Organized Chaos - Volume 3
How To Manage Your Parents When You Have OCD And Are Working Hard To Beat It: A Guide for Teens
by Fred Penzel, Ph.D.
Having OCD definitely sucks! If there isn't enough to deal with in life, getting well is hard work too.
All this would be enough on your plate. But further problems come up when some people's families get involved in their OCD too. They mean well, and they think they are helping. But a lot of times they don't do the right thing because they just don't really understand what it's like. How can anybody understand something like OCD if they don't actually have it?
Don't get me wrong. Not every family ends up adding to the problem. But it happens often enough that I decided to write this as a brief guide to help you. Use it if you get caught in the situation where your parents are not realizing how hard you are working to control you OCD. The key is that you have to be working on controlling your OCD. None of is appropriate if you are not trying to fight your OCD.
Families, as well as OCD sufferers, need to be educated. Here are some ideas to help you to do this. When you are upset with the way your family reactse to your OCD, the worst thing you can do is: get overtly angry with them. You may want to retreat into a shell and shut them out. Either way, nothing gets solved. Perhaps you can show your family this article. The following is a list of the common problems families run into in dealing with OCD. Some of these may sound familiar to you.
I call this list: Common Mistakes* Parents (And Other Family Members) Can Make
(* Try to remember these are mistakes. Your parents and family aren't misunderstanding the situation on purpose. They just haven't been taught how to deal with OCD.)
Mistake Number 1: Their idea of helping you with compulsions is to say: "Why don't you just stop."
People think that the behaviors they see in OCD are bad habits. That with a little bit of willpower, you could simply choose to not do them any more. They don't understand the nature of OCD. They may tell you to "Just stop," or ask, "Why don't you try thinking good thoughts instead?"
The best thing you can do is to educate them.
Get them some reading material that explains OCD is a problem of brain chemistry. It is not any kind of weakness on your part. It may even be genetic. While you can learn to stop doing compulsions. It takes a lot of effort over a period of time, with expert help. You don't throw OCD away like a pair of old sneakers.
Tell your therapist to explain to your family that these suggestions are not helpful. They lead to making you feel worse. You can't just stop these things cold the way everyone thinks you should be able to do. Explain to them (calmly) that these "orders to just stop" don't help you to control your compulsions. They just make you feel more alone. It is clear that they wouldn't be issuing them if they really understood what you were going through. You can tell them that if you could "just stop," you certainly would. Explain (calmly, rationally, politely) that no one would do these things or think these thoughts if they had a choice.
Mistake Number 2: They assume that everything you do is a compulsion.
When you've had OCD for a while, everyone assumes that every different looking behavior you do is a compulsion. Some families, can get overenthusiastic at times. They become too eager to see you get better. They think that if they keep drawing your attention to what you are doing, you can and will stop. As if you don't know when you are doing compulsions. Right? Also, this pointing-out ends up as nagging after a while. It has a negative effect like the "just don't do it" advice. If members of your family are doing this, you should tell them (calmly, rationally, politely) that the only one who needs to recognize that you are doing compulsions is you. You are the only one who can do anything about them. You and your therapist need to tell them "nagging" is counterproductive. If you grow dependent upon others to tell you when you are doing these things, you will never learn to deal with them yourself. Also, remind them (gently) that no one likes to have their problems constantly pointed out to them. This is doubly true when other people keep getting it wrong.
Mistake Number 3: When you're in treatment, they watch you like a hawk, waiting for you to do a compulsion, and accusing you of not really trying.
Families get carried away, thinking that your recovery is really their responsibility, not yours. They think they have to be in charge of your therapy, when only you can be. If you're going to be successful, let them know (gently) that this need on their part to control can make you feel that they are actually waiting for you to screw up and fail. I think a little praise for the things you are getting right would go a lot further. Tell them (gently) that I sometimes tell families that if they can't say anything positive, don't say anything at all. I tell family members that my patient's homework is their own business, and everyone has to keep out of it. The family's homework assignment is to leave the person alone to do what they have to do.
