so dan finally got to see a psychiatrist , and she was very interested in dan... and has connections with our local psychologist -- so our plan is to see the PHD here in town for a while and she will over see the medical aspect of it.. she is taking of the scripts of dans depression meds and the valium.... she is in absolute favor of doing the valium bit when dans mood goes to high.. provided its not a daily thing... it is used maybe 2x a week, and she said even 4 x per week is just fine... but dan has been working through things on his own the moods are more frequent but not as long in duration .. so a graph would be middle with spikes up and down constant.....NOW but before the graph would be low for days and then dip lower for days , come back to baseline and the pattern would repeat about monthly... so perhaps there is progress.... and i must thank Jamie -- her insight on depression and OCD has proved very valuable.. i spoke with the MD and we talked in length about the symtoms and she agrees dan is exhibiting obvious OCD traits... good news, the medication regime is the same..... one change - he is to take the med during the day AM instead of PM... no problem .... dan gave them a good example of his behavior-- the door was squeaky ( colleen will love this) and dan can not stand it -- so he dug in their garbage found a pop can with a bit of coke in it and poured the coke out onto the 2 hinges he could reach... then he proceeded to open and close that door a million times to get the squeak out... which seems like problem solving and it is and started out with it, but it became compulsive the opening and closing of the door... a nurse even came to see if all was ok... - so they got to see how a small problem solving dilema for dan ( which is awesome) turns into a very compulsive behavior... same with cleaning the bathrooms, washing a floor ( in his chair with a swifter) , playing checkers... so as i said -- Jamie suggested the what is now obvious to me... and my approach in dealing with it is different. i allow the ritual but tell him we will do this for 3 minutes and then we are done OK and it seems to help... but i and dan have had so many ups and downs that it is hard to say if the cure ( bad choice of words ) will work for long.. or not... everyday a new day -- a few good days come along with the many, many bad ones.... so again thank you jamie and stroke net ... nancyl