Worried about ds - the beginnings of OCD?

[shoppingbagsundereyes]

Ds is 8. At 4 he was diagnosed with aspergers traits but has always had elements of ADD and has had tics ( physical, not verbal and fairly low level). This week 3 incidents have worried me that OCD might be starting too.
Firstly last Saturday at his swimming lesson he seemed to be mucking about. He continually had his head under the water so couldn't hear the teacher and swam with his head turned to one side. Turned out there was a plaster in the water. He said he had to watch where it was to 'keep safe'.
He's had a long term fear of dogs. I get this. Dogs can be jumpy and bark. But yesterday we visited a friend who has a cat. From the second we arrived he asked every two minutes or so where the cat was. Wouldn't move from room to room until I'd checked if the cat was there. This escalated when the cat came in the room and he ended up shutting himself in another room howling and shaking. Nothing I said or did could reassure him and I ended up taking him home. Again the conversation when he'd calmed down was about feeling safe.
Finally last night I was snuggled up in bed with him reading his stories and he said to me ' I think everything's ok now because I didn't die'.
These sound like obsessive thoughts to me. I'm not sure what if anything I should do?

hi shopping I am going through a very similar thing with my ds at the moment. My ds is only 5 and was diagnosed with autism a year ago after I went to the doctor saying I thought he had ocd.

It is so worrying and difficult to deal with. Sorry I don't have any advice. With my ds these type of feelings and having to touch things, do this things, watch things comes when he is anxious. They stay for what feels like a long time but do go when his anxiety goes.

I am battling with his school to get more information about what could be making him anxious at school. An ot is going in to see if it is noise/sensory related anxiety. I am actually considering taking him out of school for a while to see if it helps.

I hope you get some good advice. Best wishes

Thanks so much. He has always been anxious and says he has too many thoughts buzzing in his brain at any time. Last night I talked to him about the cat and how he needed to think rationally. He understood that rationally a cat won't hurt you unless you go near it but seemed to have the cat fear muddled with the dog fear in his mind. So worrying to add to all the other things I regularly worry about for him.

I am not sure where the dividing line is between "rigid thinking" and "OCD" is. Certainly, I could see the cat thing with ds1 - if he decides cats are deadly then nothing would convince him otherwise. He doesn't have really any other OCD traits though I think. ds2 has more behaviours that approach OCD - like drawing the curtains when he enters a room but again is it OCD or just anxiety. There seems to be so much overlap and would the approach in dealing with the issues be any different if it is "ASD" or "OCD".

Yes with my ds there is definitely fear involved. He is very rigid in his thinking but the ocd stuff is different. Not sure who is the best person to speak to about ocd do clinical psychologists help with that?

My son has ASD and OCD traits. They gradually got worse from about 10 on..he's nearly 17.

In his case it was repeated behaviours..having to touch the bin lid 5 x, stand up sit down 15 times.. as well has needing things 'just so' or he couldn;t cope. We finally sought extra help and he has recently started anti anxiety meds which we hope will enable him to cope better.

It's defo worth asking for a referral to CAHMS about it!

Thanks so much for all your replies. Will keep a close eye. He's been completely fine since Friday. Nothing at all other than asking twice if the friends we visited yesterday had any pets.