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Compulsive Disorder: He’s Full of Obsessive OCD!
He washes his hands 10 times a day, he throws his slippers before going to bed at night, he has to check the orange juice label before consuming it, in short his life is haunted by more rituals in addition to intrusive …
What is the cause of ocd? When do they appear?
Some children become prisoners of these little rituals earlier and earlier and leave the parents helpless in the face of these chronic and invasive manias … Departing, invisible, because drowned in normal psychomotor development, very quickly, 8 years after, OCD insidiously install itself in the daily life of the child.
TOCS begins in 50% of cases during childhood, often around 6-7 years old (entry to CP) and around 12-13 years old at the age of pre-pubertal life, often with dysmorphophobia (according to AFTOC, the association French obsessive-compulsive disorder).
It is estimated at about 1,9% the number of children and adolescents under XNUMX with OCD (according to Avigal Amar-Tuillier, journalist and author of a book on OCD in children).
What are the different tocs?
The disorders are often spectacular, pervasive and can quickly become disabling. Daily life is invaded by moments devoted to these rituals, going so far as to occupy one to several hours a day.
Their early management seems totally justified because only 10% of OCDs disappear spontaneously.
Clinical description of OCD:
– rituals: counting, washing, checking, touching, arranging everything symmetrically, not being able to prevent oneself from performing certain gestures or acts
– strong anxiety
– obsessions: obsessive ideas
– compulsive tics
Life in OCD
A lack of self-control, an intolerance to frustrations, impulsivity, aggressive reactions are usual in adolescents and even more so in children due to the immaturity of their psychic instances. So, it is not surprising that the symptomatology of OCD in young children is more “emotional” than cognitive, like anger for example, more visible in the youngest.
In this age group, it is characteristic to observe the emergence of anger when the rituals are disturbed or even prevented by a loved one. Sometimes, the child asks for the help of a parent for the performance of a ritual: a refusal often results in by a seizure, revealing the rise of anxiety becoming intolerable for the child or adolescent.
The daily life of OCD
In everyday life, parents quickly realize that their child is struggling with a bizarre mania. They often watch their little one lock themselves in a ritual that quickly invades these days or nights.
As this mother explains to us, “my seven year old son slams his head every night not to sleep but in his sleep. We have tried everything, but nothing or done. He needs to bang his head on something hard. Changing his bed, making him sleep surrounded by cushions or blankets, nothing helps. He seeks the contact of a hard part ”.
Examples of tocs: Other testimonies on the forums
“My 8-year-old son has had a faint since the start of the school year: he washes his hands all the time. It is from the moment you wake up until the evening. At bedtime, he always finds an excuse. For example by saying: I have dust on my hands, or my hands are sticky etc…. I try to resonate it, nothing helps… ”, confides another mother to us.
Another testimony that goes in the same direction,
“My eight year old son has tocs and troubles like going to pee every two minutes, washing his hands after every annoyance, or as soon as he has touched something, he cuts his nails about XNUMX times a day. day. Everything bothers him, he never sits on the toilet, even at home and refuses to close a door with his hands, but rather with his elbow. He constantly puts his bears back on his bed, he has his own way of tidying up that should not be rushed, he will put his slippers back on in front of his bed several times before going to bed, in short, he has several quirks that sometimes stifle our daily life! “.
Help and treatment: how to manage, treat and stop tocs in children
Many parents put up with these rituals or OCDs quite well, as they often have them themselves!
But for others, it is all the more difficult to accept as they desperately attend the show without being able to intervene or do anything about it!
Often ritualized children pass for very hard, temperamental and angry children.
These kids don’t do it on purpose to make their parents nervous. It is a vicious circle where the child and the parents wear out quickly, in a daily life that becomes hellish for everyone.
First of all, it seems important to explain to the child that it is a disease.
Parents should emphasize words by explaining to their child that they know that they cannot help but behave ten or twenty times a day.
And parents to tell the child that they will fight with him against all these unfortunate ways of everyday life.
For example, at bedtime, explain to the child that we are going to come and help him, once, to check the storage of his things, but that after he must go to bed for good.
It is an accompaniment which reassures the child, he will thus feel understood by his parents in front of the anxiety of the bedtime.
But if a mania disappears and reappears some time later, do not despair either! It’s often a long and difficult fight, where certain manias recede, but sometimes they return before they can disappear permanently!
Do not forget to consult a child psychiatrist when the disorders are major and they prevent the child from having a social life or going to school.
Behavioral psychotherapies are the most indicated to help the child to get rid of his manias. They act on the symptoms of OCD and can be short-lived.
In the end, the Obsessive and Compulsive Disorder is a serious and real illness due to the suffering generated. The family must be able to take it seriously and get the child to talk to a doctor about it is already a big step forward.
The child does not remain alone in front of his questions and his discomfort related to these OCDs.
And this is the most important!
Website
French Association of People Suffering from OCD