hey y’all i was wondering if any of yall believe the stereotype that people with OCD are perfectionists? i just remember from a little girl up until now i forced myself to over achieve and be good at everything and anything i did. whether that be from doing well in school, to excelling in extra curriculars to even how i present myself physically and in social situations. was never happy with myself as a person until this summer when i finally became comfy with who i was... then this shit just took over. it’s like my brain needed something to find wrong in myself. idk im just wondering if yall think these “perfectionist” type symptoms are pre-requisites to OCD generally

I’m not sure they’re pre-requisites and can only speak from my own experience, but there definitely seems to be a common thread of “should” or “this isn’t enough” statements. If I start feeling adequate in one area that’s bothered me, I usually find something else “wrong” with myself pretty quickly without even realizing it at the time.

These perfectionist symptoms can lead to ocd but it usually depends. If the thoughts are giving you a lot of anxiety and is making you have to rewrite words over and over again and you find it hard to stop then it is definitely ocd. Some who is organised might say that they have ocd when they don’t as they don’t know what the actual condition is and what ocd suffers go through on a constant basis.

I think intense is more accurate

I think that there is an element of perfectionism in that many of us can’t handle uncertainty. We want to be able to get the perfect outcome to things so we do our compulsions. If there is even a possibility of things not working out in our favor we will obsess and get terrible anxiety. So I think there’s an element of it but I feel like it doesn’t always work the same way. I’m pretty sure there’s also a perfectionism OCD subtype?