Wife has severe OCD - need advice

[BoardsofCanada]

We've been married seven years and have a DD, who is 2. My wife's OCD has become somewhat severe since she started training (unpaid) a few months ago to become a kindergarten educator here in Germany. So far she has found the internship extremely tedious and undemanding, and now she is unsure if this is the career she wants, but doesn't feel she is skilled enough to apply for jobs in other sectors. (She has a degree in childhood development.) I want to be able to help her cope her with her invasive thoughts, but we are both working full time and we can mostly only communicate via chat during the day. How do you begin to help someone with OCD?

hey? what behaviour is OCD?

What OCD does she have?

My advice is for you to support her to engage with Cbt as this was a real turning point for me. My ocd has not gone, but I can now manage it, and recognise early signs when things are not right. Medication can also be helpful, to kick start the recovery process.

The type of ocd and it's impact will be unique to your wife, but for me I found it was important to celebrate the little victories. Mine was around checking eg light switches/car keys, intrusive thoughts and rituals when driving /parking.

So an example of something which doesnt help me might be saying to me 'for gods same park the car already there a space right there'. What might help is something like saying 'I noticed you were checking the switches again today, are you having a tough day?'

I hope that makes sense, and I hope things improve for you wife soon