to think that claiming you have 'a bit of OCD' is not on?

[kickingking]

I have noticed that quite a lot of people have begun to say they think they have 'a bit of OCD' because they are very tidy or particular about something.

Like, "I have to have all my towels hung up just so in the bathroom, I'm sure I must be a bit OCD."
or "All my kids' plastic toy boxes have to be the same colour or it would send me mad - I must have OCD."
or "I'm a bit OCD about folding my jumpers up properly before I put them in my drawers."

I have become convinced that this is a form of women stealth-boasting about how clean and tidy they keep their house.

I have no experience personally of OCD, but I imagine if you really had OCD, it could make your life a bit of a misery.

AIBU to think that claiming you have 'a little bit of OCD' undermines the difficulties faced by those who really do have the condtion, and is just pathetic way to show off about your housekeeping skills?

working it was awful, his stupid bliddy teacher thought he was being defiant because he "wouldn't" write, he got stuck on dots and had to rewrite sentences if they weren't perfect. Id tell him he was sick, he'd tell me he was just naughty. Stupid supply teacher had only been there a few weeks and my son had perfect reports for four years. We had no support there at all, even the head threatened to "come down hard on him". The cowbag. I had to get him out of that school pdq and to one that actually understood children with special needs.

Mitmoo, my point being OCD is recurrent and persistent behaviour and not just a one off.

Working, you didnt say that in your OP, just about being obsessed with swine flu, hence why i said an obsession, not OCD. I have no idea of your personal circumstances and didnt mean to trivialise what you were saying.

The point i was trying to make is people just being a bit 'anal' about cleaning or being organised claiming "im a bit OCD" is OTT, it wasnt directed at anyone, just in reply to the thread.

It's a very familiar story Mitmoo.. I wish it weren't, but it is.. the help is so slow coming, often only comes in crisis (when that may be too late for some ), there's no joined up thinking or working. It's exhausting and demoralising for parents and downright dangerous for vulnerable kids.

claw the post of workings that I read described many of the symptoms that could be synomous with OCD, not touching, the levels of distress etc.

We'll have to agree to disagree on whether it can be a force for good or bad if people refer to themselves as being a little bit OCD. I generally bounce of that and let them know just how debilitating it can be to have real OCD. I take the attitude that the more we talk about mental health, the more "normal" it becomes.

working Once we got into the system and changed his schools we had terrific support, but to get that was a battle, he'd tried to run into cars to relieve himself of the pain, he still gets suicidal, but now we have agencies in place who know him who kick into action. It's a horrible fear. The main problems now are related to the autism not the OCD.

I had to change his secondary school too last year as he was bullied to the point of being suicidal. Awful. But thankfully loads of support now.

Mitmoo, i think becoming obsessed with swine flu during an outbreak, while pregnant could be quite 'normal' too, if this was the only symptom, which went away after the baby was born. (Although Working has now given further info and she might have good reason to suspect she has OCD)

I think most that say "im a bit OCD", dont actually think that they are, but as the OP says are just very tidy or particular about something. Comparing being particular about something is nothing like having a neurological disorder and i find the comparision ridiculous. Raising awareness, sharing knowledge etc is one thing, but ridiculous claims of having a disorder, when you clearly dont is another.

I don't know if it's the same 'technique' everywhere when OCD is being dealt with in children, but I wondered whether anyone has come across children being encouraged to see their OCD as a bully and something they should actively fight off?

I've seen it on a few websites that deal with OCD and found it quite a disturbing way of trying to teach children how to tackle their thoughts and behaviours.

I can see why someone might think it's a good analogy to try and lose the powerlessness you can feel being at the mercy of the disorder, but how can it ever be right to tell a child there's a part of themselves that 'isn't right' and that they should be scared of.

I've found it quite helpful to try and accept the OCD as part of who I am, the problem I had when I saw it as separate and something that needed fighting off is that it made me even more out of control and anxious of how different I was.

I mean, if you're living with a bully inside your own head (which in effect is you!) what's the point in ever trying to help yourself because it's never going away, it hardly gives you peace of mind!

What do other posters think?

Agent, ds's therapy involves exploring different outcomes, trying to teach him different ways to react to any given situation which he finds stressful and gets anxious in.

He also has terrible nightmares, so bad he is afraid to go to sleep. The therapy focusses on 'taking control' of his nightmares, for example instead of running away from the monster, he could tell the monster to stop kind of thing.

