Do not know what to do-just right OCD

[Ara M]

Dear Natasha,

My 14-year-old son has been struggling with “just right” OCD and we suspect he’s also experiencing intrusive thoughts, but he’s not sharing them with us or his therapists. He’s currently not at a stage where he believes exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy can help him. When he tries to do his homework, his OCD becomes out of control and he can’t focus. His handwritings changed dramatically and cannot use a pencell. He yells, says bad words, and is unable to complete even short assignments. He has difficulty opening or closing doors and even basic tasks like using the bathroom or showering can take hours. We tried a NOCD therapist, but unfortunately, she wasn’t able to help him much. He didn’t want to talk to her or follow her recommendations. We’ve already tried four different doctors, but none of them were particularly good or knew how to work with children. Some didn’t want to involve us, the parents, at all and only wanted to talk to our son. We’re finding it difficult to locate a good doctor that we can visit in person since the better ones have long waiting lists and only offer online services.

My son is resistant to watching videos or reading about OCD and becomes very upset if we bring it up. His OCD is also triggered by me, which makes communication between us very difficult. He tries to ignore me or avoid being in the same room as me, and sometimes he even uses bad language and asks me to leave. I try to initiate conversations with him every day, but he gets angry and upset. We’re currently at a point where we’re pushing back against his OCD, but we’re not seeing any progress.

We’re interested in finding a good intensive outpatient treatment program and have been researching the Neurobehavioral Institute (NBI) in Florida, Eastbay Behavior Therapy Center, and Rogers. We live in the DC area and cannot find any similar programs nearby. We’re willing to try anything to help our son, but we feel helpless and frustrated despite reading and researching for five to six hours each day. We’ve tried various strategies, including rewards, points, but nothing seems to work.

If you have any suggestions or recommendations, we would be extremely grateful.

[Natasha]

Hi Ara,
Sorry to hear about the struggles. Would he be willing to do an intensive outpatient program? On the east coast Rogers and Mclean are your best options:

https://rogersbh.org/
https://www.mcleanhospital.org/treatment/ocd-institute

[Ara M]

Hi Natasha,

I am not sure if he will agree with intensive outpatient program-we have to try.
I am trying everything now hoping something will work.
I called McLean and their outpatient program is only for people who did inpatient with them before.

Do you know about these 2 programs or someone who used before the Neurobehavioral Institute (NBI) in Florida, Eastbay Behavior Therapy Center?

 

[Natasha]

Rogers and Mclean are widely known as effective treatment options in the OCD world. I haven’t heard of the Neurobehavioral Institute. I would recommend going to my large public Facebook group of over 34K parents to see if anyone has experienced them. That is the best place to crowdsource information since it is such a large group of parents raising kids with anxiety and OCD.

[Author]

Posts