Has your teen or young adult ever told you that you just don’t understand their condition and that you’re expecting too much of them? We’ll talk about this and a whole lot more on this week’s podcast, Start But Don’t Stop With Empathy.

Here’s our question for today

Dear Neil,

My daughter (22) has been diagnosed with OCD and is really struggling to manage her life.  She lives at home with me and isn’t doing much. I’ve insisted that she needs to either work or go to school. She is taking an online class to meet this requirement but it’s not much. She is mostly in her room on social media and has a few old friends that she’ll meet out once in a while, but that’s about it. She sees her psychiatrist once a month and has a therapist that she sees every week, but I don’t know what to do beyond what I’m doing. Her younger brother also lives at home and is doing fine. He goes to community college full time, has a part time job and is active in sports.

I don’t know how to help my daughter. Anytime I make a suggestion about what she could do, she either yells and says I don’t understand, or she just ignores me. Is OCD a permanent condition? Am I being cruel to push her?

Signed,

Confused Parent of a Young Adult

Dear confused,

Let’s start with what OCD is: Very briefly people with OCD have unwanted and irrational thoughts and fears that drive repetitive behaviors such as chronic hand washing or saying prayers or organizing things. These obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors can make doing things very difficult. People suffering with OCD may also have depression and anxiety. There are many forms and degrees of severity this can take. Given that your daughter is only 22 years old, the idea that she can’t successfully address this condition is unacceptable. 

Let’s step back for a moment. Most people have at least a slight tendency towards one diagnosis or another; ADHD, depression, anxiety, phobias of various kinds, perfectionism, workaholism, or any addictive tendency. And we all have ways of managing these tendencies. 

If they become serious, and make life unmanageable, as in we can’t work or have satisfying relationships; we can’t function in our chosen life roles, then we treat these conditions so that we can have our lives back. All conditions are treatable, although in many if not most cases, the tendency may be there throughout one’s life. In other words, someone who tends to be anxious, may have to work at managing their anxiety throughout their life.  The idea is that we continue to learn about ourselves and become better at being ourselves and as we do, our negative default positions are replaced by more positive default positions.  

So confused parent, you have to assume that your daughter has the capacity within her to get better even if getting better is little by little, she can get better. So why isn’t she?  I have to believe that it’s because either she doesn’t believe she can, or for some other reason is not motivated to get better. Perhaps she’s identified with her OCD and feels comfortable with the idea that she has a diagnosed condition that justifies not moving forward in her life. She could be afraid of failure so she’d rather not try than fail. She clearly is relying on her mother’s support so the position her mom takes with respect to her OCD plays a major role in how she deals with it.

In any case, there are a multitude of solutions she can utilize to her benefit, but none of them will work if you make her do them. For instance, if you require her to get therapy, she can go, but not intend to get better and complain and get support from the frustrated therapist, but not get better. You can require her to go to school and work and she can minimally comply, and fail or not get much out of it. So how do you shift her position of stuck and seemingly not motivated to get better, to motivated and committed to getting better. 

Here’s an approach you can use that we can call, Empathy…And.

This approach starts with empathy and caring about her condition, and how difficult it is for her.

The And part is that dealing with the condition, owning that the problem and responsibility for solving the problem belong to her.

It might sound like this: 

Mom:  Isha, I’m concerned that you aren’t working to get a job as we’ve talked about.

Isha:  How can I get a job when I can barely get out of the house?

Mom: Yes sweetheart, I know. It’s terrible what you’ve been going through. Doing normal things for you is really hard. What are your thoughts about how you’re going to get through this and get yourself moving forward?

Isha:You just don’t understand how hard this is. You just want me to be normal like Micah, but I’m not.

Mom: That’s a terrible way to feel; that I don’t accept you for who you are. That’s the last thing I want you to think or feel. I love you and want you only to be you. And I want you to believe in you like I believe in you. I know you struggle with OCD. And I believe in you and I know that you can move forward successfully in your life. But I can’t do it for you or make you do it. That’s your job. I can support you, I can go to counseling with you, I can even be patient, but you need to have a commitment to managing your OCD and moving forward and a plan that you follow. Yes, OCD sucks, but you have to show it who’s boss.

The alternative to winning this battle is giving into it and deciding that you are a permanently disabled person and then apply for SS Disability and then find out what resources there are for housing for disabled people. You have to choose.

To me you are not a disabled person. You are my amazing daughter who is going to show herself and the world how wonderful she is and that no challenge is too much for her.

See what I mean with Empathy…And. It starts with empathy then goes to personal responsibility and empowerment.

 As I said, even when she gets help and utilizes help and is able to engage her life more productively, she will likely always have an OCD tendency. But once she learns the skills and how to use them, and has the right people to support her, she’ll do great.

So, providing empathy is great, but when things are stuck, it won’t change things. If you just challenge and put the onus on the other person to move, it will inevitably invite resistance. But with Empathy…And they work together to get the best results.

Thanks for tuning in today listener, and thanks to our Confused parent for sending in their question. And remember, you’ve got to take care of yourself, you need it, you deserve it, you’re worth it. Bye for now.

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