Adult repeats sentences questions - very stressful getting worse for family.

[Concerned]

Hi, any experience or advise appreciated. We have a family member who constantly repeats sentences, questions, etc as well as the other OCD behaviours (cleaning, habits e.g. doors, patterns, how to do things, etc).  The family have ignored, been patient, not spoken about the issue,  repeated back questions etc but I am concerned this is getting worse and is affecting their marriage and their role as a parent (their child has multiple OCD/ADHD patterns and has been diagnosed). They seem to be 'learning helplessness' and many family members just don't interact anymore.  They don't acknowledge they have this, (or they are ignoring it),  but stress levels are getting higher and I suspect menopause will make this worse.  I think CBT may help, but as this has been lifelong (and they are in their 40's now), I strongly suspect medication may be needed too. Can anyone advise:

• How can I relay to the GP as a family member the stress/damage this is causing? They obviously won't talk about a patient without them in the room but I don't want to stress them out more by saying some things that need to be said to a GP if I am allowed to join an appointment with them for a referral?
• How long do referrals typically take before they see someone?
• Has anyone got any success/good news stories about this for family members?
• Are there any resources we can access specifically on this? a typical interaction results in 10-20 questions / repetitive phrases afterwards and it's worse when it comes to things like mealtimes etc where they seem so incapable that it's easier for others to 'do things' rather than have 200 questions re: what do you want, what temperature must the oven be, etc... 

Any help appreciated! 

[DRS1]

On 25/08/2022 at 12:08, Concerned said:

Hi, any experience or advise appreciated. We have a family member who constantly repeats sentences, questions, etc as well as the other OCD behaviours (cleaning, habits e.g. doors, patterns, how to do things, etc).  The family have ignored, been patient, not spoken about the issue,  repeated back questions etc but I am concerned this is getting worse and is affecting their marriage and their role as a parent (their child has multiple OCD/ADHD patterns and has been diagnosed). They seem to be 'learning helplessness' and many family members just don't interact anymore.  They don't acknowledge they have this, (or they are ignoring it),  but stress levels are getting higher and I suspect menopause will make this worse.  I think CBT may help, but as this has been lifelong (and they are in their 40's now), I strongly suspect medication may be needed too. Can anyone advise:

• How can I relay to the GP as a family member the stress/damage this is causing? They obviously won't talk about a patient without them in the room but I don't want to stress them out more by saying some things that need to be said to a GP if I am allowed to join an appointment with them for a referral?
• How long do referrals typically take before they see someone?
• Has anyone got any success/good news stories about this for family members?
• Are there any resources we can access specifically on this? a typical interaction results in 10-20 questions / repetitive phrases afterwards and it's worse when it comes to things like mealtimes etc where they seem so incapable that it's easier for others to 'do things' rather than have 200 questions re: what do you want, what temperature must the oven be, etc... 

Any help appreciated! 

Hi,

 

Sorry it's taken so long to reply but I've just been trying to think through exactly what to say. I'll try to take your main questions one at a time and hopefully answer them.

 

1. If they are an adult, then it would be up to them whether or not they want you to join them for a referral. Also I would caution this by saying that for a lot of us, disclosing intrusive thoughts, images and sensations and the compulsions we do can be nerve wracking alone to a health professional and so may not feel comfortable doing that with a family member in the room (especially if the content of the thoughts, images or sensations is harm based or sexual based, especially in the latter as the thoughts, images or sensations may be involving family members). If they are wanting to get help for their OCD, then there is a GP Icebreaker that OCD-UK has that I've linked at the end of this response that they can use to make it easier to get their symptoms across. Also, if they feel too uncomfortable talking out loud what the thoughts are that they are experiencing, they can write them down and simply hand the piece of paper to the GP instead. The important thing is that they have to want to get help for it and need to be able to recognise the problem with what they are dealing with.

 

2. Referrals are different for everyone depending on their area and were affected as well with the pandemic but I think usually within a couple of weeks is reasonable.

 

3. I'm not a family member of someone with OCD, I'm the person in the family with OCD, so I'm not able to talk about it from that perspective but I can talk about what I wanted my family to understand. It's really important to just listen to begin with. Don't ask questions, don't judge if they tell you the content of thoughts or images they are having and especially don't say "well that will never happen" because that just reinforces the OCD. Another thing to do which I'll get onto when answering the next point is learn about OCD and have family members do so. It was hard to tell from the post but if they are essentially seeking reassurance by asking all the questions all the time then something you can do is instead of answering the questions, leave it open with uncertainty. Instead of saying "yes" or "no" or "that won't happen", try telling them "maybe" or "I don't know". This may seem unhelpful but in the long term this is the most helpful thing you can do. OCD can be recovered from and people can live their lives despite any thoughts or images they have.

 

4. Resources wise, there are many, even quite a few from the family perspective on supporting the family member with OCD. I personally like "Break Free From OCD" (also linked below from the OCD-UK shop but you can buy it on amazon, or google play books as well. "When a family member has OCD" by Jon Hershfield is also a great book which you can get from Amazon. There also videos from the OCD-UK conferences from 2021 and 2020 that you and your family members could watch to educate yourselves further on OCD.

 

Extra point: Just because someone has had OCD for a long time doesn't mean they necessarily need medication. Plenty of people have recovered from OCD without the use of medication and there are those with OCD that can't take SSRI's for example due to either not being able to tolerate side effects or other medical factors which mean the use of SSRI's isn't possible. That being said, some people do better with a combination of medication and therapy, others might just need therapy. It's also really important to stress what treatment for OCD looks like. CBT is great but it can often end up translating to talk therapy where the person ends up trying to find the meaning behind their thoughts when there is no meaning or purpose to intrusive thoughts. What they need to be seeking is CBT with Exposure and Responsive Prevention but there are some newer different types of therapy as well that I've seen mentioned on the forums too. 

 

Hopefully this answers some of the points you've asked about but feel free to tell me if it missed the points or if you have any more questions then the forum is always here.

https://www.ocduk.org/gp-ice-breaker/

https://www.ocduk.org/shop/break-free-from-ocd/