Can a toddler (OK, my toddler) have OCD?
In a fit of procrastination this morning I found myself answering a questionnaire that went something like this:
“Does your two-year-old spend hours lining up her toys in straight, even rows?”
Yes. Members of her menagerie of stuffed-animal “babies” are impeccably dressed, swaddled and arranged in adjacent “cots” – all in a continuous bedtime loop.
“Is she rigid about her bedtime routine?”
Naturally. An evening without our schedule of bizarrely comforting rituals would be Toddler-geddon.
“Does she spend time stacking and restacking books?”
Of course not! But now that I think about it, all her pens have their tops on, and her puzzles are remarkably intact.
“If so, your toddler may have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).”
Yikes.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t a clue where this was going. But OCD? In a toddler? Born to a mother who showers when convenient and changes her sheets quarterly? Get out of my stinking house.
It’s amazing, the places Google will take you. I’d first got on the subject of toddler freakdom searching health websites for an explanation to my daughter’s worsening skin. It had fallen prey to a few hungry mosquitoes, the bites subsequently picked off and scabbed over, then picked off anew. A few days under plasters and they healed – but left a red mark still rather pronounced five months later. Then there were spots – picked off again, still visible today. Lately there have been weird patches of dry skin. And, for good measure, a spate of hangnails. The little girl’s marine-like instinct for orderliness hadn’t struck me as unbefitting a prissy two-and-a-half-year-old.
With the terrible twos upon us, and the screaming, clingy-ness and tears that come with it, I worried that she might be experiencing some serious stress that was manifesting itself in the most noticeable way. But now I’ve cleared my schedule to research child psychologists and reassess my family tree. (Grandmother: depression; mother: anxiety disorder; sister, OCD; while my husband is guilty of bringing chronic shortness to the gene pool, I seem to be the weak link for neuroses.)
Am I being sucked into search-engine scare-mongering? Or should I scoot the little one over to the psych ward and have her itch scratched for good?
Ellen Himelfarb is a freelance writer and mother of two. You can reach her at ellen.h@mac.com
Topic: Blog, Ellen's posts |
Print This Post
|
Comments
Help others find this article at:
