To ask if anyone has any experience of therapy that has worked for teenager with OCD?

@deaperatelyunhappyandscared YES! Our washing pile is so extreme, ds will only wear clothes for a matter of hours and a new set is put on after each toilet visit, it is never ending!

It is so easy for people to say ‘oh just stop them!’ but they are not in the middle of this, it is absolutely not that simple.
I am married and DH is a huge help/support and when either of us loses our shit and just can’t take it anymore, we tag team and take over. I cannot imagine having to do this alone.
I have cried and begged ds to please try even just a little bit, I have screamed that I cannot do this anymore and he sobs too that ‘I can’t, I can’t do it mum!’ It’s absolutely heartbreaking. You cannot understand it unless you live it.

Please know you are doing amazingly and are not alone. I would seriously consider medication options just to allow your dd to begin to see the wood from the trees again.
Friendships have also been very difficult for ds and he has been horribly bullied through life but I have recently enrolled him in a local art class for teens and he’s enjoying it. He’s always loved to draw and although he said everyone just sits and draws in silence he actually enjoys the peace of it.
We’ve tried team sports or bigger group activities but it just never works, he can’t manage the social side of it.

Is there anything like that that your dd could try? Just even for an hour or two of escapism.

I hope you are doing ok 💐

I had rally terrible OCD at her age too. Only I was on my own at boarding school which I don’t recommend for the severely mentally ill!

Honestly mine was brutal but the book ‘Overcoming OCD’ by Professor David Veale; I read it over one weekend and I have to say it basically cured me. I would buy it today and read it tomorrow if I were you!

Wishing you all the best xxx

My DD has OCD, severe anxiety and agoraphobia. She’s been practically housebound for the past 2 years, she’s 20 now. It’s utterly heartbreaking to watch your child go through something like this, you all gave my sympathy.

DD has been on sertraline for years. She has a CPN and an OT. She has just finished with a psychologist as her 20 NHS sessions were up. I’m so frustrated with this as that’s it, she’s no better yet that’s it. We plan to find someone private in the New Year for her but it is so difficult as she really liked the psychologist she had so going to a new one will be hard for her and actually going there will be tricky. I’m thinking of online sessions.

It was CBT plus clomipramine for me. Unfortunately, I put on a horrendous amount of weight. I believe that other drugs are now available.

It sounds as though she is depressed as well as having OCD in which case the meds might help a lot. Fluoxetine is 1st line for under 18s. She would need to stick with it for at least 6-8 weeks to see full benefit and it will feel as though it's doing nothing or even worse for the first few weeks so you have to encourage her to stick with it.

Yes so sorry OCD can be so terrible. As other posters have mentioned, I believe the NICE recommendation is for CBT (but needs to be with a fully trained therapist) plus medication in severe cases. I think the usual treatment is “exposure and response” therapy, where the person gradually faces their fears. Tbh, I found this terrifying and needed to take an SSRI to take the edge off the fear (my OCD was severe) then it was lots of hard work. But it sounds like your DC has great support from you which should really help. SSRIs can have bad side effects and be hard to come off, but it’s a case of balancing up the possible benefits. If you could possibly look into private, I really recommend OCD Excellence, an organisation where I think all the therapists have had OCD themselves so have a great understanding. Also worth having a look at the OCD Action and OCD UK websites for further info and support groups. Feel free to PM me. Good luck x

CBT with ERP (exposure response prevention) is the only proven curative treatment for OCD. An SSRI combined with this will help it to work better but meds on their own are not enough.
Not all CBT therapists are any good. Hopefully she can see a psychologist as they ought to be better.

So sorry you’re going through this too, it’s hell.
Ds was diagnosed with OCD at age 6, it started with ritualistic hand licking and blew up into an irrational fear of germs leading to wearing gloves for a solid 18months! He is petrified of getting sick. He also performs routines and counting to avoid anything bad happening to anyone he loves.

When Covid happened, he had a severe breakdown as everything we and CAMHS had ever told him wouldn’t/was very unlikely to happen, did. People wearing gloves and masks and people dying allover. It was horrific. That’s when he started medication (fluoxetine) he was very young to be on it but it was either that or frankly, suicide.

We have had ups and downs over the years from being somewhat manageable to a living nightmare. We are currently in a living nightmare, ds is almost 15 now so this has been our lives for a long time and things are very bad right now. He’s taken a nosedive over the past 4-6months. We have had to up his medication and take a far firmer approach where he is monitored while washing as he is making his skin bleed from all the scrubbing. He is under strict time limits as he was showering for 2+hours at a time, several times a day. He cannot go to the toilet without showering afterwards.

