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Hello

I am the mother of a 21 year old suffering from ocd. 

I am beside myself. I love him so much but finding it hard to deal with. 

I have read all the available information. My husband and I are so patient. 

We are a close family and our son talks to us and doesn't seem to hide any of his ocd.

The frustration is that he wont seek any help and as he is 21 it is impossible for us to intervene.

Any advice would be great 

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Hi Kaz and welcome to the forum. :welcome:

It's good that your son can talk to you about his OCD. Have you any idea why he's reluctant to seek treatment?

Has he given you any indication of how severely his OCD disrupts his life, maybe spoken about the ways it affects him? 

Does he live with you? How much is it affecting you as a family?

Although it's not possible to force an adult to seek treatment, you can of course give him support and keep trying to persuade him to help himself. And it's important to look after yourselves too, especially if the OCD is impacting on your home life. 

If you're comfortable doing so, could you perhaps give us some more detail so we are better able to offer specific advice? :) 

 

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Hello and thank you for the welcome

My son does live at home. He is at the local uni . 

He has so many rituals now that it really is impacting on his and our lives. He stays up late and often falls asleep downstairs. He sleeps most of the day and even if I'm not at work I can't get him up as he never feels ready to get out of his room. He is not making it down to dinner and eating about 9.30. All due to the routines he has to do. He keeps telling us he is getting fed up with some of them and trying to get downstairs earlier but this has not happened so far. He has finished uni as well for this year. 

He keeps telling us he will get through it so doesn't need help. 

My husband and I are seeking as much advice as possible to help him and us. 

We have a younger son as well who is taking his a levels. The boys are very close too

Any advice great

Thank you

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Hi again Kaz,

Thanks for the extra information. :)

Given that he's an adult living at home the main priority (in my opinion) is to ensure his rituals impact on family life as little as possible. You probably know from the information you've read already that ideally family shouldn't collude in any rituals and that also includes making changes to family life to accommodate the rituals. 

So, for example, if your son can't get downstairs to eat until 9.30pm, the rest of you eat at your normal meal time and leave his meal on a plate for him to re-heat later. As encouragement to get him to organise his time better, you might give him the choice of eating with the family at the set time or cook for himself later and stop cooking an extra portion for him at the regular time when he isn't making an effort to show up. (I'm making some assumptions here but hopefully you get the gist.)

It's about helping him to learn that actions have consequences and so OCD rituals have consequences too. Make it his choice whether he does the ritual, shortens it, or 'pays the price'. (This isn't punishment, it's about learning to take responsibility for himself, his behaviour, and also for his recovery.)

Same with getting up - encourage him to get up of course, but ultimately it's his choice. So if he lies in bed all day the rest of you get on with your lives without him, no repeat calls, no concessions, no bringing him stuff in bed. 

Unfortunately, people don't get better without help and claims to be self-treating, sorting it, dealing with it etc means they are maintaining the status quo at best, giving in to the OCD at every turn. The trouble is if you give OCD an inch it will take a mile. Do the rituals it demands and they jut get longer, more involved and more numerous over time. A one-way street until things get so bad the person accepts they do need outside help.

Presumably he's not capable of holding down a summer job in his present state of mind? But what about making it his job for the summer holidays to tackle his OCD so he's in a better place when term starts again in October?  Present it as an expectation that he's going to work over the holidays one way or another and let him decide whether he looks for a paid job or works to overcome his OCD. (And it does take work!)

Let us know how you get on. :) 

 

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THello and thank you for the welcome

My son does live at home. He is at the local uni . 

He has so many rituals now that it really is impacting on his and our lives. He stays up late and often falls asleep downstairs. He sleeps most of the day and even if I'm not at work I can't get him up as he never feels ready to get out of his room. He is not making it down to dinner and eating about 9.30. All due to the routines he has to do. He keeps telling us he is getting fed up with some of them and trying to get downstairs earlier but this has not happened so far. He has finished uni as well for this year. 

He keeps telling us he will get through it so doesn't need help. 

My husband and I are seeking as much advice as possible to help him and us. 

We have a younger son as well who is taking his a levels. The boys are very close too

Any advice great

Thank you

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Hello.

I am trying to follow the advice given but find it so hard to get tough with him. 

We had a break through and he managed to be ready for a family party but spent the next day in his room

We are eating our dinner and leaving his to go cold. 

As he failed the uni year we are waiting to see what his options are.

I am really happy to suggest that he either has to get a summer job or sort his ocd. That is a great bit of advice. Thank you. 

 

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hi Kaz

As Snowbear said its important he has goals to achieve, and a trade off might be a summer job or seeking help

I have an ex husband with OCD and my 18 year old daughter had OCD when she was 9, luckily she is OCD free but has clinical depression. Its about facing him and reiterating that you care about him so much that you want him to live the best life possible and he isn't at the moment but that can change and if he allows you, you can arrange therapy etc.

Good luck

Mel

 

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Hi Mel. 

I have managed to get him to see a dr . I was disgusted as he wanted to start him on citrilipram straight away with no CBT. He also didn't seem concerned that my son is 5 ft 7 and weighs 6 st 10 !!!  I have got an appointment for him with the local wellbeing clinic but I am so so worried about his mental health at the moment x

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  • 3 months later...

Hi everyone. It's been a long time and we are still suffering as a family 

 He is in the kitchen as I type this trying to decide on the right slice of pizza to choose. He is getting do frustrated and I really don't know what to do. He is still sleeping on the sofa not working and still not back at uni. I really am devasted and don't know what to do. 

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