When OCD latches onto themes that feel embarrassing or “gross,” kids often shut down. But avoiding the topic feeds the shame and the cycle. This week’s YouTube video speaks directly to them — with clarity, compassion, and hope.
OCD loves to tell our kids that they’ll ruin things. Maybe it tells them that they’ll ruin a vacation or special occasion. Maybe it tells them that they’ll ruin their favorite belongings. Or maybe it tells them that they’ll ruin their favorite song or show. It doesn’t matter. It’s all the same in the end.
OCD is an octopus with sticky tentacles. Those tentacles can glom onto almost anything. They can watch, hear, or observe anything that can, in return, become a new OCD theme. The issue isn’t what they hear or watch, the issue is how big and sticky the tentacles are. The goal is to build skills and knowledge to shrink the octopus and part of that is learning all about OCD.
It is helpful to understand the many different disguises OCD can wear. When we understand how OCD can show up, we can nip it in the bud more often. Relationship OCD is often talked about in an adult context, but it impacts kids and teens as well. I invited Kristina Orlova, an anxiety and OCD therapist and creator of OCD Academy, to come onto the AT Parenting Survival Podcast to help us understand ROCD better.
OCD comes in many disguises. OCD is OCD and it is treated as such, but it can be easy to miss new intrusive thoughts and compulsions. That is because OCD can morph and present in a completely different way. The best way to approach OCD is to educate ourselves and our kids in the many ways it can show up. It can help to learn about other OCD experiences and common OCD intrusive thoughts and compulsions. When you do this, you and your child will be able to catch new OCD struggles before it can grow big roots. Then you’ll approach it the same way you do with any other OCD theme using ERP, Exposure Response Prevention.
OCD loves to dictate everything, including what words and topics your child and other people around them can use. It’s an OCD trap. The more they avoid these words and topics, the smaller their world becomes. OCD will eventually have them avoid words and topics similar to those they are already avoiding. Before they know it, they’ll have a long list of things OCD says they have to avoid. A list that is impossible to avoid without impacting everyone’s life. In this week’s YouTube video for kids and teens I discuss how OCD will want them to avoid certain words and topics and how to get their power back from OCD.
OCD can make our kids worry about all sorts of things. OCD comes in many disguises and themes. Harm OCD themes are often missed or misunderstood. In this week’s Youtube video I talk to kids and teens about what harm OCD themes look like and what they can do to get some OCD relief around this type of theme.
OCD comes in many flavors. One flavor involves the ongoing fear of being a bad person. Ironically the most kind hearted people often struggle with this type of OCD theme. When our kids have these types of intrusive thoughts they might find themselves consumed with worry about behaviors they did in the past. OCD has access to their mental database and can present them with a long list of “bad” things they’ve done. We are all human and have done things we regret. In this week’s Youtube video I talk to kids and teens about how OCD uses their experiences against them and how they can stay one step ahead and stop OCD in its tracks.
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