This blog will concentrate on how a family of a person with OCD can respond to their symptoms and help them with recovery. Sometimes, when people suffer from OCD for a long time and do not seek help, the OCD symptoms become part of their personality. The family might need psychoeducation to understand what OCD is and how to delineate the person from the OCD symptoms. It’s too easy to identify a person by their illness.
This does not happen in the case of physical illness. For example., we don’t refer to a person as breast cancerite, but we DO refer to people with schizophrenia as schizophrenics and with depression as depressives. This is part of the stigma that is attached to mental illness. This MUST change, and psychoeducation is critical. The family must be taught to defuse and stay within boundaries from the symptoms of the person with OCD and not get pulled into the rituals, including reassurance-seeking patterns. Please remember that giving in to the demands of getting involved in rituals or providing reassurance will prevent recovery.
Proper recovery is possible only if rituals are refrained from. Hence, a family’s support in helping the individual refrain from rituals is vital. Supporting the person with their daily homework without being nagging is crucial in assisting them to recover. If you get anxious if they have done their ERP, it might feel patronising to the patient, who might abandon the task of the OCD treatment and homework. Helping them explain to relatives or keep relatives from probing with insensitive questions will be important in their recovery. Validating their feelings and emotions about their thoughts and what they are going through might be the ONLY thing required to aid their recovery. Sometimes, as the symptoms of OCD don’t fit into the category of what one might believe to be an illness, judging by family might happen.
This often occurs due to ignorance. Please be open to understanding that there are so many things in the world that you may not know, and psychiatry and mental illnesses are one of them. Acceptance will go a long way in understanding that forcing will never help anyone. You may be suffering from burnout yourself. Ensure you care for your physical and mental health and reach out to support when needed. The best way to help someone with OCD is to gain as much information as possible about their condition from authentic sources such as psychiatrists and not trust Google. Don’t take any symptoms personally. Understand that the person with OCD is already suffering from guilt and low mood owing to their symptoms.
They do not need more guilt owing to judgements. In short, understanding and validating families can help people recover as quickly as they can. In the forthcoming blogs, we will share more information on the various treatments of OCD, including medications and other therapies. Please keep reading and watching the space and benefit from the OCD Treatment in Chennai from Chennai Minds.
In Chennai Minds we offer exclusive treatment for Insomnia and have developed packages which incorporates diet, psychoeducation, CBT, yoga and mindfulness. Chennai minds , the Best Psychiatrist in Chennai now also offering Telepsychiatry including Online Counselling for OCD and Depression as well.
