Aa
Does this sound like OCD
My daughter is in a therapeudic school. she was sent there for ODD and narsasistic and hystrionic issues. In the last few months she has been focussing on OCD issues. Because she is hystrionic and very attention seeking I am questioning the diagnosis. She does live with several OCD girls. a little background she had a psych eval a few month before being sent to this program and again upon entering it. Neither time showed and signs of anxiety issues. I am trying to be open minded that I had just missed this all these years.
Her chief complaints are fear of contamination, fear of dirt, not stepping on cracks, not liking numbers that end in 0 or five. All seems to fit with OCD, but here is my question for those of you that have it. If you have a fear of contamination of food for example does it include all food? For example she says she does not like to eat and never has because she does not know who touched it. Especially school's food she says. She used to have a very good appetite on visits she eats all sorts of things I bring her (she always gves me a long list to bring) when we go out to eat she eats lots of restaurant food. She says the hates 7 minute showers at the school because it does not give her enough time to do her rituals and then she can't bring herself to get out. Yet she never washes her hands before she eats. I hope she does after she goes to the bathroom! She says she is scared of dirt. Especially desert dirt. Yet she likes to help in the garden at the school and she rides horses and had no problems with all the dust that is kicked up, falling face first into the dirt which happens often enough, and does not care if a horse rubs his runny nose or drooly mouth on her. As a matter of fact her horse slimed her upper arm not to long ago and her response was "oh nice... I'll just give that back to you." With her hand she wiped the mess off her arm and with her hand and smeared it back onto the horses neck. Then of course after riding she did not wash her hands before eating.
When I confronted her about these things I noticed she says well those are different. I only don't like certain types of dirt. The dirt in the riding ring does not bother her, just the dirt around the school and at home:desert dirt. the riding arena is at the school, and the same dirt. Her therapists comment was OCD does not have to be logical. I get that, contamination from dirt is not logical and a real fear for many,but can an OCD sufferer seperate the dirt from one side of a fence being bad and two feet over inside the fence being ok. As for the numbers 0 and five, I don't know about now, but when she was at home she was an athlete. Conditioning was always done: 20 of this 100 of that 15 of that etc. She never said I did 101 crunches or 99 pushups. She was in physical therapy for an injury and I know the therapist counted. everything was in a multiple of ten.
I know it sounds crazy to say I think she might be faking a disorder that makes life so difficult, but this would not be the first time. Any problem a friend has had, hers has been worse. For example her friends were talking about how hard their home lives were. next thing we knew she had friends and teachers convinced I did not feed her and she was abused. She had me convinced once that her coach watched as another girl beat her up. By the time she was done telling me I was ready to press charges against the girl and coach. I am not a gullible person at all, but she had me totally convinced. Her coach who has worked with her for many years for 10+ hours a week was shocked when I said she had OCD. Her response was I can see her pretending she was OCD, you know she loves the drama.
Her chief complaints are fear of contamination, fear of dirt, not stepping on cracks, not liking numbers that end in 0 or five. All seems to fit with OCD, but here is my question for those of you that have it. If you have a fear of contamination of food for example does it include all food? For example she says she does not like to eat and never has because she does not know who touched it. Especially school's food she says. She used to have a very good appetite on visits she eats all sorts of things I bring her (she always gves me a long list to bring) when we go out to eat she eats lots of restaurant food. She says the hates 7 minute showers at the school because it does not give her enough time to do her rituals and then she can't bring herself to get out. Yet she never washes her hands before she eats. I hope she does after she goes to the bathroom! She says she is scared of dirt. Especially desert dirt. Yet she likes to help in the garden at the school and she rides horses and had no problems with all the dust that is kicked up, falling face first into the dirt which happens often enough, and does not care if a horse rubs his runny nose or drooly mouth on her. As a matter of fact her horse slimed her upper arm not to long ago and her response was "oh nice... I'll just give that back to you." With her hand she wiped the mess off her arm and with her hand and smeared it back onto the horses neck. Then of course after riding she did not wash her hands before eating.
