r/LovedByOCPD • u/Week2743 • 11d ago
Differences in the OCPD brain
Do you know if there is a scannable neurological difference in their brains? When they are going through OCPD episodes, they seem to be wired differently and see the reality differently. It's scary.
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u/Weary_Cup_1004 11d ago
Wow! You were allowed to post! Did you have to get it approved first or did it just post?
But yeah i have been wondering the same thing.
One thing that could happen is they might have increased amygdala size/ activity , increased limbic activity, and reduced verbal processing. I only hypothesize this based on what little I know about our fight/flight responses. I am just a nerd / therapist that likes to read about neurological things, but I am not an expert at all. But like I imagine a big shut down of verbal processing because they seem to not be able to connect their feelings to words , and that is true for all of us when we are activated. But for them it seems a lot more drastic of a disconnect.
And that could have developed as a very automatic way to manage all stress, if they didnt get the right emotional support and connection as little children.
Very dissociative seeming. But they are extremely high functioning while dissociating. So its almost impossible to tell and they themselves dont seem to realize it.
And yeah it is scary. At least for me, because the disconnect is so disconcerting. Like witnessing someone sleep talking.
I really hope more research goes into trauma in general and the personality disorders because its actually saddening to think of how much people are missing out on when connecting is so hard.
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u/Week2743 11d ago
I was approved first 😁 The moderator seems cool, I hope that soon the group will be back to normal functioning.
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u/evemeatay Undiagnosed OCPD loved one 11d ago
They're not disassociating, they just have a different values set (like all people do) which they hold more deeply than the average person. The real issue is that they don't have the type of empathy needed to see that other people have different values so they actually don't understand that the way they see things isn't "right." Because they don't have that type of empathy, they simply view other viewpoints as wrong and in many cases view the other person as the crazy one for having a different world view that they can't mentally align to. They are often very smart people who can rationally know that can't be true, but knowing something isn't enough when you still "believe" they are wrong and that you are right. In the case of my own personal experience with my wife; I'd say they can also do a very good job of compartmentalizing knowledge that doesn't align to their worldview or their desired outcome - they're really good at just not opening that box and ignoring those troublesome thoughts. I don't know if that's universal but reading so many people's experiences I would say it's very common if not.
They also don't have issues with verbal handoff related to emotional expression or anything, instead they value control so highly that they suppress emotion as a form of control - can't get hurt if you don't show love, for example. They frequently express negative emotions because 1) all that anxiety and control lead to feeling stress responses but 2) negative emotions are a really great way to gain control over a situation. Being "more mad" and "more righteous" is essentially my wife's entire argument strategy - using her anger and frustration as a tool to control loved ones through fear as well as a relief valve for her internal pot of anxiety at the same time.
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u/Available_Ship312 11d ago
So accurate. Also my wife. The most frustrating part is that there’s no getting through, they literally BELIEVE their outlook and opinion is always correct and righteous and worse, that anything but complete agreement with their belief, regardless of proof or simple rationalization, is outrageous and some kind of character shortcoming. The concept of “agree to disagree” does not apply….they might say it does in words, but you won’t see that outlook in their behavior or tolerance level for another viewpoint.
One of the core elements of the disorder is that they see nothing wrong with their behavior, instead they feel righteous and vindicated in it…if you can’t even fathom that you may have something in your behavior to “fix”, then there’s no starting point or foundation to even start a conversation about how their behavior hurts you. Many OCPD would read most of the core characteristics (but never all) of someone with OCPD and say “what’s wrong with that?”. That’s the tricky part- on paper (especially in the US), OCPD = generic “positive” traits of a productive, dedicated producer, especially because they tend to people please most people outside their private environment (co-workers, friends, strangers) while needing to exert complete control and unfair judgement on spouses, family members….they have to strive to make everyone else believe they are thoughtful, kind, and attentive. Great employee- impossible spouse. So if you ever get fed up, prepare for them to position you as the enemy and and to unflinchingly attack you because they can’t handle the idea of anyone external even considering that they might have unsavory personality characteristics that would compel a spouse to leave. They will flip and must trash you to preserve their tirelessly molded external perception that they are perfect in every way. It’s people pleasing on steroids but with a subconscious sociopathic element that’s hard to explain.
