In another story on this site you can read about Jim McAndrew’s success story as a patient dealing with his OCD.  But what was the treatment and recovery period like from his wife, Andrea’s, perspective?

I asked her, “if  you were giving a family advice about someone that was just newly diagnosed with OCD, what advice would you give the family?”

Her reply was:

That’s tough but I think you have to hang in there, you have to be very patient, ah, I think in the beginning when we had this OCD, one has to kind of go slow,  Meaning this can be very, very tough on them.

Maybe you say okay, out of the whole day you can’t just say I’m not going to give you  any reassurance and any  thing, but slowly   build it up, you know?  Maybe give a few reassurances, and say ‘okay, I am only going to give you one time or a two times in a day or something’, or ten times but then not anymore, and then  make it nine, eight, whatever.

But just going cold turkey you are not going to support your reassurances right away, that is too much for the patient to handle. Most, important, she told me was to “give it enough time.  OCD does get cured and you get your spouse back, like he was before or better.

And just be really patient.  This is just like any other disease.Stay by their side, and listen to the doctors. And this does end.

But, Mrs. Andrews reminded me, the process was not easy, and required a great deal of communication:

For example there would be times when he would not even let me go out of the house, he would say “no just stay here, just stay here” and keep repeating and I would say ‘okay, if something is bothering you, you don’t do this’, but he would not listen.

He would just keep repeating the same things. So, I did not even know how to handle him. When I  ask whether she had searched the internet or read books about OCD to see how others had handled it she replied that she had, but “…there were no cases like him.

There were cases like  washing hands or checking things but nothing where he was scared of hurting somebody.  That kind of information is still not out there.

Things started getting worse, and it was very difficult to deal, to see your husband, completely broken down.  That he could not handle himself, scared of everything.  And we did not know how to handle it.

His doctor said no reassurance or anything. But he would ask , and say if  I would not give him reassurance he would call somebody else for reassurance. If that person would not agree, the third, the fourth, the fifth…he would not stop calling people until he got reassurance.

He was just not ready to deal with it. He was so sick. But now, things are much better.

Mrs McAndrew told me that  she and her husband can now go away or vacations, or for weekends, anywhere they want, even to places her husband used to avoid.  When I asked her if this were a relief, she answered:

Oh yes, very much so. We can plan last minute things you know.  He doesn’t get agitated over why are we doing this last minute thing.  Earlier he needed everything, you know he had to process it before he would agree to anything.  Things are a lot, lot different now.  His confidence is back.