When I confronted her about these things I noticed she says well those are different. I only don't like certain types of dirt. The dirt in the riding ring does not bother her, just the dirt around the school and at home:desert dirt. the riding arena is at the school, and the same dirt. Her therapists comment was OCD does not have to be logical. I get that, contamination from dirt is not logical and a real fear for many,but can an OCD sufferer seperate the dirt from one side of a fence being bad and two feet over inside the fence being ok. As for the numbers 0 and five, I don't know about now, but when she was at home she was an athlete. Conditioning was always done: 20 of this 100 of that 15 of that etc. She never said I did 101 crunches or 99 pushups. She was in physical therapy for an injury and I know the therapist counted. everything was in a multiple of ten.
I know it sounds crazy to say I think she might be faking a disorder that makes life so difficult, but this would not be the first time. Any problem a friend has had, hers has been worse. For example her friends were talking about how hard their home lives were. next thing we knew she had friends and teachers convinced I did not feed her and she was abused. She had me convinced once that her coach watched as another girl beat her up. By the time she was done telling me I was ready to press charges against the girl and coach. I am not a gullible person at all, but she had me totally convinced. Her coach who has worked with her for many years for 10+ hours a week was shocked when I said she had OCD. Her response was I can see her pretending she was OCD, you know she loves the drama.
People with ODD tend to be negative attention seekers. They unconsciously look for attention by exaggerating problems. This OCD issue could be another manifestation of ODD, giving her something more to be hysterical and narcissistic about.
well like i said peoples brains work differently, the things im afraid of can be totally different than the things ur daughter is afraid of. to me if ur really close to the person then its okay. for example if my mom or dad got cut and i somehow got the blood on me id just wash my hands and id be fine, i wouldnt stress about it, but if someone outside the family that i wasnt sure about got it on me, then id be flipping out and stressing about it. and when i say this i dont want u to hold me to it, becuz im not a doctor but ocd is not really what you want to think about. u said she had to walk up and down the hall 3 times even tho she hates using odd numbers. ocd can very well make u feel like u have to do something that u do not want to do. it turns ur fears against u. but if shes enjoying this disorder then maybe u should look up ocpd. people with that tend to enjoy their habits. people with ocd dont enjoy their habits. i hope i could help some. i dont know much about histrionic and that could be playing a major role in this whole thing.
Although if she is a histrionic she might truly believe she is OCD and is afraid of numbers that end in 0 or 5 for the time being, only to truly feel suicidal when her roomates are depressed or have real panic attacks after convincing her therapist she has anxiety.
Thank you jman
That gives me something to think about. I want to be supportive, but her history of histrionic issues and the fact that no one close to her ever noticed any ocd behaviors or anxiety before she went to the school make me question everything. Her previous school counselor (who has OCD herself) spent tons of time with her chuckled when I went to see her to up date her on how my daughter was doing and I told her she now has OCD. I have every professional including one who has the disorder tell me no she does not have it. And the fact that she tells her therapist how hard it is that people dont understand and how much it *****, but then says she does not want to change her OCD because it is who she is. It consumes all her letters and our family therapy (during which I have been supportive and not questioned the diagnosis, just asked for explanations about things like why one dirt bothers her but the other doesn't) It seems to me as I read these forums, people with OCD want help. Not to mention my gut just keeps telling me to dig deeper. My fear is she is histrionic enough to fake a disorder to feed her desire for attention and her victim mentality. If that is the case she is spending all this time living the problem by living a lie but avoiding the problem by using the lie to avoid confronting the need to have something wrong. Does that make sense? She was there for several months before the people watching her 24/7 noticed anything.
I am reaching out to people who have it to either understand it more and either see the signs I was missing all this time and understand what she is going through, or find what does not seem right in order to confront her more lovingly about what my gut is telling me.
So if you wash your hands after shaking hands, are there some people whose hands are ok like family, or are all hands dirty. could you hold lets say a family members hand and then eat. What if you knew that person was sick. I ask because when I visit which is once a month or less, all we want to do is hold hands, hug, touch. One of our last visits I was coming down with a cold and said I hope it isn't strep (I knew it wasn't). We held hands and shared food, I said I hope i don't get you sick and she said don't worry about it. Strep has made her very sick many times in the past, and I have often had to take her to the hospital because she spikes fevers of 104+ when she gets strep.
