My therapist brought up the concept of perfectionism. I never had considered this in my ocd but wow was he right. I see it as I reflect. I thought I was strictly pure o (HOCD, SOCD). What’s everyone know about the manifestation of perfectionism in OCD?

I find it helpful to distinguish between pure O and OCD because, while I do have some triggers in my environment, they’re not consistent enough to really establish a theme, and most of the time I’m triggering myself with my own thoughts. For years I didn’t think I had OCD anymore because my OCD was so adaptive, and I had no physical compulsions, besides reassurance seeking and avoidance, but the compulsions were so covert that I rarely, if ever, noticed them. It wasn’t until reading about Pure O that I was able to expand my understanding of OCD as a WAY of thinking rather than a strict set of obsessions and compulsions. As I learned about how my OCD had creeped into the way I thought about practically everything, I became envious of those whose OCD was traceable in a specific theme, e.g. contamination (although I know this is an oversimplification, and people with contamination OCD don’t have an easier time with OCD at all), because I felt like OCD was always two steps ahead of me, distorting my thinking about things big and small. Now that I’ve gained some serious ground, I can see OCD in every area of my life through the way it distorts, but it’s still a constant battle, and I have to do mental exposures all the time. It would’ve been helpful though for people to explain that thoughts can also be triggers, because that distinction kept me in the dark for years. I thought “oh, I don’t have OCD, because there’s not a SPECIFIC trigger I can trace all my obsessions back to.” No—my obsessions are also my triggers, and they are also my compulsions, combining into one great maddening combustible mass that becomes so circular that it’s impossible to figure out where it started. I hope that people can understand this and not just think of OCD in its most stereotypical form. I suffered from harm and morality obsessions when I was really young, and I prayed and tapped and did all sorts of things that made it much easier to diagnose back then, but since then, 20 some odd years later, OCD had crept in the back door in a way that was much more difficult to track, and I spent countless hours and money on therapy that made me worse. It’s frustrating to think back on all the lost time, especially KNOWING I had OCD as a child, and that it duped me for so long afterwards in college and young adulthood. I’m more accepting towards it now, but I just really can’t emphasize enough how important it is for people to understand that OCD is not limited by “themes”, and that it uses anything to its advantage. The good thing is that once we realize that, the common denominator of OCD-thinking is easier to recognize in day to day life.

Do some OCD sufferers legit have these themes as their absolute biggest struggles? People always say like “ugh I can’t have things not in order, my OCD gets in the way” or something, but really whenever I hear anyone say that I assume there’s no way they actually have legit OCD. I’m just curious, do you know if these are in fact the biggest struggles for some OCD sufferers?

Obsessive-compulsive disorder, also known as the disease of doubt, has a very crippling effect on an individual's ability to function at its worst. This seems to happen especially when the individual's obsessive-compulsive disorder is thematically related to violence, sexually inappropriate thoughts or other taboo topics. When the vicious circle progresses far enough, a person no longer necessarily knows himself at all, is not sure of who they are or what they want. I believe that the background of obsessive-compulsive disorder, like the background of mental health problems in general, is a feeling of disgust and revulsion towards some thought, scenario or self. The way in which obsessive-compulsive disorder manifests itself, especially in the so-called "pure o" form, is very complex, because the individual disgust-inducing thematicity manifests itself not only in thoughts but also in the form of feelings, temptations and physical sensations. In some cases, however, this goes so far that the person's beliefs about his own integrity begin to decay and the feeling of hope and the meaning of life disappear. The idea can be clarified analogously to Nietzsche's thoughts on belief systems. As a result of obsessions and other repulsive thoughts, feelings and temptations, a person's belief system about his own integrity begins to collapse, but when the belief system collapses - the belief in that belief system itself collapses as well. When it no longer seems meaningful or possible to believe in the realization of a familiar and safe belief system, there is also no hope for anything better. So there is no longer even hope left for a meaningful whole of self, which drives a person to deep anxiety and depersonalization, which in turn begins to displace a person from social relationships and from all meaningful activities that a person is used to enjoying and creating meaning for his life based on his own complete self-concept, which is no longer felt to exist. Any thoughts or similar experiences on this?