Refuses treatment

[LauraL]

Hi there,

My Dad has had OCD for a few years but it was made hundreds of times worse by the pandemic, like many others. He refuses treatment and thinks he is ok. His OCD is very difficult for my Mum to live with and I worry that she will suffer more of the brunt of the disorder than he does. He has no hobbies, doesn’t work and thinks that just doing a couple of mindful puzzles each day is enough therapy to tick that box. Any advice would be gratefully received.

[snowbear]

Hi Laura,

Can you say more about how your Dad's OCD affects him and your mum?

[LauraL]

My Dad can get very defensive about his compulsions. He tends to be particularly focused on saving energy / water / recycling correctly, but also being clean and things being hygienic. He will turn off lights in rooms people are in because he thinks there is enough light without the light on, for example. He won’t trust himself to lock the front door on his own so won’t go out anywhere without my Mum. So she tends to feel like his babysitter. He spends hours and hours of every day sitting in the same chair, doing nothing. 

[snowbear]

That must indeed be difficult to live with. How does he react if you stand up to him and turn the lights back on? Fear, anger? It might be a starting point to discussing with him what's going on in his head and why he feels things have to be a certain way. There might be financial concerns driving his behaviour as well as OCD and that's something you can address as a family.

Perhaps encourage your mum to do things as normally as she can without her doing any of his compulsions for him.

When people claim 'I'm ok, I don't need treatment' the only comeback is to point out that his behaviour is impacting the whole family and that's not ok so he has to do his bit in changing that. Then try and get him to agree to help for his OCD so the family as a whole can get back to living more normally.

 

[LauraL]

Thank you for your reply and advice. 
He can get quite defensive and angry when we have tried to confront things, so sometimes we just avoid confronting and discuss at a point when he seems more receptive. Sometimes the discussion is fruitful and productive and other times not so much. The main problem seems to be that he doesn’t think anything is really wrong. He thinks that his wanting to have a routine and do things in his particular way is what the problem is, rather than his reclusiveness, lack of communication, apparent anger or moodiness and lack of desire to do anything really.