OCD and Family... How to understand and deal with a close family member with OCD?

Hello everyone... My name is ClausAlf and I've been a listener in 7 Cups for a while. I've never really posted anything before... but here it goes

I wanted to share a little bit of my experience with my brother, who has OCD. But also read and learn about your experience as a family member to someone with OCD. I've talked to several people who have OCD... but just realized that I've never really talked with the family... the people who see someone they love go through something this harsh and try to learn the best way to support them and be there for them.

About a year ago by brother told my mom that he felt dirty... that he felt contaminated. When my mom shared that with me I immediatly thought about OCD and about what I had learnt here, in 7 Cups, about it. I noticed my brother had started taking very long, absurdly long showers that could take up to 3 hours (on a bad day). I've noticed he would touch certain things around the house before his shower and then avoid touching those same things after the shower... because he was now "decontaminated". I saw him cry and hit himself because he couldn't really understand why he felt this way and why this was happening to him. And I saw my parents and my younger brother, besides myself, trying to help him... trying to be there for him and trying to also understand what was going on... why this started in the first place. We were all confused, afraid and lost because we had never dealt with something like this.

Eventually my mother booked a consult with a therapist and took my brother... he was given medication and was followed by the therapist almost weekly. But we were still lost... We didn't know what our role was as a family... and what we could do to help him. Should we cater to his every need? Should we make him face these obstacles? Or should we move the obstacles out of his way so he didn't feel contaminated again?

I guess at first we all catered to his need... and tried to make him feel safe and loved. But what if that was contributing to his condition? What if we were making him feel too comfortable and feel like it was perfectly okay to not be able to open the door because the knob was contaminated? "He'll be in college soon and then he won't have us around to help him as much... how will he be able to live his life?"

So then we started to "negotiate" with him... like "okay... you can't touch the knob on the door... but can you touch the keys on the knob? If you can touch the keys you can turn them around and open the door..." and stuff like that... trying to find a new way for him to do the things he "had" to do.

Eventually we were advised by the therapist to give him space to deal with this... Just give him space. Which was the hardest thing we had to do. But that... and the medication... seem to have worked. Now it's almost easy to forget he has OCD. He cut his showers to 20 minutes (yay!!) and he does things he had stopped doing because of his condition. But of course he still has his limits and I believe he always will. And that is okay. Because all my family and I ever wanted is for him to be happy and be able to live his life at the fullest, which I believe he is doing.

I hope to hear some of your stories and learn more about this matter. Please feel free to comment and share what's on your mind

And also... thank you for "hearing" me.

Love, ClausAlf

PS... English is not my native language so I apologize in advance for any mistake