Putting limits on washing has honestly been like taking heroin away from an addict but we cannot allow him to just wash and wash and wash. We’ve had to sit with him sobbing/screaming in a ball on the floor making sounds I never thought a child could make, it’s truly horrific.
He cannot be left alone as I do not trust him not to hurt himself. He is on a reduced school timetable. Things are bad right now. I do not work because frankly it is impossible.

He has had several rounds of CBT and although we have had such wonderful people helping, I don’t think it works (for ds) as he is so unwilling to even try or sit with the exposure for even 10 seconds without washing.

I truly believe he would be dead without us choosing to put him on medication when he was younger. When he first went in the meds, it was like it gave him some clarity to actually think clearly again and we made some progress and saw glimmers of our happy boy again.
He was also diagnosed as Autistic age 11.

Upping his medication recently is starting to show some hopeful signs of that clarity again and we wonder whether his puberty growth spurts meant the lower dose was not enough for his new size??? Maybe, I don’t know. I so hope we can make it through this phase soon, I am almost broken, I have struggled so much this time around. I have a younger disabled daughter too.

Sorry, I am waffling but I have never had anyone else who knows exactly what this is like.

I am interested to read about peoples experiences with hypnotherapy so will be following to read more.

@deaperatelyunhappyandscared It's most definitely worth a try. I'd only ever seen the dramatised versions of hypnosis on TV and I honestly thought it was a load of bollocks. It was a bit of a last resort to give it a go myself as I'd become really unwell both mentally and physically due to my OCD and was running out of options.
I had 3 sessions in total at the beginning of this year and I don't know how or why it worked, but I started to be able to think much more rationally as it took away so much of the anxiety that was preventing logic. It's nothing like the stuff you see on TV.

@deaperatelyunhappyandscared It can be a very long process, I really feel for you both. Being prepared with questions is a very good idea. I would definitely be asking about the need for further psychological therapy, with a therapist or psychologist - she needs an intensive course of CBT which is NICE recommended. Ideally with a Clinical Psychologist as it sounds as though there is a lot going here and an integrative approach would be helpful. Don’t feel afraid to ask questions and be assertive - it is absolutely your right as a parent.

CBT plus ERP plus Prozac is working for my 17yr old

A family member had a similar but different issue at about age 10. Their parents took them to a hypnotherapist after trying after things, with a great deal of skepticism. But it worked! So may be worth trying. Interesting to see other people have mentioned it on here too.

My DS has had CBT under CAMHS for this but what has helped more to be honest has been sertraline. I was initially reluctant to go down that road (we had a lot of discussion with professionals and ultimately it was his choice) but it's made a massive improvement to his life.

emdr therapy was the most affective for me.
I had 2 lots of cbt and one period of counselling.
I always wanted to know what triggered my ocd as i felt that was key to getting better.
Im not entirely fixed but so much better than I ever dreamed I would be

I have OCD and I can't recommend hypnotherapy enough (providing you research the hypnotherapist really well and they've plenty of positive reviews and experience). I have had CBT and medication in the past and they do help, no doubt, but not on the level that hypnotherapy helped me. It very much saved my life.

@deaperatelyunhappyandscared what are CAMHS doing?

Hi- the most evidence based approach to OCD is a form of CBT called ERP (exposure and response prevention) and its a hit different from the ‘thought challenging’ type your OT was using.. this self help book is very good and written by two very well known experts in the field www.amazon.co.uk/Overcoming-Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder-2nd-behavioural/dp/1472136012/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=1HTLBSD3SNFKW&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.CuZO4aAlIV5UZ2KYHAfgIBtrzhSdDv2exQb2YF5-ZCcJ080Kr8VgPzJMXPQbztH4aTUXnj9qCUaBgRNHc7pWEUIbdm7OC0dyr0EgjSaUM7uUVCS0NcSiizhPnj7I7rlJ879aeIipPaBI59TXuFF0qOLCh3opWeeEzch3BkIGJOTLbwugb8FoOH2AFEo40BHexe4HsBF7QbNXSX0rhEUlyg.bpPVOXuW91KcxTh4g9rmvWhs-wlc0Bot5GuweX08b-U&dib_tag=se&keywords=ocd+self+help+books+veale&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1733089942&sprefix=ocd+self+help+books+veale%2Caps%2C75&sr=8-1