Do’s and Dont’s

[Fiona900]

Hi,

I’m looking for ways to help my sister who has recently been diagnosed with OCD. Her OCD centres around intrusive thoughts that can range from her believing that she’s hit a child with her car to the fact she thinks she’s bullied someone or forced them to take drugs. These things have obviously never happened but, each week, a new intrusive thought seems to take centre stage and as a family, we are struggling to know how to support her. 
 
The mental health team and crisis team are involved but, we keep getting conflicting advice from them. 
 

When her days are being overtaken by a thought, she is often asking us for information and reassurance that she did or didn’t do the thing she’s referring to.

 

When the thoughts are NOT centred in any type of reality, what is the best thing for us to do and say? For example, she thinks she’s hit a child with her car. 

 

When the thoughts are centred in something that, is more like a memory with missing pieces, what is the best thing for us to do or say? For example, she is fixated on the fact she apparently bullied someone at school. The person did leave school due to being bullied but my sister wasn’t the bully or involved in the situation. 
 

It feels that she is trying to force us to validate her thoughts but, we don’t want to lie to her when she’s saying things that aren’t true.
 

Any advice or help would be so appreciated as we are desperate to try and support her as she navigates the diagnosis and new medication/CBT. 
 

I appreciate any tips x

[Gemma@OCDUK]

Hi Fiona,

Welcome to the forum

Firstly, I just want to say that you are not alone in finding navigating OCD and all of its complexities hard. We hear from so many families feeling similarly and many will identify with what you are all going through.

You mentioned that your sister's local mental health team are involved, is she currently getting any CBT for OCD? If so, it could be worth speaking to her therapist about working with your sister to reduce the need for you to join in any compulsions she does, like reassurance seeking. Coming up with a plan so you can work together to tackle OCD can sometimes be the best way to make progress.

Ideally, you wouldn't do any compulsions for your sister, as compulsions always make the problem worse long term, although this can be hard in practice. Could you have a conversation with your sister when she's not too anxious about how else you might be able to support her, other than offering reassurance? You could give her a hug, go for a walk together or chat about something else to let the anxiety come down. Some people find talking about the OCD as a separate thing helpful, so rather than saying 'I'm not giving you reassurance', they might say 'I don't want to reassure the OCD because it will only make it worse in the long term, but I want to care and support you'.

Sometimes learning what you can about OCD can really help when supporting someone, a really in-depth book aimed at therapists called CBT for OCD https://www.ocduk.org/shop/cbt-for-ocd/ is excellent at understanding what OCD is and how it is tackled. We also have a conference presentation by Lauren Callaghan on helping a loved one with OCD here https://www.ocduk.org/conference/conference-map/family/helping-family-member-with-ocd/ Lauren also has a book called How Can I Help? based on the same topic.

Gemma