Is this anxiety in DD? Advice on how to help

[Californiadaze123]

My DD is 11 and is becoming quite extreme in her planning and timekeeping, it seems to be getting worse.
A few examples would be that when I switch her lights off at night, she’ll decide they should go off at 9.22 and if I go up 2 minutes early she will get extremely upset.
As soon as she gets up in a morning, she will run through her plan of the day with me, and is becoming increasingly less flexible if it changes, I have been trying to counteract it with telling her my plans for the day so we can try and fit them around each other, for example she’ll set certain for screen time, shower time, what time she’ll get into her pyjamas etc. All resulting in getting very upset if they can’t be done at her specific time.
if she wants her hair doing in a certain way, she will tell me the day before - over and over and also sending messages to ask if I can do it.
Being late also, if she’s late or doesn’t know what time she’ll be home from her Dads house she will voice note me apologizing and crying about it…I always try to reassure her that it’s fine.
Does this sound like anxiety and how do others cope with it? What do you do to try and make your dc less anxious surrounding this kind of thing? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated as it’s really starting to cause me and her a lot of stress.

It actually sounds like she could be autistic. My daughter was/ is just like this since the teenage years. It’s better now she masks less and is also on antidepressants but that need for routine and changes to plans really resonate.

I'm no expert but it sounds like OCD to me, or possibly autism as PP says

Like others I would also say autism or OCD

There are quick screeners online you could do with her before seeing your GP

Another vote for OCD.

It sounds like possible OCD traits or autistic traits - but anxiety can also manifest in these ways too. There’s a lot of overlap with OCD and anxiety in particular - both could be worth looking into

I had never thought about autism, I know she struggles socially and gets very anxious especially in new situations. It has only been recently that she will talk to her grandparents but I put it down to just being shy.

How do people manage OCD in children?
Is it advisable to contact my GP to discuss this with them?

Could Be autism with anxiety causing ocd

Or anxiety causing ocd

However it's still very much worth looking at while she is young. Don't ignore. It won't go away

The nhs is shit so if you have the funds go private. You will get plenty of advise on here on the process.

Yes, of course. You can't manage OCD without professional intervention, if it is OCD. You also need a diagnosis of anxiety before you can confidently come up with a management plan.
And if it is autism, you need to start the assessment process now as it could be years before you can be seen.

My dd3 is a little like this but not as bad as your daughter sounds but I have had to put boundaries in place to stop things spiraling. I think it is most likely to be a little bit of anxiety setting in and manifesting with needing to control things to help her cope. I think maybe a referral to CAHMs might be an option so they can explore the route of the problem and what is causing the anxiety. I wouldn't get fixated with labelling it yet mote identifying what is causing it and providing her with strategies to cope so it doesn't get worse for her.

Girls tend to presently differently to boys when it comes to autism. Did she get bullied at school at all? Does she have sensory sensitivity? Does she prefer certain foods? Are there others in the family with autistic traits?
My son was diagnosed at 5 and also has OCD. Definitely go to the GP and start on the diagnostic pathway, although local support groups and charities are best for gaining advice etc to be honest. Child and adolescent mental health services and professional support is woefully underfunded, so we found that courses run by Autism Hampshire (or your local equivalent) were of the most help.
I found the MIND website page below good for OCD, when my son has intrusive thoughts we call them 'silly meanies' which helps to diminish them and make them less scary for instance.

www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/obsessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd/symptoms-of-ocd/

@Dulra

No one is saying it's definitely autism but the possibility it worth raising.

I wish I'd suspected autism in my dd Pre secondary. I could
Have saved her 3 years of stress anxiety and eventually burnout and dropping out of school.

She is through the other side now and rebuilding her life

if op doesn't have money for private assessment she needs to get the ball rolling. No one is labelling her on the internet. But with the ops comments on her difficulties it's worth raising.

Yes, that's true. I have a friend with anxiety and OCD who is not however autistic. She had issues with a job role that involved checking columns on a spreadsheet and has health contamination issues too.
I was wondering if OP's daughter had other potential signs such as sensory sensitivities to offer more insight.

Better to investigate now rather than later when she crashes out of secondary as they do.

My Dd was like this. We thought ASD. Turned out to be ADHD. Her life has been transformed by medication.

yes agree OCD and/or autism (we have a lot of OCD and autism in our family). Puberty is a very common trigger as is the change or the impending change from primary to high school - a sense that the world is a bigger place. She is trying to control everything to control her anxiety.
Unfort this is going to get worse - act now - one of my biggest regrets was not giving my child meds at that age. She got so much worse - and when you get worse with these things its harder to dial them back.

