- Date posted
- Yesterday
OCPD vs OCD
My therapist recently made me aware that I probably have OCPD. I go to her specifically for Exposure Response Prevention therapy because I recently recognized that I perform a lot purely mental compulsions that I didn't even realize were OCD up until very recently. I'm a pretty high achieving university student but I genuinely believe that I can only achieve good grades if I isolate myself due to my ADHD. I'm only recently starting to accept that maybe that isn't true, but it feels extremely uncomfortable. I'm also gay and trans which makes me feel very insecure due to how the world treats people like me. I somehow come across as extremely confident and put together since I'm quiet, but I'm actually filled with self doubt and self criticism. I constantly question and criticize everything, the meaning of things, the media I consume, my own thoughts. It's what makes me good at science. I feel like it's what makes me good at a lot of things. I feel like when I stop criticizing and punishing myself I degrade as a person. But the problem with that is that it makes me secretly criticize everything else as well, to the point that I can't even laugh at jokes or experience joy like when I was a kid. I'm uncomfortable being sincere and outgoing and goofy because I judge myself so harshly. I'm really depressed and anxious and lonely. To help you stop hating yourself people ask "Would you be as hard on others as you are on yourself?" and the answer is supposed to be "no", but for me the real answer is actually "yes I just wouldn't say it". Then I get worried that I'm an asshole for making people feel intimidated so I became a people pleaser. I downplay all my accomplishments even to myself. I put myself down. I genuinely don't believe in myself. I have crazy imposter syndrome. But then I'm jealous of people who have more confidence because I think everyone should be like me. I replay every social interaction in my head to find out if I did something wrong, if I was mean, and usually I come out believing that I was being mean even if I was the opposite. It's easy to manipulate me into thinking I've done something wrong even if I haven't. The main difference is that OCPD behaviours are generally consistent with your worldview and sense of self, whereas OCD behaviours are not. With OCD you don't really want to be performing all these compulsions, with OCPD you want to and you think everyone else should do the same. With OCPD you don't usually have self awareness that the way you act isn't healthy. OCPD might show up as "Extreme OCD" on an OCD questionnaire because the compulsions feel like part of who you are, so you would answer that your OCD symptoms control your life and decisions to a high degree. This was the case for me at least. Personality disorders are very stigmatized and poorly understood. I've got a great therapist who explained to me they're mostly just a result of complex trauma. But it doesn't really change the fact that being told I have a Personality disorder rather than just a regular disorder feels like an attack on, well, my personality. It makes me feel like a bad person. It was a relief when I thought I just had OCD with purely mental compulsions to be told that these issues are not who I am, they don't define me. But in reality these OCD mental compulsions actually feel like a part of who I am. They feel really difficult to let go of because they feel like the "right" way to be, and if I stop being that way I might fall into "wrongness". I judge others who don’t do things the way I do. I disdain them. It's horrible. But it’s hard to stop. I feel lucky I wasn't raised religious because I think that would have made this 10X harder to deal with. I don't really know how to stop. I can't stop being who I am. My therapist said that the treatment for OCPD is often similar to the treatment for extreme OCD, which is taking an SSRI on top of ERP. But OCPD is even less researched than OCD, so I feel worried.