you an example - she is really good right now, but at bedtime tonight, she noticed a "hello kitty" purse on the bookcase behind her bed. I realized that she was looking odd & asked her why she was staring at her purse. She said "mom, I think there might be money in that purse (she needs money to buy those darn silly bands!!!), but I can't touch it." I said (with my heart in my throat "oh, you can't touch it?" and she reached back there & grabbed it determindly. I said "wow, that was fast", and she replied "I think it was just a habit, not really OCD, mom". She does know the difference.

 

I hate OCD and want her to beat up any fragment of it that remains - if she is willing. I figure if it is all gone, then it is that much easier to show the pattens if something goes wrong, and there is less to build on. Plus, I hate OCD (oh, did I already say that ) We were laughing tonight as she ate a second ice cream today (seriously, I am not sure if I will EVER care again about how much sugar she eats!), then blew bubbles into her bath water - all impossible last May. She seems really self-aware right now - something about this season seems to be reminding her of last year, even some of the things she seemed to have forgotten until now.

[kimballot]

My son had lots of counting rituals when he was younger and in an exacerbation. Interesting, one summer he had to do things 3 times, the next summer it was 2 times! He probably had the rituals earlier on but could not tell me and I now think that is why he would do things one more time - even when the punishment was VERY high (take one more cookie, one more candy, one more trip down the slide, etc.).

 

When he was old enough to tell me about it he said that if he did not do things that certain number of times he felt something REALLY BAD would happen. I wish I had the techniques Meg's Mom had. We just talked about ways to cope with the situation... like saying "no thank you" to cookies if you can only have one but NEED two, and asking friends if everyone could go down the slide TWO times before the next person goes down, making sure everyone still gets a turn. I guess we just did what we could to cope and respect his privacy on this.

 

Honestly, once he felt better, the counting rituals would go away just as quickly as they came. It is funny, because when he is NOT having counting rituals and I ask him about it, he says "yeah, I remember doing that, kinda".... but when the rituals come back and I ask him about it he says they never left. Sometimes I feel that way about PANDAS. When he is in an exacerbation it is like it never left!

[Suzan]

My dd7 has a thing with numbers and she does not want to get out of bed unless it's 10, 20, 30, 40, etc. past the hour or on the hour. She will lie in bed for 10 minutes waiting for the clock to change. It's not so bad that if she has to get up she won't at this point and she is good natured about it.

 

On another number topic, she's always looking at how many chapters are in books, how many pages and comparing them to other's books. She'd rather do that than read the book! Yesterday she was trying to figure out how many chapters were in the bible. Now that was funny. She said "This book is CRAZY!" But I think it's her favorite one now, she wants to make sense out of the numbers.

 

Susan

[ajcire]

Is it possible you said 3 minutes, he said 2 just because he wanted to be difficult for the second and just said it was because it was even or odd and then realized wait a minute... 2 is less time than 3... I better go back to the 3? It just sounds like such a typical kid thing to do to me. If you said he always had ocd type issues with this, I might look at it different.

[simplygina]

my son has "just right" ocd & likes things to be even as well. there isn't an obsession fueling the need. his body just feels weird if things aren't "just right". and like most ocd issues, they logically know it doesn't make sense & that it really isn't life or death. they just can't stand the way their body feels & the thought bombarding them over & over, so they do it.

 

don't go out of your way to make things even for him because you are worried he'll freak out, but don't insist on things being odd either. you do your thing the way you always have. then if it starts to become an issue, voice it by saying something like, "it seems like you are struggling with 3 minutes, though you agreed to it. is it because it is an odd number?". by putting it out there for him it makes it easier for him to realize if it is the issue, and easier to talk about. then ask him if he really needs it to be 2 minutes, or if he can manage 3. If he can't, change it. If he thinks he can, help him through it & praise him after.