It is important to say "The only one who needs to be able to tell if I am doing a compulsion is me. Since I'm the only one who can do anything about it." It has to be the patient's total responsibility. The goal is to learn to manage yourself and your disorder. Even if someone else could constantly monitor you, what would happen when they were not around?
Mistake Number 4: If you are in treatment, they assume you are not going to do your therapy homework so they keep nagging you to do it.
If they don't think you are progressing fast enough, they may even threaten to stop your treatment. This is because you aren't working hard enough and it is costing them a lot of money.
This situation happenswhen parents are not very trusting and automatically assume that you are looking for the easy way out. They are suspicious, quick to blame, and tend to set unrealistic high standards without taking your abilities into account. They tend to be controlling. I think that parents needs to realize that threats and nagging are no way to motivate someone. Getting your OCD under control is hard work, even when someone is motivated.
I have seen some people sabotage their own treatment, just to teach their families to leave them alone. I have seen people become discouraged by all the criticism. They just feel like giving up. I have always believed that people will rise or fall to the level of expectations you have for them. If you expect a person to do well, it is likely that they will. If you expect nothing, then that is what you will get.
Mistake Number 5: If you accomplish anything, instead of encouraging you, they're quick to point out all the other things you can't do.
I like to think of people who do this as the "glass-is-half-empty people." They seem to mostly concentrate on the negative and ignore the positive. They tend to be perfectionists as well as pessimists. Either you are getting it all right or you're failing. In OCD, there is sometimes be a tendency to think in all-or-nothing, terms. This is actually part of the disorder. I don't think sufferers need encouragement from their families to be even more like this. Unfortunately, this type of parent also doesn't seem to realize that overcoming OCD is a difficult chore and it isn't always easy to keep your morale up. This negative focus is likely to make you feel like giving up because it can make you believe that you will never succeed. No one likes to have their faults constantly pointed out to them. It serves no good purpose to emphasize only what still remains to be done. If this is happening to you, enlist your therapist to sit down with your family and explain the situation to them (gently).
Mistake Number 6: If you are in therapy and show some improvement, they ask you how long it's going to take until you are totally recovered or complain that it is taking too long.
There are several reasons for this behavior in parents. One is that they don't know about what therapy for OCD involves. They are unrealistic about how long it should take to recover. They see a little improvement; and then expect that you will instantly change everything. The person treating you should help educate them about this. Another possibility is that they are perfectionists and think that everyone should overcome their problems instantly. No matter how serious or how long the professional say it should take. They just want what they want. The reality is, that everyone in treatment gets well at their own pace, not at someone else's pace. It doesn't matter what others wants. You can't compare any two people that are working on recovery.
Mistake Number 7: If you slip up and do a compulsion, they tell you that you're not trying and that you'll never get better.
Parents in this category don't seem to be aware that therapy for OCD or any serious problem is that it doesn't always go in a straight line. There are many potholes and detours on the road to recovery. No one ever learns a new set of skills without making mistakes, or taking a step backward now and then.
No one is perfect.
This is true in therapy as well as in any other human endeavor. There are many people who have learned more about getting well from some of their mistakes and slip-ups than from the things they did right. I can honestly say that in over twenty years of doing therapy, I have never met anyone who recovered from OCD without getting it wrong now and then. In this situation, you can ask (gently) family members: "If you went out to learn a new skill, like playing tennis, would you expect to play a championship game the first week on the tennis courts?" Doing behavioral therapy means learning a new set of skills. Really it isn't any different from learning to play tennis. You can share this example with family members who expect you to get well instantly.
Mistake Number 8: They blame the family's troubles on you and tell you how much easier their lives would be if it weren't for your OCD.
