Okay, does anyone have this? Like when writing a text/even a message on here, or trying to say something, you’re worried your words might not be true or you spend forever crafting them perfectly and then delete the post 4 times, etc.
I have lost many hours of my life to trying to word things perfectly. Rewriting and redoing is a common perfectionism compulsion. I have found the book When Perfect Isn’t Could Enough helpful. ERP is also really good for this. For example, you could try not deleting version number 3 and posting it even if it isn’t perfect. Or purposefully including a typo in a post and posting it and then sitting with the anxiety until it goes down.
@Erin P Thank you that’s helpful!
@Erin P Ditto.
Your welcome.
OMG THIS IS ME! I have never met anyone else that has this too! It used to take me two hours to write a single email because I would rewrite the sentences and then make sure the words didn't magically change into something else. Now I'm okay with things not sounding perfect. My boss once said to me, "Not sending an email is way worse than sending an imperfect one. No one cares enough to pick out any flaws." Made me really think!
Yes
Does anyone have any tips on overcoming dermatillomania? I pick at my skin for hours every day... So bad that sometimes I can't leave the house in fear of people looking at my skin. It started when my ocd symptoms did (about 14 years old). I'm now 24 and just learning that I have ocd (intrusive thoughts, tapping, checking, counting, involuntary blinking, excessive cleaning of myself and house)... I wasn't diagnosed properly until now. I also have anxiety about writing emails, googling, social media, texting etc in fear that I've said something horrible or offensive or that my intrusive thoughts are going to somehow take over and type for me .... Lol so this took me about an hour to finish writing and to post.... Had to read it precisely 30 times just to be sure ;) thanks for reading ... Also does anyone else suffer from the writing messages and ocd thing ??? Or just me? ?
Does anyone struggle with perfectionist OCD such as having a tough time beginning essays/ tasks in general?
This obsession/theme is very confusing and I haven’t found anybody else who’s described it. Basically I am afraid of… speaking? Not like, a fear of public speaking, but like when I talk (or think about a future situation where I’ll need to talk) I get anxious. It’s become an automatic response. It’s stemming from me being afraid of saying inappropriate things while talking, or saying things that sound like inappropriate things while I’m speaking. I had really good therapy today, where I learned to not answer/engage with the OCD questions at all. However, I still am getting pretty anxious whenever I am speaking (basically tip-toeing around my words, constantly scanning and reviewing the words to make sure they didn’t sound like anything inappropriate). And if I’m not speaking, I’m thinking about how unusual this theme is and how stuck I feel, or I’m mentally reviewing past things I said to try and make sure they weren’t inappropriate. Does anybody have any sort of input on this? It’s puzzling me deeply, and it’s really inhibiting my ability to just speak. Instead of just talking, I am constantly thinking about talking, and trying to do it correctly. Thank you for reading. This disorder sucks.
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