I asked her about the dirt during therapy. She says she is afraid of pin worms. (dirt came up in therapy when she was talking about how last summer I gave up on grounding her and told her she had to clean the back yard where the dogs had torn up a seat cushion and some other toys. She would get all privaliges back when it was done which should have been a few hours of work at best. She chose to not do it and not be allowed to hang out with friends all summer) she did not know about pin worms back then. she learned about those at school. The riding arena would be just as likely to have pin worm eggs and while riding or around the horses she is most likely to get dirt in her mouth. Her response was it is different because I like riding. She has no problem sitting in the grass at school. She also did a handstand in the dirt on a visit. So I see her talk about avoiding these things, but I never actually see her avoid them. Only time she avoided dirt was back home when she was supposed to clean the yard. She admitted in a different therapy that it was a battle of wills and she was going to win (ODD) She now sees she lost because she lost a whole summer of fun with friends. I lost because while I was not supposed to back down and be consistant. I spent the summer feeling like a prison warden.
I hear what you are saying about some dirt being contaminated because of spit drinks etc, but the worms makes more sense. The girls have to walk supervised all the time. they don't get drinks to carry anywhere. they have water bottles that have to be half full at all times. So girls would be rushing to fill up water not pour it out unless they wanted to get put on restriction. the only dirt area around the school is the riding area and a little under trees, where they would be required to be on the side walk. everyplace else is planted with grass. Human contamination does not make sense also because she was a gymnast. Chalk buckets by the bars are petri dishes. girls spit on their hands and then put them in the bucket to make the chalk stick better. they share wire brushes to ruff up the leather on the grips that have just been spit on. the girls hands blister and then rip and they help tear the flap of skin off before they chalk up and go again. When a girl rips there was a thing they would do where they act all concerned oh let me see. when the girl hold out her hand they slap it and say get used to it many more to come. My daughter loved doing this to the girls when they got there first rip. So puss blood spit didn't bother her in the gym. Maybe she can compartmentalize that as well like she has the riding arena from the other desert dirt. Maybe her teammates germs are ok, but not others. Or thefear is parasites like the worms. But that does not explain why she say the dirt bothered her before she knew about pin worms.
And the number thing. If you avoid numbers is it all the time or only when you think about it. do you ever find that you use it and only realize it after you did something. My daughter has said things need to be even except ending in 0. But then told be when I was late getting to the school one morning she had to walk up and down the hall 3 times or I was going to die. I wanted to point out that was an odd number but held back. another time she said she was so upset she had to do something 20 times. Again I wanted to point out that 20 ends in a 0. In the hotel we stayed in we were talking about the things she does and she got up and hit 7 in the microwave so it didnt say 00. Again odd number. I walked by and hit clear right in front of her a few minutes later and she never changed it back. Maybe she never noticed.
That gives me something to think about. I want to be supportive, but her history of histrionic issues and the fact that no one close to her ever noticed any ocd behaviors or anxiety before she went to the school make me question everything. Her previous school counselor (who has OCD herself) spent tons of time with her chuckled when I went to see her to up date her on how my daughter was doing and I told her she now has OCD. I have every professional including one who has the disorder tell me no she does not have it. And the fact that she tells her therapist how hard it is that people dont understand and how much it *****, but then says she does not want to change her OCD because it is who she is. It consumes all her letters and our family therapy (during which I have been supportive and not questioned the diagnosis, just asked for explanations about things like why one dirt bothers her but the other doesn't) It seems to me as I read these forums, people with OCD want help. Not to mention my gut just keeps telling me to dig deeper. My fear is she is histrionic enough to fake a disorder to feed her desire for attention and her victim mentality. If that is the case she is spending all this time living the problem by living a lie but avoiding the problem by using the lie to avoid confronting the need to have something wrong. Does that make sense? She was there for several months before the people watching her 24/7 noticed anything.
I am reaching out to people who have it to either understand it more and either see the signs I was missing all this time and understand what she is going through, or find what does not seem right in order to confront her more lovingly about what my gut is telling me.
