Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder

[Kree]

I have obsessive compulsive personality disorder (OCPD).  It differs from OCD, although there are some similarities.  I'm a perfectionist.  It started in my mid-twenties (I'm nearly 40) and I'm now going to uni finally (nursing).  I have very little self-esteem, I have social anxieties and performance anxieties to add to the mix.  I am terrified of job interviews, but I'm stuck in a dead end job that doesn't suit my needs and I am not able to support myself on the meagre income it provides, so I MUST change jobs. I actually have a diploma of nursing that I've held for a year and a half but haven't used because there just doesn't appear to be any jobs for enrolled nurses which don't require experience (which of course I don't have).  I started having full-blown panic attacks last year and in semester two, I started vomiting constantly and sleeping all the time.  I lost 10kg in a matter of weeks because I just couldn't eat.  I wanted to - I would have one bite and feel over full.  I realised that I was miserable with the man I'd been married to for 17 years and I decided I couldn't stay with him and his bully of a mother.  He shook my last March (just after my first major panic attack).  In September, I asked for a divorce and finally moved out in November.  I'm worried constantly about my daughter (age 😎 spending time with him because of his plethora of mental illnesses and chronic pain requiring opioid medications and heart condition also requiring medication.  To gain full custody and get her away from him would require much more money than I can afford.  I'm much happier since leaving him and I've been able to wean myself off the antidepressants, but not the sleeping tablets. I still wake many times each night and never feel rested.  I have money problems (who doesn't, really?), but I'm frugal so I get by.  My new boyfriend helps me incredibly - he's very calm and I find he soothes my soul, but I'm still neurotic - worrying about every little thing.  I still can't concentrate on my studies.  I'm 'smart' in that I seem to pass all my theory subjects without much study, but when it comes to the practical assessments and clinical placements, I 'bomb out' and nearly fail. My social anxieties don't help (my BF also has social anxieties so that actually relaxes me a little as I don't have to worry about being dragged to parties etc where I don't know anyone). 

Noting that OCPD is something that tends to get worse, is it possible to quash it?  Or is this something that is going to eventually consume me?  I've become isolated to only a few friends and most of the rest of my friends are online and I've never met them (and probably never will).  I dread mistakes of any kind, I can't stand my house being too small with no storage so things are out in view (even though I don't really have guests) and I spend too much time making lists and then not completing tasks because I need to re-do tasks that were probably ok and should have been left alone.  I feel like I am getting out of control with myself.  I've tried CBT with a psychologist, but in the end, even though I could see her point, I couldn't put it into my own world.  In my head, my obsessions and compulsions are needed and necessary.  Like making the perfect lists.

Has anyone else experienced this and beaten it?  I'm sick of perfectionism controlling my life and getting me down because I can't achieve it.

[Neil_1]

Hi Kree  

Welcome to Beyond Blue and I’m sorry that you haven’t had a response till now – I can’t answer as to why that is, but I do hope that you’re still out there and looking??  

 Psychologists and their CBT program – yep, that’ll work for some people and for others, well, it’s a massive waste of time - it just all depends on the make up of the person.

Can I say “Good on you” for making the break with your husband – that can take an awful lot of strength and wow, I could use so many more words in this instance, to be able to make that decision and THEN to actually carry through with it.  Even more so when you’re not travelling so well yourself. 

You should be very proud of making that break – and a huge positive out of that is that you’ve now been able to link up with someone else, who seems to have a very positive effect on you.  

You’ve really had to experience a helluva lot over your journey and it just doesn’t help at all when you’ve got other issues (work/money situation, custody troubles, etc) that are hovering over you.  

Now that you’ve weaned yourself off the anti-depressants, do you feel different/better for doing this?   It just has me concerned that you’re still very troubled with issues, but have no kind of medical assistance back up/supporting you.  

Kree, for the moment, I’m going to send this off – because I hope that you’re still looking here and that you’ll see this post soon.  

Kind regards  

Neil

[geoff]

dear Kree, I'm sorry as well for not having replied to you as OCD is an illness that not only concerns me, but is one which I have had for 54 years, and I'm to all the others who read this post, because I have mentioned my illness many times, but to a new comer it's something that needs to be said.

With OCD we can be a perfectionist or not, but then how do you define perfection, is it having to check the door lock several times, or lining up our shoes in a perfect order, or checking the windows and whether they are shut or not, well in the extreme all these could be defined as being or wanting a perfect result.

I can see a difference where OCPD is a personality disorder, while OCD is an anxiety disorder, but to me both of these illness's have a great deal in common, although the experts will compare them as being different, but to have a personality disorder must mean that there is anxiety involved as well, and the same goes the other way, and I would dearly love to discuss this issue with the pro's, as it's no different than a discussion on whether there is a god or not, some say yes, while others say no, so to me I would argue that they both joined at the hip.

When you say 'In my head, my obsessions and compulsions are needed and necessary', and the same applies to how OCD makes me feel, but this isn't a discussion on the difference between the two, it's about your concern.

I wish that I could say that you are able 'to quash it', which I have been able to reduce the effects by doing an online course, but once it was finished I couldn't keep up with the exercises, because it's too intense, and time consuming, simply for the reason that each time I was about to have an anxiety attack which would lead to me doing some OCD habit, time had passed and there was never any thought of not doing it.

I have tried for such a long time to stop doing it, and I know that my habits have changed over time, but one is replaced by another.

I do hope that you still read and check up on your initial post, because I would like to see what you think. Geoff.

[Kree]

Thanks for your response last year. I forgot to go back till now. Either I've been ok, or I've been on rock bottom. I do feel a difference between the OCD and personality disorder. It's about myself - I don't see imperfection in others, but I see constant imperfections in me. Nothing I do is good enough for me and I fear losing my job now (I got a job as an enrolled nurse at the local hospital). I feel incompetent. Im probably performing the same as any other with my experience and being shifted daily to different wards doesn't help. I like routines and you can't get that going to different places all the time. 

[Kree]

Thank you, Neil. I think I need the meds again. This year has been horrendous. And the BF cheated on me. I'm trying to forgive even though that's not normally me. But I don't think I'll trust him again. I know I'll never put my trust in any man again, so I'm staying with him. He's trying, and he is happy that I'm staying. We have so many happy memories and gel in so many other ways, but I've put up a barrier. Thanks for responding - I forgot to come back and didn't get emails to say there had been responses.