Sometimes, when a person's OCD is bad enough, it affects the lives of everyone in a family. Your symptoms may have forced family members to do compulsions with you. They answer your questions, and do everyday things that you could normally do if you didn't have OCD. They may have been forced to cancel things they would have liked to do. They give up their free time, not been able to go places, or say certain things. This causes anger and resentment to build up on their part. Family life gets pretty tense.
What they are really angry at is your OCD. Unfortunately, they may be mistakenly taking it out on you. They feel, at times, like you are trying to make their lives difficult on purpose. None of this is true. They are mistaken, of course. But then, the people who live with you are only human. What they should really be telling themselves is: "We really dislike your OCD and wish you didn't have it." Unfortunately, what gets communicated is: "We don't like you because you have OCD." They need to learn not to confuse the sufferer with the disorder. It should be everyone against the OCD, and not against each other.
Mistake Number 9: They keep constantly reminding you about all the bad times or scenes your OCD has caused in the past.
I think that the only place a person can live is the present. The past is gone and out of reach. The future is always unknown. Bringing up old hurts or bad scenes only makes everyone miserable. It won't change anything at all. You can tell them (gently): "I really feel bad about the past too. I wasn't well and was only doing the best I could in a bad situation. Why don't we all try to let go of things we can't change, and try to make things better for ourselves now." My advice is: "Don't let your past cripple your present. Let it go."
Mistake Number 10: They have become involved in your compulsions and help you to do them; or they do things for you that your symptoms keep you from doing for yourself.
Getting family members involved in helping you to do compulsions, to get answers to your questions, or avoid doing or touching things that make you anxious seems like a solution to your obsessive fears when you first start. After a while, these things become a new set of problems. You start depending on everyone so much that you become unable to get through a day on your own. Your family starts to feel trapped. If they don't cooperate, you might find yourself getting very upset and angry with them. You may feel resentful because no on likes to constantly be dependent upon others. This can lead to fights, insults, shouting matches, etc.
This is clearly not a good thing. Being dependent this way keeps you locked into your illness.
Your family needs to learn to stop doing these things and to allow you to learn to face your fears on your own. In most cases, it will take a trained therapist to help them to gradually do this. Through therapy, your family members learn that rather than solving the problem, they have become part of it. They find out that you will never recover as long as they are involved with your disorder in this way. You may not be really eager to give up this help, but there really is no other way.
Mistake Number 11: When they get annoyed at you, they threaten you with things that your OCD makes you anxious about (e.g., that they will contaminate things, mess things up, throw things out, etc.)
When OCD enters a family's life, anger and resentment sometimes is part of the picture. Some families don't handle this as well as others. One of the ways that this goes really bad is when family members use a sufferer's fears against them. It is a way of punishing them for annoying you with their symptoms or for other resentments. They may threaten to "contaminate" things you use, mess up things you have arranged, throw out things you have hoarded, etc. They may even do some of these things.
Family members need to understand that this is cruel, abusive, and something for which there are no excuses. You have to remind them how much this hurts you and how it is like punishing you for something that is not your fault. As difficult as your OCD is for everyone you live with. It simply isn't your fault. You are not to be blamed.
You can tell your parents and other family members you're doing the best you can. If they have discussed OCD with a trained therapist, remind them of what they've learned you can have them look at sites like this one. This way, they will have a better idea of what to do, and what not to do They realize that you (and they) are not alone.
Fred Penzel, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist that has been involved in the treatment of OCD and related disorders since 1982. Dr. Penzel is the author of the self-help book "Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders: A Complete Guide to Getting Well and Staying Well" (Oxford University Press, 2000). He is the executive director of Western Suffolk Psychological Services, in Huntington, Long Island, New York. He is a frequent contributor to the OCF Newsletter and this Organized Chaos Webzine. He sits on the science advisory boards of both the Obsessive-Compulsive Foundation and the Trichotillomania Learning Center. He can be e-mailed at penzel@attglobal.net
