Daughter with Anxiety Issue-Please help!

amother

Seagreen

Sat, Feb 03 2018, 7:30 pm

amother wrote:

Proceed with deliberate care. You don't want your pediatrician calling social services on you.
Has your child had a recent trauma?
My child developed a similar ocd after a trauma.uk
The thing that helped her most was that we ignored it. If we gave it any attention it became more entrenched.
Maybe you and dh learn breathing techniques so the two of you can stay very calm and not get upset by her ocd. The more upset I got the more intense my dds ocd became. You chill, then she will chill.

This is idiotic advice. Trauma is not treated by ignoring it. If it was indeed trauma, you can be assured it will come out at some point. Trauma is not something to be taken lightly. It requires major work with the parent-child relationship, processing of the past, processing of fears, learning to trust, and so much more. Ignoring a child trauma May quiet their symptoms and force them to disassociate because they cannot feel that even their home is a safe place to express their real feelings (what a tragedy!) But do not fool yourself into thinking that trauma can disappear By ignoring it. Post trauma, my son also developed OCD tendencies. His therapist told me his symptoms will resolve as he processes his trauma, and then this is treated very differently than OCD which is disconnected from a past trauma. OCD like symptoms that stem from trauma are associated with triggers and terrifying memories. Because of this their behavior makes sense! OCD without trauma focuses on purely behavioral changes because there isn't any rational reason for their behaviors.
Baruch Hashem, now that my sons trauma has been processed, he no longer has OCD tendencies. OP, I don't know if your daughter experienced trauma, but I felt I could not let this naive poster give this inaccurate, damaging advice without interjecting. The fact that you are home schooling probably means that the amount of adults with access to your daughter is limited, however, trauma should still be investigated.
No matter what the cause, the thing to remember is that you are on your daughter's team. You are your daughter's number one Advocate. No one can love your daughter as much as you. You are an integral part of her process. She is in pain. She doesn't want to be stuck but her brain is making her stuck. She can't just change there's something stopping her. She needs kindness understanding and Endless Love. Being harsh will only distance you from her and create more problems in her healing and Future.
Tell her these things. Tell her you see she's struggling and you love her no matter what and you're going to help her. Tell her you know she feels stuck and that it's not her fault. Tell her there's a lot of people that struggle with this and they can learn ways to manage. Tell her you're going to find people that can help her and that no matter what you're on her team. Ask her if anything troubling happened to her and that you're going to help her and not judge her and be there for her.