Supporting a Loved One With OCD

Having a loved one with OCD can be incredibly challenging. You are not alone if you feel frustrated, hopeless, or unsure of how to support them in navigating their symptoms. If you want to learn more about how you can support your loved one throughout the process, I have a few tips for you below.

Get Educated on OCD

Learning more about OCD alongside your loved one can truly help to move the needle in providing hope and empowerment for both of you. OCD is a complex and highly misunderstood disorder, so it’s important to find reliable sources to educate yourself about OCD, such as https://iocdf.org/. Better understanding OCD will shed light on what fuels their symptoms, why they turn to their seemingly strange compulsions for relief, and your role in helping them to manage OCD effectively.

Offer a Compassionate and Non-judgmental Presence

It is important to respond to your loved one with compassion and non-judgement throughout the process, as people with OCD often experience a great deal of shame about their symptoms. Opening up about the nature of obsessions can feel extremely vulnerable for someone with OCD, particularly if they experience taboo or moral obsessions that leave them questioning their character or whether they are really a “bad person.” Others with OCD may feel ashamed about their outward compulsions and how it impacts their level of functioning and the people in their lives. Remaining compassionate and non-judgemental can be healing for your loved one, as it lets them know that you understand that they are not their OCD, and that they are not alone throughout the process of tackling it.

Self-Care and Boundaries

If you are a primary support person for your loved one throughout their treatment process, make sure you also prioritize self-care and determine what boundaries you need to take care of yourself during this season. It is normal for you to feel a wide array of emotions about how your loved one’s OCD impacts not only their life, but yours as well. Self-care and boundaries will look different for each individual, especially depending on your relationship to them, but either way, mapping out what you need to stay healthy and present for both of you is just as important as their treatment. This might look like finding a therapist for yourself, getting a babysitter a couple nights a week, recruiting a trusted (and agreed upon) person to step in for additional support, or scheduling regular alone time for yourself.

It may also be helpful to encourage your loved one to practice self-care activities that are supportive for them. This is especially important if your child is suffering from OCD and requires extra parental accountability, structure, and mentorship. If your loved one is an adult, it is not your responsibility to manage every aspect of their care, and it’s important that they are committed to the treatment process themselves. However, you can still offer supportive reminders when they are particularly stuck, or find ways to practice self-care rituals together.

This might look like going on walks after dinner, making breakfast together every Saturday morning, or meditating together before work, all of which can be a positive way to reconnect to one another in a different way during this challenging season.

Consider Family Therapy

While receiving treatment is key, the real work of overcoming OCD happens in each person’s real lives when they leave the therapy room. While individual sessions may be necessary or feel more appropriate for some of the treatment process, family sessions can be a transformative and underrated part of treatment, particularly if your loved one is your child or your spouse. Joining family therapy gives you the opportunity to communicate with your loved one about their OCD with support from a knowledgeable therapist, to begin identifying and recognizing compulsions, and to understand your role in supporting treatment goals appropriately at home. Family therapy also provides a safe space to collaboratively and consensually plan with your loved one how to gradually integrate exposures into their daily lives when they are tempted to engage in a compulsion. For example, you might even come up with an agreed upon script, such as “I agreed that I won’t help you with that because it will fuel your OCD,” when they ask you for reassurance about an intrusive thought.

Watch out for Reassurance

Resist the urge to offer reassurance to your loved one or to participate in their compulsions. It’s common that loved ones of OCD sufferers unknowingly reinforce the OCD cycle by offering repeated reassurance, accommodating for avoidance of triggers, or participating in their compulsions in some way, although it is with the best of intentions. Don’t beat yourself up if you have been doing this, as it’s understandable to want to provide relief for your loved one when they are anxious or in distress. However, the more you can identify how and when your loved one engages in compulsions and how you have unknowingly been participating in them, the better you will be able to respond in a way that supports their resilience to overcome the strong pull to engage in the cycle. For example, if your child regularly asks to stay home from all social events due to their harm obsessions and fear that they will hurt someone, notice your inclination to let them stay home. Or, if your spouse repeatedly asks you to turn the car around to check that the stove is off whenever you leave the house, notice your inclination to either concede or to offer multiple verbal reassurances that you turned the stove off.

Adjust your expectations

It’s important to be patient with the process and to know that it can take time to see progress. It may help for you both to remember that experiencing anxiety and distress is a part of exposure therapy, as you are literally practicing putting down your normal defenses that provide (temporary) relief from the anxiety that obsessions cause. Remembering that this process will lead to relief in the long run may help to keep you both going when the process is tough.

However, treatment can always be modified if their anxiety response is too high. Communication and self-advocacy are always welcome throughout the treatment process.

Closing Thoughts

You play a meaningful role in supporting your loved one through their process of recovery of OCD. However, if your loved one has not yet started treatment, it’s important that they receive professional help from a therapist who understands OCD. If you’re looking for a therapist in Seattle to help you navigate and manage OCD, reach out to schedule a consultation with a member of our team at Constellation Therapy. We would be honored to be a part of your journey, whether in individual or family therapy.