OCD + OCPD
Hello, how are you?
Everything I’ve ever done is planned out. It’s difficult to always plan everything out, but it’s necessary for me. Sports help bring me a sense of joy and relax me. I need to plan everything out so it’s perfect. Planning and organization provide a sense of comfort and control for me. Things always have to go as planned if it’s in my control. I basically live under the presumption that my whole life is perfect and it has always been perfect and I need to keep it that way.
So, I have a very big fear of imperfections. I want to stop controlling, but even right now, I feel that I’m on this perfect path in life where this is the perfect time to be typing this thread. If I get off this perfect path, which is based on things like morality and cleanliness, I tell my mind it didn’t happen and I put myself back on the perfect path. Additionally, when I do something imperfect, I make sure I make everything perfect again and try to speed my actions afterward to make up for the lost time being imperfect.
I know that I have to be real with myself and stop faking my life and face it head on, but I need like perfect motivation for that and there is no perfect thing that’s going to stop me from living this way. I have to change, but my perfectionistic self demands perfection.
It makes me excited when I think about changing myself, but I never get to it. Giving up this over control of my life is exciting but also radical in my brain and I have that feeling of uncertainty of change. Usually, I have this daily routine that I follow that keeps me very perfect, but I’ve stopped that because I can’t handle it, so I’ve been trying to find how to just be a normal human for two weeks and fix myself. My imperfections can range from just having the imperfect emotion at a moment to having a not perfectly normal thought based on my imaginary rules criteria. I want to live authentically, not fake emotions and be myself because I know then, I will be happy.
I told my parents about the fact I may have OCD/OCPD, but they told me that my perfectionism is a great thing that only CEOs have and stuff like that. They just told me to have positive thoughts, but they were worried for me. They didn’t think I needed professional help also. I’ve researched a lot into OCD and OCPD and I think I might have both, but I know I’m not qualified to say that. I think imperfection has been a fear for my whole life or as long as I can remember. I have obsessions about things like cleanliness and good morals. Whenever I try to change, after a period of time, something will trigger me and tell me/convince me to stay perfect. Ironically, I think my parents are perfectionists and I think my mom, like me, is stubborn and everything has to be this perfect way for us. Has anybody had similar experiences and how do you go about trying to treat your difficulties?
@inventiveFan9183
Hey, thanks for expressing all of that so clearly. 💜
That makes sense that your parents are sort of unreliable because... they're kind of biased due to being so similar. 😊 If they're praising your perfectionism, they're doing it from a position where they themselves are locked into that thing and not really able to question it or stand outside of it and acknowledge the value of other approaches. (Or maybe they're just being nice/reassuring, but they're move against the natural direction that you're trying to steer yourself towards.)
I don't personally identify strongly with the morality/uncleanliness
side of things (which feels really central to how you approach things). But I can identify with the control side of things: "I have to maintain
this routine to feel like I'm sustaining a sense of identity or doing
something valuable with my life". Having that fall apart is sort of
like losing your sense of self/value, which isn't fun.
It sounds like it's not just that you like having stable routines, but that there's this underlying feeling of "There's one perfect path, and if I stray from it then I'm doing something wrong/immoral/unclean".
I wonder whether it would be possible to find goodness in actions that fall outside of that typical value system. Like "I didn't do the thing that I planned to do, but maybe there was some hidden wisdom or unexpected/deeper reason why I needed to do that thing and it was ultimately necessary/helpful"? Sort of like the imperfect things have some kind of subtle purpose/drive behind them that is valid or worthy of appreciation.