So if you wash your hands after shaking hands, are there some people whose hands are ok like family, or are all hands dirty. could you hold lets say a family members hand and then eat. What if you knew that person was sick. I ask because when I visit which is once a month or less, all we want to do is hold hands, hug, touch. One of our last visits I was coming down with a cold and said I hope it isn't strep (I knew it wasn't). We held hands and shared food, I said I hope i don't get you sick and she said don't worry about it. Strep has made her very sick many times in the past, and I have often had to take her to the hospital because she spikes fevers of 104+ when she gets strep.
I asked her about the dirt during therapy. She says she is afraid of pin worms. (dirt came up in therapy when she was talking about how last summer I gave up on grounding her and told her she had to clean the back yard where the dogs had torn up a seat cushion and some other toys. She would get all privaliges back when it was done which should have been a few hours of work at best. She chose to not do it and not be allowed to hang out with friends all summer) she did not know about pin worms back then. she learned about those at school. The riding arena would be just as likely to have pin worm eggs and while riding or around the horses she is most likely to get dirt in her mouth. Her response was it is different because I like riding. She has no problem sitting in the grass at school. She also did a handstand in the dirt on a visit. So I see her talk about avoiding these things, but I never actually see her avoid them. Only time she avoided dirt was back home when she was supposed to clean the yard. She admitted in a different therapy that it was a battle of wills and she was going to win (ODD) She now sees she lost because she lost a whole summer of fun with friends. I lost because while I was not supposed to back down and be consistant. I spent the summer feeling like a prison warden.
I hear what you are saying about some dirt being contaminated because of spit drinks etc, but the worms makes more sense. The girls have to walk supervised all the time. they don't get drinks to carry anywhere. they have water bottles that have to be half full at all times. So girls would be rushing to fill up water not pour it out unless they wanted to get put on restriction. the only dirt area around the school is the riding area and a little under trees, where they would be required to be on the side walk. everyplace else is planted with grass. Human contamination does not make sense also because she was a gymnast. Chalk buckets by the bars are petri dishes. girls spit on their hands and then put them in the bucket to make the chalk stick better. they share wire brushes to ruff up the leather on the grips that have just been spit on. the girls hands blister and then rip and they help tear the flap of skin off before they chalk up and go again. When a girl rips there was a thing they would do where they act all concerned oh let me see. when the girl hold out her hand they slap it and say get used to it many more to come. My daughter loved doing this to the girls when they got there first rip. So puss blood spit didn't bother her in the gym. Maybe she can compartmentalize that as well like she has the riding arena from the other desert dirt. Maybe her teammates germs are ok, but not others. Or thefear is parasites like the worms. But that does not explain why she say the dirt bothered her before she knew about pin worms.
And the number thing. If you avoid numbers is it all the time or only when you think about it. do you ever find that you use it and only realize it after you did something. My daughter has said things need to be even except ending in 0. But then told be when I was late getting to the school one morning she had to walk up and down the hall 3 times or I was going to die. I wanted to point out that was an odd number but held back. another time she said she was so upset she had to do something 20 times. Again I wanted to point out that 20 ends in a 0. In the hotel we stayed in we were talking about the things she does and she got up and hit 7 in the microwave so it didnt say 00. Again odd number. I walked by and hit clear right in front of her a few minutes later and she never changed it back. Maybe she never noticed.
well about the dirt thing. ill give u an example. dirt around the school could be contaminated. people walking around in it, spitting in it, pouring drinks out in it. ocd can make u feel like ur going to be contaminated and catch a disease from these things. however, ur daughter could well be capable of knowing that she cant catch aids or any other disease from a horse. just like i could play with a dog and eat afterwards, but if i shook someones hand or touched a door knob. id have to wash my hands. im not sure why she is afraid of the numbers 0 and 5. but with me, i was always afraid of numbers that ended with someones age. for example, i might stay away from the number 120 because im 20 years old and something terrible could happen to me if i wrote that number down. and as for her picking up problems from her friends, i do know that as a person with ocd, im very gullable, and very easily convinced of things. the personality disorders, narcassistic and things like that, can be caused by ocd. maybe she likes attention because of the personality disorders caused by the ocd. im not making any diagnosis, but i wouldnt overlook what she is saying about her problems. they could very well be real.
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