A Family’s Journey with Mental Health

For Dr. Kurt Leim­bach, Inter­nal Med­i­cine physi­cian at Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG), the top­ic of men­tal health is an ongo­ing con­ver­sa­tion among his fam­i­ly. His per­son­al expe­ri­ence has led him to share his sto­ry in hopes of help­ing oth­er fam­i­lies just like his.

Sev­er­al mem­bers of the Leim­bach fam­i­ly have been impact­ed by obses­sive com­pul­sive dis­or­der, or OCD. OCD fea­tures a pat­tern of unwant­ed thoughts and fears (obses­sions) that lead one to do repet­i­tive behav­iors (com­pul­sions). These obses­sions and com­pul­sions can inter­fere with dai­ly activities.

“On my mom’s side of the fam­i­ly, she’s one of eight kids, they all had OCD. I’m one of five kids, and I think prob­a­bly all five of us have OCD to some extent,” Dr. Leim­bach shared.

Dr. Leim­bach and his wife, Jan, have three grown daugh­ters — Kathryn, Diane, and Susan. They began to notice signs of the dis­or­der in their old­est daugh­ter, Kathryn at 10 years old. The age of 10, Dr. Leim­bach shared, is the aver­age age for the onset of OCD.

“When she was in fourth grade, my wife and I noticed some­thing was going on, but she didn’t tell us. When she was in fifth grade, we saw, again, that some­thing wasn’t quite right. We asked her and talked to her about what was going on. She would say, ​‘I’m okay,’ because she doesn’t know that what she’s feel­ing isn’t nor­mal because no one’s talked to her about what’s nor­mal,” he said.

The fam­i­ly kept the con­ver­sa­tion going and sup­port­ed their daugh­ter. When sixth grade came, her symp­toms were more pro­nounced, and she opened up about some of her thoughts and behaviors.

“It was clear that she was just real­ly strug­gling. When we final­ly asked her, ​‘What’s been going on for these last cou­ple years?’ She expressed she was expe­ri­enc­ing exces­sive wor­ry, specif­i­cal­ly regard­ing the health and safe­ty of our fam­i­ly, and an exces­sive count­ing,” he shared.

Oth­er symp­toms man­i­fest­ed as fre­quent hand­wash­ing and wor­ry­ing. Some of those wor­ries were illog­i­cal, which Dr. Leim­bach said is com­mon­ly asso­ci­at­ed with OCD.

“She also thought that if she looked at some­body she might make them sick. She didn’t seem wor­ried about get­ting sick all the time her­self, but more about oth­ers get­ting sick,” Dr. Leim­bach said.

Through­out all of this, Kathryn con­tin­ued to do well aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, but her men­tal strug­gles became over­whelm­ing. The Leim­bachs sought the help of a coun­selor, and she start­ed on med­ica­tion to help her deal with her ongo­ing symptoms.

“We got her into coun­sel­ing and she told us ​‘that helped some,’ but to quote her, she said, ​‘I need­ed the med­i­cine to qui­et my brain before I could lis­ten to coun­sel­ing,’” he said.

“Her mind was so revved up with her anx­i­eties and her fears. Once she start­ed med­ica­tion, she said it was just like night and day. She said she could then lis­ten to what the coun­selors were say­ing. I thought that was so insight­ful on her part.”

Dr. Leim­bach said every indi­vid­ual and every expe­ri­ence is unique, so find­ing the right sup­port is impor­tant. Beyond coun­sel­ing and med­ica­tion, Jan imple­ment­ed anoth­er help­ful tool at home — a ​“wor­ry journal.”

“Jan had this idea that they would write down every­thing she’s wor­ried about in this jour­nal. Then we would both show her that even though she was wor­ried about these things, noth­ing bad hap­pened,” he said.

The Leim­bachs began watch­ing for signs in their younger two daugh­ters. Their sec­ond daugh­ter, Diane, didn’t show signs of OCD, but they did notice signs in their third daugh­ter, Susan, who is eight years younger than Kathryn.

“We start­ed watch­ing her like a hawk, and sure enough, we’re on a vaca­tion out to the Pacif­ic North­west. She’s like five years old at this point. We’re at a Denny’s hav­ing din­ner and get­ting ready to come home,” he shared. ​“We’ve been out there for two weeks, and all of a sud­den she just gets real­ly anx­ious. And she’s say­ing, ​‘There’s some­thing in my throat.’ We didn’t know what it was unless it was sinus drainage or acid reflux, but it just sent her over the edge. We were then like, ​‘Okay, this is the first symptom.’”

Susan also start­ed on med­ica­tion and began coun­sel­ing. Just like her old­er sis­ter, the change she felt was like night and day. Her most over­whelm­ing wor­ry was a fear of eat­ing in public.

“She was afraid about get­ting sick, but she didn’t actu­al­ly care about get­ting sick. She didn’t want to cause a scene if she got sick and she didn’t want to dis­rupt oth­er people’s enjoy­ment of a meal if she got sick,” Dr. Leim­bach shared.

The Leim­bach fam­i­ly has been open about their sto­ry and expe­ri­ences with OCD. Dr. Leim­bach empha­sized that lis­ten­ing to kids is incred­i­bly impor­tant in order to ensure par­ents can catch ear­ly signs of poten­tial struggles.

“Kids do have self-aware­ness. Just because they have anx­i­ety, OCD, depres­sion, or what­ev­er, it doesn’t mean they don’t have self-aware­ness of what is real and what is not. It’s just that the anx­i­ety might intrude upon what is real, and so, again, don’t ignore when they com­plain of some­thing that’s plau­si­ble,” he said. ​“We tell par­ents, please don’t ignore these kids because they are mis­er­able and they don’t know why they’re miserable.”

For oth­er fam­i­lies who may see the Leim­bach family’s expe­ri­ences in their chil­dren, Dr. Leim­bach wants them to know they’re not alone.

“I would say if you talk to peo­ple, even just friends, you’re going to find out that your friends know at least one per­son who can iden­ti­fy with this. It is so preva­lent,” he said. ​“One in 200 kids have OCD, full-blown, OCD, anx­i­ety, and depres­sion. So, with one in 200, odds are, some­body at school has sim­i­lar experiences.”

Today, Kathryn, Diane, and Susan are all suc­cess­ful adults who went on to col­lege, earned post-grad­u­ate degrees, and now have suc­cess­ful careers and fam­i­lies of their own.

If you or some­one you know have con­cerns regard­ing your men­tal health, a good place to turn for help is to your pri­ma­ry care provider, who can help point you to the right resources. For more infor­ma­tion on Pri­ma­ry Care and Behav­ioral Health ser­vices at QMG, vis­it quin​cymed​group​.com.