What should I do about DS-OCD?

[Thistlesheet]

DS is 13. He’s great-a very caring, bright, funny boy.
it’s becoming increasingly obvious that his little rituals especially around leaving me/leaving somewhere are starting to increase-
-a bedtime hugs and word routine has to be done,
-a certain phrase before leaving the house/saying bye
-touching things in a certain way as he is leaving house/going to bed/leaving anywhere. -this is definitely getting worse and is taking longer and longer to leave.
-checking and rechecking and rechecking that he has got everything in his school bag and that he’s done all his homework.

outwardly he is pretty confident, wants to do things away from home-fine on school trips etc.

When I’ve asked him about certain rituals he’s said he has to do them otherwise something bad will happen.

He really wants to do well at school (and does) but gets very stressed about homework, revision etc-needs a lot of support to organise himself and focus on it.

I’m concerned that as school pressure ramps up in GCSE years and hormones kick in this is going to develop into something worse.
Im not sure if we need to do anything or if drawing attention to it will make it worse.

My daughter has OCD. She had 10 sessions with a private psychologist, one specialising in OCD, and it's made a world of difference. Her OCD has several layers, so she'd benefit from more sessions really, but the most intrusive thoughts that were preventing her leaving the house have completely gone.

She is also known to CAMHS but they've said it would be 3+ years before she'd get therapy on the NHS even though she was house-bound (almost missing taking her GCSEs), self harming and having intrusive thoughts about harming others.

Untreated, the compulsions will get worse - it was about 18 months between my daughter's initial intrusive thoughts and the most severe compulsions.

Glad your daughter is better no-that sounds horrible for you all. That’s my worry that they will continue to get worse and more limiting.
Does it sound like it’s at an early enough stage to work on this ourselves?

I would get professional intervention now if you can.

I would 100% get professional, OCD specialist therapy as soon as you can. The reasoning that “something bad will happen” is textbook and the deeper this belief gets the harder it will be to address

what is the best place to find that? Do you have any recommendations?

@Thistlesheet

https://ocdaction.org.uk/
Website for help

https://portal.babcp.com/therapist/list
https://www.bps.org.uk/

Directories for therapists - you want a psychologist (not just a counsellor or therapist) who can offer CBT with ERP - working with your son to expose him to the trigger and have him sit with the discomfort and change the behaviour ie not do the compulsions and gradually teach his brain that nothing bad happens.

Find some psychologists in your area that offer CBT for OCD for adolescents. Email explaining your situation and asking if they can help - I emailed 20 and only 3 had imminent availability. Then an initial call to ask about their approach, and you use this to get a feeling on whether this person is right for your child. My daughter's therapist had worked with the OCD team at the Maudsley in London so I found her reassuring in how she would approach it, but also recommendations on next steps if it turned out to be treatment-resistant.

You really want a third party involved, not just for their expertise, but because they will challenge your son on his beliefs that drive the compulsions. As a parent, you want to be the constant, the support, the cheerleader. Not the one suggesting the hard things.

I wish you all the best. It's a horrible illness and so misunderstood. Hopefully it's early enough that a few weeks will make a huge difference.

Agree some formal support would be beneficial before it escalates further. In the meantime, I found a book called “Talking Back to OCD” really helpful for my son who was quite unwell with OCD, alongside a book about his specific trigger which was being sick - mainly around confronting and talking about the fear rather than going to increasing lengths to avoid it.

Its really important not to feed or validate the intrusive thoughts, which we definitely fell into the trap of doing initially - at its worst we were spending 7-9 hours a day trying to reassure him and reason with him around things like dates on food being correct, his hands being clean enough etc and still getting nowhere. It feels harsh at first but this book helps parents and young people understand how to recognise and shut down the intrusive thoughts, learn to sit with how horrible they feel and shrink them down and see them for what they are. Within a few months my son has it so much more under control and he’s so proud of himself. He can recognise when the thoughts are returning and knows they aren’t real and can “talk back to” them rather than believing they reflect reality.

Blimey. I had a good chat with him yesterday and it seems that a god deal of his everyday actions are dictated by these ‘urges’ to do something in a certain way. e.g the way he handles objects or moves around. Not necessarily always to do with preventing something happening (although he definitely has certain things for doing well at school, others to stop people dying) but just because he ‘needs’ to.

He used to have a lot of tics when he was younger (still has a few but much less noticeable) and I wonder if it’s all related.

He was keen to know more about it so we had a look at some websites and he’s very open to trying to help himself with some of the advice on there but I will also look out professional advice.