How To Manage Your Parents When You Have OCD

1. How To Manage Your Parents When You Have OCD IOCDF National Conference Chicago, Illinois July 28, 2012 Fred Penzel, Ph.D. Western Suffolk Psychological Services Huntington, New York

2. Even though your parents mean well and want you to recover and be happy, they don’t always know what are the right ways to help you. After all, no one’s parents are perfect.The purpose of this talk is to help you to help them to be better at doing this.

3. 14 Common Dumb Mistakes Parents and Other Family Members Can Make

4. Their idea of helping you with your behavior is to say, "Why don't you just stop." Mistake #1 Stop!

5. What should they do instead? Stop saying things like this. If you could simply stop your compulsions, you would. No one with OCD wants to do the things they do. It’s not like these things are enjoyable.

6. They assume that everything you do is a compulsion, and keep labeling your behavior this way every time they think you've done one of these things. • Mistake #2 • COMPULSION

7. What should they do instead? Trust you to know when you are doing compulsions and also trust you to work on them on your own. No one knows what you are doing better than you. You are really the only one who can control your behavior.

8. When you're in treatment, they watch you like a hawk, waiting for you to do a compulsion, and accusing you of not really trying to stop. Mistake#3 I caught you.

9. What should they do instead? Stop watching you, and realize that the only one who is with your 24/7 is you. If you had to depend upon others to tell you when you were doing symptoms, what would you do when they weren’t around?

10. If you are in treatment, they assume you are not going to do your therapy homework, and always nag you.  If they don't think you are progressing fast enough, they may even threaten to stop your treatment because you aren't doing enough, and it is costing them a lot of money. Mistake #4

11. What should they do instead? Learn to trust you to manage yourself. No one can do the work of therapy for you, and if someone has to nag you, then you really haven’t learned anything about getting well.

12. If you accomplish something, instead of encouraging you, they're quick to point out all the other things you still can't do yet. Mistake #5

13. What should they do instead? Stop pointing out these things. They are only messing up your motivation. It is a lot better to praise someone for what they have accomplished so that they feel encouraged and that someone really notices progress.

14. If you are in therapy, and show some improvement, they ask you how long it's going to take until you are totally recovered, or complain that it is taking too long. Mistake #6

15. What should they do instead? Show more patience and remind themselves that everyone gets well at their own pace – not according to a schedule. There isn’t some book you can use to look up how long it’s supposed to take.

16. If you slip up and do a compulsion, they tell you that you're not trying, and that you'll never get better. Mistake #7

17. What should they do instead? Stop criticizing. No one gets well perfectly and without slip-ups. This is how we learn anything new. Also, you sometimes learn more from your mistakes than from the things you do right.

18. They blame the family's troubles on you, and tell you how much easier their lives would be if it weren't for your problem – as if making you feel guilty will motivate you to get better. Mistake #8

19. What should they do instead? Avoid the blame and guilt. It only gets people down, and makes them feel hopeless and that they are bad people. No one wants to have OCD or make things difficult for others.

20. They keep constantly reminding you about all the bad times or scenes your OCD has caused in the past. Mistake #9

21. What should they do instead? Let go and leave the past in the past. What’s done is done. You can’t change anything that’s already happened. All you can do is to work hard to recover and try to not repeat past mistakes.

22. They have become involved in helping you control your behaviors, or they do things for you that your symptoms keep you from doing for yourself. Mistake #10

23. What should they do instead? Stay totally out of it. Everyone has to learn to recover on their own. No one can do it for them. If you only depended on others to control your symptoms, how could you help yourself when they weren’t around? The goal is to be responsible for your own recovery and to manage without anyone else’s help.

24. When they get annoyed at your symptoms or are unhappy with your progress, they threaten to punish you (e.g. - take away things you enjoy, ground you,  etc.) Mistake #11

25. What should they do instead? Skip the punishment. Punishing people doesn’t improve motivation. It only makes people better at avoiding punishment, and also creates anger and resentment toward the punisher. It is better to reward success than to punish failure.

26. Mistake #12 They tell people about your symptoms without your permission.

27. What should they do instead? Keep quiet. It just isn’t nice to embarrass people. Symptoms are your own business, and no one needs to know about them. It’s not that they are shameful, but only you and your therapist really need to know about them.

28. Mistake #13 They offer you massive rewards in return for making unrealistic progress.

29. What should they do instead? Avoid the giant rewards. As nice as they sound, they may only put pressure on you and make you more anxious. Smaller and more frequent rewards can build motivation. Really big ones way in the future may just seem unreachable and too hard to even try for.

30. Mistake #14 They think that you are going to be totally cured someday, instead of recovered. Amazing! You’re cured!

31. What should they do instead? Get real. OCD is most likely genetic and so we don’t use the word cure. It can only make you and your family feel disappointed when it turns out that this isn’t possible. Instead, aim for recovery, where you get your symptoms under control, and then live like everyone else. With a little maintenance, you can stay recovered and have a good life.

32. So What Are the Things Your Family Really Needs to Learn? - It’s not your fault that you have this problem - You really would like to stop if you could - No one but you can control your behavior - You need the chance to learn how to deal with the problem by yourself - Getting better takes time and doesn’t always go smoothly – nobody’s perfect - People with these problems have feelings, too and deserve respect

33. So What Are the Things Your Family Really Needs to Learn? (cont.) - You don’t need to always have your mistakes pointed out to you - Your problem is private and other people don’t need to know all about it - You, alone, have to be responsible for following your treatment – without constant reminders - You won’t be cured, but you can recover and live like everyone else

34. How can you teach them these things?

35. Teaching Your Parents What They Need To Know To Help You • Show them the handouts from this talk • Bring them in to talk about this with your therapist • Get them some good web articles on OCD written for parents • Ask them to get a good book on OCD and to educate themselves