Perhaps the 'bully' theory is similar and about you taking back control, not so much there is something is 'wrong', but managing it by taking control?

Does that make sense!?

Ds also have great anxieties and difficulties with eating and after exploring every possible route over the years, we have just been told to accept that this is as good as it gets, a bit like how you describe, its just part of who you are, so manage it the best you can.

Perhaps they like to try every theory, before reaching the 'just deal with' conclusion?

AgentZigZag - I see what you're saying, and I have had to accept that this is me, because it is me, but sometimes, it's a little like this...

OCD Brain; You just murdered YOUR OWN CHILD when you tucked him in

Rational Brain; No I bloody didn't, don't be stupid

OCD Brain; You DID you DID. But if you CHECK him A FEW MORE TIMES he'll be ok.

Rational Brain; I'm not listening to you, feck off.

OCD Brain; GO CHECK GO CHECK GO CHECK GO CHECK

Rational Brain;

Agent....therapist who worked with dd got her to give the OCD a name..Bella...and if she felt compulsions start, to say " go away Bella" or something like that.
Did it help? Apparently not, as she is now worse than ever. But I think it helped dd know that it wasn't her behaving in a difficult way..it was the OCD.
She still will come up to me and ask me to tell Bella to go away.

agent I used to use the bully technique and tell him that the OCD wasn't allowed to take over all of him as it had we had to kick it's butt so OCD would know who was in charge. It wasn't taught by the counsellors but they said it was fine and for us it worked. It was just before his ninth birthday.

I still can't bear to look at those birthday snaps and videos. He had all of these very happy children all around him and he just look so pained. We had so many different fears but now we know what to do when he starts to get anxious it is a lot easier and ended up a very hands on mum with the schools.

We did all kind of mad things, I was worried the nurse would want me locked up who came out for a home assessment, this was to see if he was ill enough to jump the queue to CAMHS. She walked into a room full of balloons and a punchbag with a drawing of his teachers face on it. He couldn't watch television or play games at that time, so we would have the television on and bat balloons between us so that he'd have something else to think about.

The teacher was a part of the trigger, not the cause, he'd tell him he was useless, a waste of space, the worst student he'd ever taught ever. I know it is true as I've heard him talk to the other pupils like that too, my son just couldn't handle it.

I agree with taking control and being given the knowledge that you can disobey your OCD when it threatens you Claw, but there's no getting away from the definition of bullies in schools/workplaces.

They're defined as nasty, aggressive, spiteful and persistant, my DD (who I think also has OCD but it hasn't been diagnosed by a Dr) is none of those things and I would resent anyone trying to tell her that to resolve any distressing thoughts she might have she must accept that her OCD is.

Have you ever tried to come to terms with your OCD Luna? You say you've accepted it as a part of you, but could you ever see it as a friend rather than enemy, one you could come to a compromise with?

So instead of having to go over and over something, you/your OCD could agree that you once you've checked something once or twice you'll believe nothing bad will happen/has happened and stop feeling you must have missed something and it'll need checking again. If that makes sense?

That's exactly what I'm talking about Hellish. I see what you've described as a therapist giving shape to this monster and squashing it into your DDs head, something she can't escape from because it's part of her.

They haven't given her the tools to deal with it and have really just told her to 'RUN!', which is impossible for her. The fact she's asking you to help her get rid of Bella shows she doesn't know how to calm her anxieties.

Luna CBT is hard and you have to stick to it, if your partner/family can learn about it too, that is doubly helpful.

Again I'd do crazy stuff but my son's counsellor loved me. He had a fear of raisins, as one of his obsessions, so if a child had eaten a raisin he couldn't touch anything the child had touched because the raisin eating child had contaminated everything. We couldn't go into sweetshops or foodstores because there were bars of nuts and raisins, so I started off with a picture of one and put it in my bedroom until he got used to that, then the lounge, until he became desensitised.

Then moved on to putting a raisin in his bedroom when he was asleep and told him nothing bad had happened and then dotting them around the house, this took several weeks, I can't remember exactly how long.

My son would grass me up to his consultant/CBTs thinking it was the height of cruety and they tell him he had a very imaginative mum. He was disgusted with that.

But how your family react can make a huge difference, sometimes we have to be cruel to be kind and it doesn't feel great to make an extremely distressed child worse but it was worth it to get to the desensitised bit but for him another fear would be right behind it.