 

we have worked on it several times in therapy. basically, the time to work on it isn't while he's freaking out. when it gets bad, and he agrees to work on it, we "practice odds". for instance, he like to touch things an even amount of times with both hands (feet, elbows, etc.). so we touch it once and then sit with the discomfort. we talk about ways he can distract himself. we do something else, but all the while i am watching him to see if he does go back and even it up. once he sits through the discomfort (a funny feeling in his tummy), the next day isn't as hard. it usually only takes about 5 times before he has gotten over the issue, for the time being. if it is an even amount of "things", say eating an odd number of grapes, i give him 7 grapes & put the rest away. then work through the discomfort.

 

i have also spent a lot of time with him working on his positive self talk. teaching him to remember to tell himself that he can do it. he is strong. he is in charge. he makes the choices, not ocd. i've also helped him to remember to take deep breaths anytime he feels stressed. we are still working on it, but he does use these things to help him.

 

our issue has always been getting him to decide he actually wants to work on it. he will say he does, but will either give me a hard time about taking the time to do it, or he will go back & even it up. if he doesn't make it through about 3 days in a row, i tell him to let me know when he's ready to try again. i don't know what makes it click for him, but if he isn't ready, it doesn't matter how many times we try. if he is, it goes quickly. now that he's older, sometimes he just decides and does it on his own. it seems like we have two times he can work on it. one is if we catch it really early on and he isn't very entrenched in the habit yet. the other is when it gets really bad & he is just plain sick of it.

 

unfortunately it manifests itself it soooo many ways. and we have to work through them as they come up. and many come back even though we've gotten rid of it for a time. one really tough one was the even numbered steps. then he started adding a twirl after a certain number of steps. i guess he realized that a) it was taking forever just to get anywhere, and he was embarrassed by needing to do it at school.

 

since my son's ocd didn't become obvious until he was 8, i can't really give you any tips on working with someone younger than that. i would imagine it would be the same concept, but tailored to the thought process of a 5 year old.

 

the book "talking back to ocd" has been helpful for this, as well as working with a therapist skilled in using ERP techniques.

[LNN]

i have also spent a lot of time with him working on his positive self talk. teaching him to remember to tell himself that he can do it. he is strong. he is in charge. he makes the choices, not ocd. i've also helped him to remember to take deep breaths anytime he feels stressed. we are still working on it, but he does use these things to help him.

 

 

since my son's ocd didn't become obvious until he was 8, i can't really give you any tips on working with someone younger than that. i would imagine it would be the same concept, but tailored to the thought process of a 5 year old.

 

My son was 6 when this hit. My maybe-pandas daughter was 3. We not only named the OCD, we turned them into characters. Drew pictures of them, demonized them. Like Gina, we'd do lots of positive talk "I know you are strong. You can do it. You can show Stupid Guy who's boss." Used the tools in What To Do When Your Brain Gets Stuck (delay was a favorite).

 

My 3 (now 5) yo is all girl. So we invented "fairies" who tried tricking her into being afraid of something or having to do something as a way to get her to pay attention to them. These were selfish, evil fairies who didn't care about her, but only wanted to tease her and trick her into losing her play time by paying attention to their lies. When she got really distressed, I'd say "it must be so hard having someone else be the boss. Those fairies need to be stomped on and squashed. They're making you so upset." Then she'd stomp on those imaginary fairies and delight in making them wait till the count of 10 until she indulged in a compulsion. When she felt really defeated, we tried to get her to summon an angel to help her (because everyone knows that angels are bigger and stronger than fairies). Still not sure if she's Pandas. But her OCD only seems to come in the winter and then a few months later she can hardly believe one of her fairies was so strong. It seems absurd to her. So doesn't seem like regular OCD.

 

If you create a fantasy world where they conquer the fears with their super powers, they buy into it surprisingly well. I actually think ERP is easier with little ones. You just have to take the adult concepts and weave them into a good story.

[tpotter]

Both of my children had the same thing...preferred even numbers over odd numbers. My 17 yo still has to have even numbers OR it's also ok if it's a multiple of 5. I have no idea what it is with that, but the particularly odd (pun not intended) thing about it, is that they both developed it simultaneously.

[peglem]

I wonder if this has anything to do w/ some of our kids tanking in math? Do some avoid it because of anxiety over "unpopular" numbers that they can't avoid?

