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OCD/ intrusive thoughts

7 replies

MegCleary · 19/09/2021 09:48

Dd 14, has had cbt for ocd in the past which helped so much.
Recently she is starting to get sexual thoughts and her OCD is creeping back and saying she likes kids or fancies her parents. The poor love is getting all angst ridden and thinking it’s her subconscious and that she fancies us or kids (because she sees a little kid and thinks they’re cute!).
We have been a great pains to say to her that little kids are cute but this is not sexual. That she is a raging ball of teenage hormones and that these feelings are normal and her ocd is confusing her to thinking they are wrong she shouldn’t be having them.
I really want to help her to get rid of these thoughts and stop them ruining her puberty. I have explained loads of teenagers have sexy thoughts and that’s fine. Her ocd seems to take any joy and ruin it.
Any tips book recommendations really appreciated.

OP posts:
MegCleary · 19/09/2021 15:01

Bump

OP posts:
MegCleary · 19/09/2021 21:32

Anyone

OP posts:
Funnyname00 · 19/09/2021 21:36

Have you tried medication?

MegCleary · 20/09/2021 07:00

No.

OP posts:
MuchTooTired · 20/09/2021 07:19

For my intrusive thoughts I acknowledge them as a bit sometimes very weird and remind myself that everyone has them. It’s how you deal with them. If the thought persists and won’t go away with acknowledgment, I visualise them as a tissue (generally red for me, any colour will do!) I’m holding in my hand in a breeze, and once I’m ready I visualise letting go and it fluttering away in the breeze. It’s then out of my head and I distract myself with a task.

In the limited experience of my brain only, her intrusive thoughts are perfectly normal but disturbing to think of for the thinker. Admittedly I was an adult, but when my DTs were born I had so many intrusive thoughts of that nature, not about my doing it but the sick stuff people do to little ones. I’d had cbt and lived relatively ocd free for a couple of years beforehand so knew it was a flare up linked to hormones and had the tools to deal with it. It was still extremely distressing though!

It’s great that she’s talking about it though with you. My cbt therapist described ocd as being like a motorway. The rituals/behaviours are like the motorway in your brain, nice and easy to drive, smooth road etc, and the “normal” way is like an overgrown dirt track that’s a nightmare to get down. Cbt will teach me to get my brain to cut down the overgrown dirt track so that becomes my motorway, and the road I used previously would become a dirt track in time. Might help your DD to think of it, it made a lot of sense and brought comfort to me.

I know you didn’t ask about medication, but it maybe might be worth exploring. I didn’t take anything whilst having cbt and dealing with the crippling ocd as I was anti ads at the time. I only started taking them for pnd. With the benefit of hindsight I wish I had at the time, I put myself through hell and could’ve made it easier on myself as I learnt how to get my brain back to my new motorway.

MegCleary · 20/09/2021 11:21

Thank you for sharing, I will work with her in the imagery perhaps. We are aware we are lucky she shares how she feels with us.
She has dealt with it with cbt in past and I am just concerned if we mess up supporting her It will impact on her developing sexuality.

OP posts:
ilovebagpuss · 20/09/2021 17:34

Hello my DD has suffered from OCD for some time. The intrusive thoughts can often be violent or sexual as it is part of the cycle of bad thoughts driving the rituals. Often they can be so bad that children don’t want to talk about them as they fear so much it’s a part of them saying true things. It’s good she can tell you these thoughts as it takes away the power of them.
We saw a private psychiatrist as it was becoming overwhelming for her in many ways. She had 20mg of fluoxetine and some melatonin to help with sleep.
She found it did help a lot as she said it just turned down the volume on the OCD so the cycle could be broken.
She still has those thoughts and urges but describes it all as faded and some days has no issues at all.
Hope this helps.

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