My Philosophy: OCD Tendencies

King Chung Huang

(Disclosure: I have OCD tendencies, my family has tendencies, and my child has it worse than the rest of us. None of us are counting and checking, but we get really bad BRAINLOCK and have situational anxiety. I am on LOTS of medication, but my child isn't impaired enough for me to risk putting head-meds in his developing brain. So, unless something goes south in a dramatic way, we're just going to have to cope together till he's 18....when I shall then hit him with a large brick of Zoloft.)

OCD is a disorder of the novelty gland. The novelty gland is the thing in your head that says, "This is out of the ordinary! Is this an emergency?" With OCD, the brain screams "YES, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! DO SOMETHING!" So, once a routine is established, any change in that routine is "out of the ordinary" and therefore AN EMERGENCY. This is important as life is pretty routine and without attention, so OCD can gradually eat more and more of your life.

Example: Child has cereal every morning for weeks. One day, you're out of cereal. Not having the regular bowl of cereal is out of the ordinary. The novelty gland screams, "THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW DO SOMETHING!!!!!!!" From that day forward, child obsesses about whether or not there is cereal in the house.

The first step is to keep a lot of variety in the environment. This is really important! The child becomes accustomed to the little rises in adrenaline and learns to not fear them so much.

Fearing anxiety makes this all a whole lot more complicated, so it's best to get used to mini-attacks. A person is not likely to ever totally heal from this tendency and switch to some other problem, so getting accustomed to the negative experience of small bursts of novelty is important. As an adult, I am really used to my anxiety kicking off at say 25%. I know the feeling and I know it's nothing. If I hold on or distract myself, it will eventually go away.

Second, if you suspect or KNOW there's an existing ingrained routine or fear, gently disobey the novelty gland on a regular and frequent basis.

1. Start with just imagining breaking the routine or performing the feared activity. Let the anxiety rise and stay in the thought as long as possible.
2. Increase the amount of time spent imagining until the IDEA has stopped being out of the ordinary and no longer dramatically sets off the novelty gland. (Child finds the small rise in adrenaline uncomfortable, but manageable.)
3. Next, try delaying the routine a couple of minutes or standing NEAR the feared situation as long as possible. (example: going to a building with elevators and standing in the parking lot)
4. Do this regularly, until the delays or nearness to the feared object has stopped being out of the ordinary and no longer significantly sets off the novelty gland.
5. Repeat the process IN BABY STEPS standing closer and closer (eventually DOING the feared thing or VIOLATING the routine) until the novelty gland reacts at a tolerable level.*

*Note: for a significantly established fear, this process can take MONTHS.

This is a lot of information, I know. I recommend reading The Anxiety Cure for Kids a lot. You can get it here. Just remember that CURE doesn't mean your child stops having the tendency, it means that he learns what to do WHEN his novelty gland starts malfunctioning again.