General Anxiety Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in Children

I have a beautiful, smart, little boy named Jules. He is the light of our entire family's life. Everyday is a struggle for him; he suffers from GAD, General Anxiety Disorder. He also suffers from OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Jules is four years' old, looks like any other boy on the surface, but underneath he is raw nerves and emotions.

Jules first started showing signs of OCD and GAD when he was between 18 months and 2 years old. Little things like; making sure that shoes placed next to each other were in perfect order, making patterns with his blocks, and turning items so they were perfectly aligned. I often thought that he might be autistic. Jules would also do the the strangest thing I have ever seen a baby do, he would pick the lint off his blanket, one by one, and eat it! He would do this anytime he saw lint on any item, but mostly he would do this over and over while he was falling asleep. That's when I got scared. I was afraid he would create a hair and lint ball in his stomach that would block his bowels, and my fear was slightly realized when I pulled a blanket string from his bottom during a regular diaper change! He does have semi-serious bowel problems about every 6 months or so, but he hasn't eaten any lint for at least a year or more now. Other signs that showed themselves around 2 years old were complete and total breakdowns, over the most unlikely things! Jules would throw horrible screaming fits if he couldn't put his own clothes on by himself, and if you let him he would scream for an hour because he was only 2 and had a hard time getting them on. These and many other outbursts were so over the top, even for a child in his "terrible twos", that I felt something else was causing the problem. When his father and I separated, his father was diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety. That's when I decided to take Jules to be evaluated by a counselor and psychologist.