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does she have anxiety or OCD?

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does she have anxiety or OCD?

Postby emmalee1004 » Tue Aug 30, 2011 1:14 pm

Hi, I'm concerned about a family member's mental health because I think she has some form of OCD but I'm not really sure. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

She has been on Lexapro for 6 years and has suffered depression for a bit longer than that. Lately I've been noticing other behaviors that she seems to become distracted by, turning almost obessive for a while:

- hair pulling (not just from head but also knucles, arms, etc. She pulls hair so much she has a small bald spot on her head and wears a cap to cover it up.)
- excessive tv watching..upwards of 12 hours a day on the weekends
- excessive video game or computer game playing. She pays for the downloadable games at 20 dollars each and will download 3 or 4 on the same day.
- obsessive about time management. She has an excel file detailing her daily chedule down to the minute and also lists "approved" activities for herself that fit within any free time thhat she may have in her schedule, from hanging up an item of clothing to doing a crossword puzzle.
- selling on ebay and garage sales. She has started to develop a scavenger like behavior towards finding things to sell online. She isn't lacking in money but I think its more psychological. My things have slowly been disappearing and sometimes she will take brand new items that are lying around to sell on ebay without asking. She has started to drive 40 minutes to garage sales to findcheap items and will bring them home to resell..mostly 1 or 2 dollar items. This sounds somewhat normal but her schedule is very busy and it is only making more "work" for her to do that I feel she doesn't know how to stop. I'm afraid these are signs of hoarding behavior.
- obsessive list making. Will make lists for daily outfits and daily meals on Excel files
- she is resistant to accepting help or counseling

There's more but I've listed most of it. Does this sound like OCD or something else? How can I help?
Thanks for your help.
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Re: does she have anxiety or OCD?

Postby 4horsegal » Wed Aug 31, 2011 7:34 pm

It could be a lot of things, but it does sound like she has some OCD tendencies. Is it possible she needs a change in medication?

Therapy would also be helpful if you could convince her to go. Maybe plan on asking her to come to therapy with you? As a way of helping you? That way you could at least get her in the door to the therapist's office. Going to therapy causes a lot of anxiety for some people. One of the reasons it took me so long to go to therapy was I was unreasonably terrified of the therapist and just thinking about it made me anxious.
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