A post I made in an young adult parent OCD support group … My 24 year old daughter stood around the house yesterday…following me into every room. Waiting for her chance to seek reassurances/confessions from/to me. I am completely at a loss. She will always end with “so I’m a good person and don’t deserve to die” because of my assurance. I am exhausted! I feel stalked in my own house! I want to help my daughter but don’t really know how to not give her these assurances. I need some guidance on how to respond and not grow her OCD. At the moment I do assure her but I know that needs to decrease. She is currently seeing someone through nocd but they are just beginning. I hope this makes some sense and that I posted in the right spot. This behavior has got to get better or I may lose it!
Hi Tisha,
You can start with telling her you will answer her a specific amount of times and then will say, “I love you, so I’m not talking to your OCD” after that (or you can say you’ll ignore her). You can give her the number she is at each time as a countdown or you can give her reassurance cards to hand in as a physical indication she is doing a compulsion and only has XYZ reassurances left. The idea is you continue to reduce the number you started with and get less and less as you go.