Agent, yes i can see where you are coming from, especially as lots of these children most probably would have been the victim of bullying too, i know my ds was. This is not a technique, that has been used for ds, i would imagine he would find this confusing to be honest.

Personally i think that ds has enough to contend with, he has other disorders as well, where one disorder starts and another one ends, is hard enough to define and his self esteem is extremely low, without adding a 'bully' to the mix too.

I can also see how regarding a behaviour as the 'enemy' could backfire and make it worse. For example ds has all kinds of difficulties and with food and this could easily be transferred to food is the enemy and not the behaviour.

I've heard it often. I've never really felt that it's "undermined" the actual condition in any way as it's always been pretty clear to me that they're talking bollocks.

claw my son has also been horrendously bullied is it a heart breaker. Whilst I will sing the praises of CBT the bully part was not part of CBT it was me making it up as I went along and worked for us as a strategy. You will know what will work for your son.

I am with you on food and self esteem too. Mum knows best as we've already discusses it is a spectrum and a strategy that might work for one might not for the other.

Wishing you and DS all the very best. Very interesting debate.

Mitmoo, sorry if it appeared my comment was directed at you, it wasnt intended that way and agree you know your child better than anyone else

All the best to you guys too.

I have never attempted to learn to drive because I just know that I will kill somebody (probably a child or my own children) and I could never live with the guilt afterwards

I am interested to know whether there is any links between OCD and eating disorders. I battled with anorexia / bulimia for 10 years of my life. I certainly know that my anorexia started as a coping mechanism to control one area of my life. Does anybody else have any experience or information about this?

Jazz, from what i have read people with OCD are at higher risk of eating disorders.

claw we are on the same side, we both want the best for our children and both are fighting hard for them. We disagree on whether people should say "I am a bit OCDish" who cares really? It's not massive in the great scheme of things.

Seriously it's not easy being us, how many times have you asked yourself why? Because I have a thousand times or more. How hard is it to see your child suffer? No need to answer that one purely rhetorical .

Jazz personal experience only son wants to be anorexic and is refusing too eat unless it is a chocolate spread sandwich, though he is starving now and I'm doing lasagne and chips. He has refused food all day. Eating is a mare, food phobias is a mare, checking ingredients is a mare, so personal experience tells me there is a link.

Maybe it an area of their lives they can control.

Thank you for the replies. This thread has been really interesting - a lot of things that have happened in my life are starting to make some sense. Somebody mentioned "being off kilter" with others/life. That's the way I have always felt!

It is a great thread I love discussing OCD and getting the issues out there for all to see.

I've always been a bit highly strung about certain things, a lot of my tendencies pointed to OCD.

However it was nothing compared to the OCD I had as a direct effect of PND.
I was horrendous to live with, panic attacks if there was an item of washing in the basket (yes, that extreme)
Every item of washing had to be washed twice and nothing could be used more than once (ie tea towels and towels etc)
I was showering each time I went to the toilet, clean clothes, towel only used once, bathroom bleached every time.

I was hysterical most of the time.

I used on average 3 bottles of bleach a day!!

I had to force myself to sort myself out after about 6 weeks of it as my skin was red raw from bleaching everything (I did manage to refrain from bleaching the baby)

I had to go "cold turkey", and not do ANY washing/housework for two days to convince myself that we werent all going to die from germs. It was hell, especially with the PND as well.

Im still quite highly strung with regards to a lot of things, I can still only use a towel once, same with tea towels, and I still have to bleach the loo and the kitchen every day, but its absolutely minor compared to what I was like.

Mitmoo, i agree we are both on the same side. Its a shame that OCD is treated as a light hearted disorder that people diminish. I can see where you are coming from about 'reclaiming' it, but it does annoy me!

Why is something i asked at the beginning, 7 years later i find it easier to just get on with it and stop asking why, if thats makes sense.

Claw it's a horrendous condition because the person with it realises they are "out of kilter" with everyone else. With something like ADHD they dont realise their minds are playing tricks on them same with Bi Polar and other conditions. With OCD the person realises they aren't thinking rationally and try to hide it which just makes it worse.

We took the attitude that it is what it is, we are not ashamed, our friends will stick by us and stuff the rest. Most of my family don't understand it, his Dad just doesn't get it, out of that we've lost "friends" but found real ones. He is lucky to have found two children out of two primary schools, two secondary schools who accept him for who he is and make allowances for him being him.