I realized that in my last blog I gave some very clinical answers to the question “what to do about OCD?” But that doesn’t always help those of us in the trenches. Although each child is very different and those who suffer from OCD have very different obsessions and compulsions, I’m going to offer up some of the things that have worked for LuLu.
Keep in mind that not all these things work all the time. And that no matter how hard I try, I sometimes can not remember to pull out some of these tools, nor can LuLu always verbalize her thoughts in such a way that I recognize them as OCD. In other words, we screw up all the time around here and get very frustrated with each other. OCD is, like I said before, a crazy-making disorder. It can also exist in combination with so many other things, like Tourettes, ADHD or autism spectrum disorders.
But here are some of the things we do that work:
1. Inositol. LuLu is on a high dosage of this (on the days I remember). And it does help. We have gone to a water-soluble powder that can be stirred into water or juice, or sprinkled on food. Because it is sweet-tasting, kids don’t mind.
2. Calm Down Cards. Her brilliant therapists came up with the idea of having her make flashcards of the activities that best calm her down. This is a modification of CBT, in that it requires her to cognitively recognize what works and then employ it. When she gets stuck, I say “pick out a card”. She gets her stack of cards that she has made and selects one. Then she does it. Just the act of selecting the card may be enough to switch gears. Doing what the card says helps her to get unstuck as well. And the fact that SHE made the cards and thought about which calm-down techniques to put on them gives her the ultimate control over herself…teaching her she does have the power to calm herself down.
3. Magnesium. There is lots of evidence that Tourettes and OCD sufferers are deficient in magnesium. Taking it internally and also using the Magnesium Sulfate cream helps.
4. Call It What It Is. One of the best things I did for LuLu was to start referring to her OCD symptoms as “being stuck”. It helped her to recognize the same. She is now able to articulate “I’m stuck” with ease. Although she doesn’t always become unstuck when she says this, at least both she and I can recognize that whatever her behavior is at the moment is due to intrusive thoughts. Then we can use an intervention to deal with them.
5. Visualization Tools. One of our favorite is “building the positive path”. When negative thoughts intrude, which is frequently for LuLu, we use a visualization tool of building a highway and making it wider and smoother. As the positive path gets wider and smoother, the negative path (because no one travels it anymore) gets overgrown with weeds and full of potholes. Because we’ve worked through this visualization completely, I can cue it in her mind by just asking, “Which path are you traveling on?” And sometimes that’s enough to help her get unstuck.