Dear Oceandrive24:

You wrote that your son struggles to share with you “the thoughts underlying his difficulties”, but from what you shared, he did a good job sharing with you his thoughts and underlying difficulties. He told you that “he won’t share anything further”  because there is nothing further that he is able to share.  Let’s look at what he told you:

1. “he says 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”- the so many thoughts in his head that he can’t get rid of are his Obsession (the O in his OCD),  the things he is doing to make the obsessions go away are his Compulsions (the C in his OCD).

Wikipedia in its entry on OCD read: “Obsessions are thoughts that recur and persist despite efforts to ignore or confront them. People with OCD frequently perform tasks, or compulsions to seek relief from obsession-related anxiety”.

Wikipedia explains that obsessions are not always concrete/ clear thoughts or images. Sometimes the obsessions are vague: “A relatively vague obsession could involve a general sense of disarray or tension”- your son cannot clearly describe to you obsessions that are vague, and not clear to him.

2. When you asked him why he feels the need to wear his big thick winter coat in a hot summer day, he told you: “‘I’m protected’, but will not be able to explain further what this means”- based on what you shared elsewhere, he means that he feels that he is in danger when he is around other people: he is afraid that they will contaminate him. He wears his thick winter coat not because he is cold and wants to get warm on a summer day, but because the thickness of the coat is like an armor, insulating him and protecting him from other people contaminating him.

3. When you asked him “why he feels this matters so much” that people around him cough or sneeze, or that they brush against him, so much that it causes him to “constantly seeks reassurance” that  he wasn’t touched by others, and he says to you: “you don’t understand”- he means that his fear of being touched and contaminated is so strong and overwhelming, and that if you understood how strong his fear, then you wouldn’t be surprised that it does indeed matter to him so much.

4. “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!”- he means that he often feels a sudden, intense fear that overwhelms him and takes over his behavior. When he feels this overwhelming fear he needs to/ has to do what it takes to get rid of that fear, even if it is for a short time.

Wikipedia, in its entry on OCD, under Compulsions, reads: “people with OCD perform compulsive rituals because they inexplicably feel they have to”- your son told you “I don’t want to explain” because he can’t explain, the need/ urge to do the  compulsion is.. inexplicable.

5. 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”. You asked: “why he felt he needed to have a shower if he didn’t really want to have one”, and he answered: “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!”. He then asked you to leave his room-

– what you indeed didn’t understand is that a person suffering from OCD doesn’t feel like doing the compulsion, doesn’t really want to do it- he does it because he has to, he is compelled to do it. He often knows that the compulsion is not rational, that it is not a solution, but he..  has to do  it because there is an immediate (and temporary) relief when completing the compulsion.

The OCD sufferer experiences fear so intense, that he/ she is too desperate to get that relief at the end of the compulsion, even though he knows the relief will not last. He needs the relief now!

Wikipedia continues regarding compulsions/ compulsive actions: ” individuals with OCD are aware that their behaviors are not rational, but feel compelled to follow through with them to fend off feelings of panic or dread“… they are aware that the relief is only temporary, that the intrusive thoughts will soon return”.

anita