Unreasonable fears

[MistyKay74]

My 16 year old daughter was diagnosed with ocd, depression and anxiety. She has dropped her previous typical obsession with washing, etc. Yet her obsessions keep changing. As soon as she overcomes one fear, she starts a new one.
The last two weeks she has been tormented by this fear that part of her brain is closing up. She spends all her energy and time "trying" to keep her brain open. The effort is exhausting and causes her to be so stressed out that she's tired, has headaches and cannot enjoy anything. While she does not show any outward compulsions, her fears drive her to great efforts mentally to protect herself. She feels she must focus on this at all times and use self talk, trying to keep her brain open, or else it will close automatically.  
She knows it's not true but she cannot resist the fear. She asks me every few minutes for reassurance that her brain is ok. She asks me, "if I stop thinking about it, will my brain just open up again?" I helped her look it up on the internet to show her that this condition does not exist, it is a false fear. She believes me for a minute but then forgets the logic as the fear overtakes her. She desperatly wants to be free of this and I have tried to be as reasuring as possible. But her battle is all in her mind therefore I cannot focus on behavior therapy as one would do for a typical fear of germs type of fear.
I live in Taiwan and do not have access to a good therapist. Do you have any advice?

[aimz723]

PS- If you decide to try overexposure make sure to be around the first couple of times she does it because it can invoke a lot of anxiety. My psychologist always had me bring someone I loved with me just so I knew I was safe.

[aimz723]

I have OCD and as a teen I went through a lot of hands on therapy for it. The best thing for me was exposing me to the information. I think maybe calling a neurologist or just going to a general practice doctor and having them explain how the brain works and reinforce that it is impossible for your brain to open up would work.

Another thing they try in therapy is overexposure to something you fear. In my case, I was afraid of someone breaking in to my house. My doctor took a tape recorder and had me describe the worst case scenario for me. Then he duplicated it on the tape and assigned me to listen to it over and over again until I just stopped being afraid. That may work in this situation also.

The issue with OCD is that it is a disorder where you stop trusting yourself to know the truth because you just feel out of control and crazy. Sometimes the truth needs to come from the most trusted person in the field which in this case would be a doctor.

Hope I helped,
Aimz