Handling our own anxiety is important, and handling our anger and
frustration is also. We can say "I used to get angry at this, but that
takes a lot of energy, and I can also choose to sit back and observe. Boy,
she's really having a tough time with this. It's too bad she's so
anxious." Anger isn't as contagious as anxiety, but it needs to be managed
as well because anxiety is one of the normal responses to someone else's
anger. Your managing of your anger may be a real help to her managing of
her anxiety. She may be able to help you by saying, "please don't get
angry at me, I"m already anxious." You will have to hear that through the
ears of a support person and not through the ears of the victim of her
anxiety.
Sometimes families or individuals have a hard time dealing with the
changes that this kind of problem, and this kind of recovery, require.
What do you do if you or your family have that kind of difficulty? If you
recognize it at home, try to discuss it in a way that won't be blaming, but
rather educational. Most families don't have experience going through this
kind of change before they do it for real the first time, so learning about
it is a big part of coping with the change. If you don't really recognize
the problems as related to change, bring in the difficulties and we can
talk about them here. That is actually one of the functions of the
behavior therapy group; many of the group members have been through this
exercise with their families, and they are experts in recognizing the
symptoms. It may also be that discussing this problem in a family therapy
format would be appropriate, especially if the family is open to that kind
of intervention. Some families will respond well to that forum, and other
families won't. If open discussions with the family, which are the best
place to start dealing with a family problem, are not an option for you,
and you either can't wait for the group to get started or don't feel
comfortable talking about your family in group, then one other forum would
be individual therapy. Your therapist may be able to help you better
understand what is going on with you and your family, and to plan some
strategies to deal with the changes you're experiencing.
Now all of this leads us to one final question about families: what's
normal in a family? I'm thinking about a cartoon I saw recently on this
question. Has everyone heard about ACA, Adult Children of Alcoholics?
Well, there are now "Adult Children of Everything" groups out there,
suggesting that we all grew up in a family that was afflicted by something.
This cartoon depicted the annual convention of the Adult Children of
Normal Families, and in this whole big auditorium, only two individuals
were present. Well, life isn't really that bad. But it would be helpful
to define what is normal. Because most of us only grow up with one family
(however that's defined), we may grow up feeling, "This is what's normal
for families," or sometimes, "Every family is as screwed up as mine."
What's normal is that every family has their stuff, their problems, their
baggage. It's normal for families to experience conflict. It's normal for
families to resist change, as well as to be regularly exposed to change as
the family goes through its life cycle stages. It's normal for families to
experience chaos from time to time, even frequently, and it's normal to
have difficulty dealing with this kind of rapid change (that's really what
chaos is: unpredictable, rapid change). What may not be normal is the way
that some people and some families learn to deal with these problems. If
you have a question about what's normal, always discuss it with someone.
There's a homework assignment I'd like to recommend to those of you with
OCD to do for before you go on. We call this the Post-OCD Vision Work
Sheet (see Figure 11). Simply take this form and list several, say up to
20, short, positive sentences about you or your life after OCD is no longer
an issue for you. By positive I mean "I do..." type sentences rather than
"I don't..." or "I'm not..." type. But there's one more thing. Write each
sentence on one line only, and write them in the present tense, as if they
were already true. These can be sentences about you, your life, your
family, whatever you like. Some examples might be "I enjoy my free time,"
"I am satisfied with my job performance," or "I get along reasonably well
with my in-laws." Some of these are going to be more important than
others, and some will be more difficult than others. Don't worry too much
about that right now. The importance of this assignment is to start
thinking about life after OCD, so that when symptoms start to disappear,
you will be ready to fill up that time or use that energy for something
else. We want to help you avoid experiencing it as a loss or as a sudden
hole where the OCD used to be. Bring your completed work sheets with you
in two weeks; you won't have to hand them in, but we'll talk about them
then.