Our daughter is 18 and autistic, and because of developmental delay and the late advent of "teenage angst", profound changes in our family, i.e. older sisters marrying, having babies, etc., her own overwhelming experiences of leaving the security of school and starting college miles from home, and so on, she is struggling to cope. OCD is gathering pace; almost on a daily basis we witness new rituals being added to a routine of stair-skipping, light-switch flicking, door opening and closing, etc. She seems constantly to be in a tormented state owing to "worries" which include her life repeating itself, her being in a parallel universe where everyone and everything other than herself is not real, that she has done deals with the devil, that God has abandoned her, and so on. Absolutely every innocent event and co-incidence in her daily life is cause for her to grow increaasingly anxious and distressed. Her worries have now reached such a pitch that we (reasonably intelligent parents, with as much patience as we can muster) find them impossible to understand, much less advise upon. She is currently on Sertraline, the anti-anxiety drug, and under Children's Mental Health services, although at 18 she is imminently to be discharged from this provision. We feel so helpless in the face of this worsening situation - her situation is a million times worse than it appeared to be a few years ago. Does anyone have any advice on whom to turn to for real direction? How do we calm her down - even at 4 in the morning?! Can we help her to halt the OCD behaviours? Would any particular therapy be effective? Please can someone help us get our daughter back?