I know that was why I suggested a referral to CAHMS. I wouldn't sit on it. My dd1 is autistic and it was through our referral to CAHMS that identified it, it wasn't on our radar at all. My dd3 is only 12 but has a tendency to get anxious and can be very fixated with time and routine, through a referral and play therapy she is doing a lot better and managing her anxiety better

My DC has both autism (Aspergers) and OCD.

They can present similarly sometimes but the motivations behind the behaviours are very different and they're not hard to tell apart but only if you know the child very well indeed.

It was actually very difficult and took years for us to get the ocd diagnosis because DC already had an autism diagnosis. A failing on the part of camhs who attributed all ritualistic behaviour to autism (even when told otherwise).

The big difference imho is that with autism the insistence on routine is to provide security. Anxiety is a big part of autism and the routines provide structure and, importantly, help. If the routine is disrupted the DC can become stressed.

OCD is fear based. You have to perform rituals, not really because you want to, but because you fear the consequences if you don't. You're afraid something bad will happen if you don't. Rituals provide reassurance only temporarily until you start thinking about the fear again. It is a very debilitating condition.

If I had to hazard a guess here (not knowing your DD) I would guess autism rather than ocd, particularly as you say she has social anxiety too. I stress I am guessing!! It is also noteworthy that the incidence of ocd is raised in people with autism and you can have both.

I would move to get your DD specialist assessment at this point.

Hi, you mentioned her coming back from her dad’s house and I’m just wondering if this is a long-standing, settled and stable arrangement for her, or something which could be causing her to feel anxious? Also wondering about what school is like for her?
Sometimes trying to plan the “little” stuff can be representative of some underlying anxiety. Does she open up about how she is feeling? I’m wondering if she could write down anything she is worrying about and then you could have some time with her in the evenings to look through her worries (and also the stuff that is fun or interesting for her)

OCD. However there is a strong link with autism and OCD too.

The arrangement with going to her Dad’s has only been recently over the last 2 years. And is timings can be very unpredictable, he also doesn’t respond to my emails about contact and does it solely through DD, I have tried asking him to confirm visits with me but he refuses.
My DD’s behaviour has been getting worse over the last 6-9 months.
She is starting to hit puberty and is going up to secondary school in September, which she hated on the move up days, too afraid to talk to anyone etc, and it was so out of routine for her.
School has been tough for her, she was kept in the same class for 3 yesrs because of her shyness so that they could keep continuity with her teachers to save her retreating back into her shell. This year though, her confidence at school has flourished and I really thought that we had overcome the issue.
She struggles to talk about her feelings, she will message me with problems if somethings on her mind and I actively encourage her to write her worries down and then we discuss them.

Also, thinking about it her Dad used to have some unusual things he would do…like smacking his stomach and counting to 10 and having to restart the process if he was interrupted.
I know it can be genetic sometimes.

With OCD, worry underlies the “compulsion” (eg. Doing something at exact time), so you could be curious about this with her. Be gently curious about what she thinks will happen if she arrives back late? What is it about this that worries her? Typically with autism this is a need for predictability and sameness and change is really unsettling; with OCD there can be an underlying anxiety like, “if I don’t do this at (set) time, then something will happen”). So if she’s able to, see if you can have a really gentle and curious chat about it.
Whatever it is, there are strategies to enhance flexibility (autism) and manage obsessions and compulsions of OCD.
it may ‘simply’ be a manifestation of underlying anxiety, whatever it may be, talking about it will help. What do school say and are her behaviours there is all settings? what are things like with her dad and anyone else involved in her care?
Good luck

She needs specialist assessment, to see a psychologist.
If it's possible and you and her dad can afford it I would go private as waiting lists are long.

Like pp I think it could be that she is autistic. Worth mentioning that sometimes autistic girls are misdiagnosed as having OCD. It's also possibly both as lots of autistic people suffer anxiety and OCD is an anxiety disorder. I think it's worth looking into.

I would also say that having read lots of threads here about autistic girls, this is the sort of age where it commonly becomes clear something is going on, I think partly due to secondary school transition.

I would definitely suggest a specialist assessment - it must be very difficult for her and for you!

I struggle with anxiety and I must admit that I like to have a plan for the day. I also cannot stand being late/on the last minute for anything.
We go on holiday this weekend and honestly, my planning would give the military a run for their money 😂
It's not as extreme as your dd sounds, but it's definitely an anxiety thing.

Also, it's important to see the right person, someone experienced with autism in girls for example, or pediatric ocd, or both.
Meds can help with ocd but a psychiatrist is needed to prescribe them.

I'm sorry if this all seems overwhelming at the moment, but it does sound like she needs some help. I'm surprised her school hasn't suggested it earlier.