[simplygina]

I wonder if this has anything to do w/ some of our kids tanking in math? Do some avoid it because of anxiety over "unpopular" numbers that they can't avoid?

 

maybe for some, but i don't think that is my son's issue. i think the most PANDAS related reason, at least for DS, is that it just doesn't seem to stick in there which seems to trigger an anxiety response for him. when he just isn't "getting it", and he's going thru a rough period & has fewer coping skills, he just falls apart & quits trying. during times he's doing better, he tries a lot harder.

 

he's a word person anyway, and learns very contextually, so if it is just rote memorization, he struggles. he's a lot like me, if he is practicing a particular concept everyday, he can do it, but it just doesn't stick for some reason. i've always had to make up little stories & tricks to remember math concepts.

[Megs_Mom]

I wonder if this has anything to do w/ some of our kids tanking in math? Do some avoid it because of anxiety over "unpopular" numbers that they can't avoid?

 

That is a great question. My gut is that PANDAS kids have quite a few reasons for losing math and writing skills. Meg kept most of her math, but she was so far ahead that I may not have noticed as much - her school at the time did NO memorization in math. But she was required to do memorization on spelling & that was a nightmare. She had a few major issues:

 

* retention of memorization, especially outside of a test - so if just writing a story her spelling was wacked (she was in the LOWEST spelling group last year. This year, she is doing so well, that she got a "spelling pass" for the last semester).

* tremors in her fingers - very mild, but they seemed to effect her writing (she liked math better as it was not as much writing - she was montessori, so they used manipulatives to do the work, not writing).

* pretty serious inability to see (mid-line) the paper correctly, she'd walk around it, try to pin it to the desk with her body, lean her head onto the paper, etc. She would write in the middle of the page, without using the edges, and the margins would get tighter down the page. She wrote huge & could not get between the lines.

* it hurt her hands to write - it was painful to watch actually. She also could not do any small motor skills projects. The pieces just would not connect & they were very frustrating.

* OCD - perfectionism was a huge issue - as you can imagine with the above. Also, she had "bad letters" - so for example, she could not write a "small g". She would use a Capital letter or cursive anywhere this was required - this along with some other issues, meant that her handwriting was further driven downhill.

 

OCD issues with numbers are one of the most common issues in a school system. If an answer is odd, or has the number 3 in it, etc - they may not be able to do the work. Also, a lot of kids have to skip the 5th word, or can't read pages that have the number 3 on them, or work on a test that has the number 3 on it - you can imagine the many permutations capable of being created by OCD.

 

Another common issue for math & writing is a sort of "just right" OCD, where they need to "retrace" the letters over and over - or erase - because they don't look right.

 

Between OCD and PANDAS - it is often hard to tell what is physical and what is OCD. Now she writes quite nicely although still not her favorite subject, and math is no problem - except boring memorization .

[simplygina]

all the things you mentioned are definitely issues for my son as well. it is amazing the difference between when he is doing well & when he isn't. the writing has been particularly troublesome for him so he avoids it if at all possible. this is my kid that used to spend hours at 4 years old making invitations & greeting cards for everyone he knew, including all the neighbors.

 

he also struggles with retracing letters & numbers. i can't figure out what makes him want to do it because they all look equally bad to me he did tell me he finally made it through his timed multiplication test because he just told his ocd he wasn't going to be doing any erasing or retracing. he said the first few lines were a struggle but by the end he was fine. he had over an extra minute at the end of the 5 minute test. it does make me wonder if he is in the lowest math class because the ocd trips him up & makes everything so hard that he just comes across as not so good at math.

 

he does really well on the standardized tests, which are all done on computer now so he doesn't have to write anything or feel like the little circle has to be filled in perfectly. i've avoided putting an IEP together for him because he is doing pretty well anyway, even his worst isn't all that bad. but maybe i should if it meant he could take all the tests on the computer & skip writing all together. it certainly would be interesting to see how & what it would change about what he's doing in school. maybe i'll teach him to type this summer so i have the option for next fall.