- Date posted
- 13w
How does your perfectionism OCD manifest?
I haven't been able to read about experiences similar to mine when it comes to my perfectionism OCD so I was wondering if anyone had any "uncommon" experiences.
I haven't been able to read about experiences similar to mine when it comes to my perfectionism OCD so I was wondering if anyone had any "uncommon" experiences.
Mine has shown up as needing to do tasks perfectly (absolutely no errors, ever) at work, needing to type the perfect email or message, find the perfect restaurant to visit. Generally, to have no room for doubt or error, or it would be the end of the world according to my OCD. This sometimes goes hand in hand with my just right OCD - finding the just right cup to use, or song to listen to, the right words when comforting someone. Do you want to share some of your experiences?
I relate to this. Whenever I look up perfectionism OCD it just shows up symmetry. For me, I have major imposter syndrome. I feel the need to be an expert or else I'm invalid. I'm a psychology major and I'm taking a hard neuroscience class. I feel like if I don't understand everything in the textbook, I will never be a good school counselor. I'm also a singer songwriter who has written over 40 songs but I still feel like I'm not a musician.
it comes up in many ways for me—one of them is that my sentences have to be exactly true to the best of my knowledge, if that makes sense? like if i know my bus arrives at 8:17 but i round to 8:20 i’m “lying.” which sounds like such a minor example but basically everything about my life has to line up straight and i can’t allow any ambiguity or i’m overwhelmed with guilt and fear and have to follow up with whoever i was talking to to clarify which is mostly just annoying for them🥴
@Anonymous not sure if this counts as perfectionism but i think it’s the closest category?
Oh i do this too, i never thought abt it as perfectionism, but you could be right
Im struggling with this myself, im a student and i failed for two year now, because whenever i have an exam if i dont prepare to it PERFECTLY i give up and i beat myself up , most of the times when its time to pass the exam i dont even read the questionsof the exam, my brain be like you didn't prepare perfectly of course you wont get a good grade, and the problem is i was doing this without knowing that there is something called perfectionism, i definitely do it in other things in my life , but it destroyed my studies
oh I totally relate to this! I would drop out of my classes because I thought I would fail even if I had good grades. If I missed one assignment, I would just drop the whole class. I dropped out of a total of 14 classes in the past 7 years. I've worked myself up to a fulltime load and I haven't dropped any classes in a full year :) there is hope, it gets better.
@avf2000 @avf2000 glad to hear it gets better for you, yeah it probably takes time and awareness and effort to get over it
I primarily have academic perfectionism with avoidance compulsions; if I get anxious that my schoolwork isn't "perfect" enough I'll flake and stop doing the work altogether. In my mind, if I don't try at all then I can't "fail", which is my biggest fear. Writing is my biggest trigger though. I've rewritten the same sentence over and over for half an hour before deleting it because the thought of it existing in its imperfect form is too distressing. It kind of feels like my imperfect writing is contaminating the universe with its very existence. A visceral disgust. I've worked through a lot of this - I rarely use a thesaurus when sending texts anymore lol - but I'm still nowhere near able to write an essay or write for fun like I used to.
@sophea I also get bothered if Scrabble pieces aren't centered on their squares and little things like that. But it's not nearly as big a deal for me.
for the past few years i have been struggling with a certain theme of ocd as well as most of the other themes. but this one i have not figured out a good way to do my own form of erp or non-engaging responses. basically i will be daydreaming or thinking and have a very random thought. i wouldn’t call these thoughts intrusive thoughts because it’s not necessarily fear of the thoughts coming true, its just fear that my thoughts are too unique. my ocd will latch on to random or weird thoughts and may also add in that i was doing something weird while doing the thought. let’s say for example i thought of something random while i was rubbing my feet. then my ocd would be like “why are u having such a unique thought while doing something weird? nobody has ever thought about that specific thought while rubbing their feet before” (just an example). but basically it’s like my ocd bullies me for having thoughts that are too random and things i’ve never heard people talk about before if that makes sense. i am just trying to see if anyone relates even a little and how i can accept that everyone has unique thoughts.
I can't figure out what type of OCD I have. I must be the only one who has mental hoarding OCD with some Just right and death themes. I've never seen a description of someone's symptoms that match mine. Mine are a combination of Just right and mental hoarding of a memory. Like if I have dinner, I need to do a routine where I take in various elements on the environment - the food, my phone, the people around, pets, the coolness of the air con, and think of them in a specific syntax. I need to go through this thinking cycle without also thinking about certain people, deceased people, any themes of death, certain colours (red and black mostly) and then when I get to the end I deliberately have to think about something that is anti-death, like a particularly person who is younger, a certain good colour. But there are other conditions to prevent having to re-do the routine. The phone can't give me a notification or ring. Then I have to touch the phone and think of a supporting person or colour. On top of this, if I go to Youtube, Facebook or anywhere else and I see something related to death first I have to re-do the whole routine. I have a pre-thought that protects me if I do see something in the theme of death. Touching a cat tail will re-trigger the routine and so will touching a certain matt or matts in my house without first say '1,2,3,4'. I do these mental hoarding routines every time I eat, every time I leave the house, every time I leave work, before I go to sleep. The other element of this is protecting loved ones and pets. In some of my routines, around food, leaving the house and going to bed, I have to mentally think of everyone in the house and all of my pets in the same way as above. I dont even know if it is OCD. It's mostly mental compulsions. I don't get anxiety, just discomfort. As exotic as my symptoms seem to be, I don't think my OCD is as bad as it is for others. it's a bit Just right and thats it. My symptoms do not fit any of the categories.
I think I have mild OCD. Maybe that's why I can't relate to many of the difficulties experienced by other posters. My OCD is more on the compulsion side performing certain rituals at key transitions or points during the day. I honestly cannot figure out what the underlying obsession is other than some kind of weird mental hoarding to acknowledge and cherish a moment but also to protect my family and even my pets. I get little or no anxiety (I used to when I was younger). Even mild OCD absolutely sucks and is debilitating to an extent.
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