Hi Anita.. I’ve tried my best to go into a bit more detail.. My son has struggled to share with me the thoughts underlying his difficulties, and when I have asked him why he is feeling uncomfortable, he says that I wouldn’t understand, that he has so many thoughts in his head that he can’t get rid of them, and that he is doing these things to make them go away, but he won’t share anything further with me. There are other times when I have asked him why he is feeling uncomfortable or why he feels the need to do certain things, another example is when he goes outside he will wear his big thick winter coat, on this particular occasion during the hot summer last year, when asked why he feels the need to wear it and he says, “I’m protected”, but will not be able to explain further what this means. He constantly seeks reassurance when he feels that people around him are coughing or sneezing, or if people brush past him and touch him in public, or if his brother has touched him. I try at these times to query why he feels this matters so much and that lots of people have potentially brushed past/touched me without knowing and that I am ok, but I am again met with “you just don’t understand. When I ask him to help me to understand how it feels for him, he says to me “you’re just not listening to me, why does no one listen!. I don’t want to explain, I just need to do it!”. The one occasion where he has said that he doesn’t want to complete the ritual but feels he has to was last week – He said “I’ve got to have a shower now, I don’t want to have a shower, but i’ve got to have one”. I asked why he felt he needed to have a shower if he didn’t really want to have one and he said, “because I’ve got to. Because I think K (his brother) touched me and I asked you if he touched me and you don’t know!, so I’ve got to have a shower! You just don’t understand and don’t you listen!”. At this point he became quite angry and subsequently asked me to leave his room, which is what will happen on most occasions if I try to talk about things. I appreciate I am probably going about things completely the wrong way, but having not experienced OCD myself and obviously not knowing what is going through his mind, I simply do the best I can even though it may not be the right way to address it.