My 16-year-old daughter was diagnosed with a panic attack and obsessive-compulsive disorder. She is due to sit her GCSE exams, and we are worried. What should we expect?
As always, accurate information is your best shield in mental health, and you and your family should spare no effort to get as much information as you can.
That said, a natural starting point is with the doctor who made the diagnosis, and he/she should be the one to point you in the right direction.
One might point out to you that a panic attack is not the same thing as an attack of panic, in the same way, that an injury to the head is not the same thing as a head injury.
The doctor will explain to you that sometimes, the same words mean different things when used in a medical context.
Similar care must be taken to avoid confusion when using the words depression and anxiety, which have both lay and technical usage.
A brief episode of intense anxiety may come with physical sensations of extreme fear. A girl we saw recently complained of a racing heartbeat with the sensation that the heart was about to stop, shortness of breath leading to the fear of suffocation, dizziness with the fear of collapsing, trembling and tightness of muscles giving the patient and the observer the impression that death is imminent.
In her case, several such attacks had occurred, and none had any obvious precipitant, all seeming to come from the blue. If you recognise the same in your daughter, then you are on the right track.
Regarding Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), a similar explanation as the one for panic attacks needs to be made.
Perfectionist tendencies can be a good thing in the sense that they help us ensure high standards of work. An accountant who has this tendency will make fewer mistakes than one without.
A cleaner will similarly present higher stands of work as will the student who will make high demands regarding his studies and presentation of his work.
This, however, is not the problem diagnosed by the doctor concerning your daughter. Chances are that your daughter has similar but more severe and clinically significant symptoms.
A girl we saw recently was obsessed with orderliness to the point of paralysis and inability to get to school on time.
On the few times she got to school, she would be incapacitated by what to other people are normal things.
A desk not in perfect alignment with the others, or a picture frame on the wall not in perfect alignment with the window would have to be attended to before attention could shift to classwork.
Any error in her written work demanded that she starts all over again because any untidiness gave her anxiety and therefore, she kept repeating all that she did in class leading to severe delays in her work.
Leaving home was also a problem. She repeatedly made and remade her bed to ensure that the lines and flowers on her bedsheets were in perfect alignment.
Any slight deviation meant starting all over again. Her school bag was the most problematic thing in her school life.
The books had to be arranged by both size and subjects for the day. When this proved difficult on any school day, she would spend hours planning a formula to resolve this crisis.
Walking to school was another problem. Not only did she have to read all the words on every matatu she saw, but she also had to avoid stepping on the edges of the paved walkways, insisting on only stepping in the middle.
By the time she got to school, she was a bundle of nerves, replaying in her mind any errors she might have made thus far.
Depending on the severity of the condition and the response to the treatment given, the girl should be able to sit and pass the examination.
This condition though dramatic in its presentation has a good long- and short-term prognosis.