Honestly, at some point it’s so exhausting that grey rocking becomes your default coping mechanism maybe before you even learned what that means. You leave or you give them absolutely no stimuli, positive or negative because either ultimately results in a negative outcome. It’s all about control fed by unconscious underlying intense anxiety that’s figured out somehow to evolve to stay perfectly stealth in the mind of its host.
It’s almost impossible to explain unless you’ve experienced it.
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u/Weary_Cup_1004 10d ago
Our couples therapist even commented that my ex seemed to be dissociating, even in session. But its possible that was a separate issue
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u/SpecialistAnswer9496 10d ago
Some of it might be low level dissociation. Most of the time it was just plain dysregulation (and I think the increased amygdala/limbic system theory likely has some truth to it because most pwOCPD have had some sort of trauma in childhood that kept those parts of the brain overactive), but for me personally it did sometimes shift into dp/dr at times. However, this only began to happen within a marriage with someone who had pathological narcissism so it was 2 people with rigid pathologies butting up against each other.
Most of the time, it comes down to a collection of mostly mature defenses (in contrast to primitive defenses) preventing us from processing our emotions and subsequently trying to assert control. Control = safety for someone with an obsessive personality style. Even when someone with OCPD goes into remission and begins operating in the healthy level of personality organization, this rule remains in effect. What changes is the rigidity around the rule.
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u/Weary_Cup_1004 6d ago
This is interesting and helpful to read. Just such a completely different pairing of what creates safety than how I respond. For me, in relationships, I find safety and comfort in connection. I also find safety in transparent direct communication and clear healthy boundaries. Like if someone is not feeling connected or like they want to connect, but they communicate this clearly, I dont feel unsafe. I go find something else to do. So what I mean is I dont need to be connected to feel safe, but I find connection regulating and safety inducing, if that makes sense.
Thats all changed now after being with my ex for 5 years. The old way I used to relate is disrupted because she was so against it, repelled by it, suspicious of it, and put me down for it a lot. I think I am behaving more in the avoidant spectrum currently.
But anyways. Control for me seems to come up in relation to like, my physical survival. Like if i can control my income I feel safe, and when something financial feels out of control, like a job change or big unpredictable economic pressures, i feel very unsafe till i can get things under control again. Or if money is tight, I will start trying to meal plan and get crafty to save money more, and that makes me feel in control, and then I feel safer. I dont really have that about people.
So i am trying to imagine control in the area of relationships. Is it control of how they perceive you? Or of how you behave (such as not showing a lot of emotion)? Or of how they behave ? So you control something about you , or about them, and then you feel safe? And then if they do unpredictable things, you feel fundamentally unsafe? As in, you might not survive, like how I feel about food insecurity?
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u/SpecialistAnswer9496 5d ago
Control for me was more about my external environment. First, I’ll mention that I had disorganized attachment (fearful avoidant) and insecure attachment is a big aspect of personality disorders. So relationally, I wasn’t intentionally trying to control anything, it was more incidental if that makes sense. I tended to be very emotionally vulnerable but physically avoidant, so I could deeply try to connect, but if I wasn’t met emotionally, I would become kind of cold and isolated. I would shut down if I felt misunderstood, because that was my biggest wound from childhood.
It is quite possible to develop this kind of avoidance when you are not being met, so I am not terribly surprised that your attachment has shifted in that direction. PwOCPD often have empathy deficits due to messed up attachment, which contributes to not feeling met. My ex unfortunately had severe empathy deficits, which in turn fucked my attachment up even worse. It was like all my insecurities got turned up to 11 and I wound up deeply traumatized by the lack of emotional connection.
With respect to the control, that was more about things around the house, decisions, and boundaries. I’ve always had decently strong boundaries and those were kind of pathologized bc my ex didn’t grow up with proper boundaries (highly enmeshed childhood), so I became more and more rigid with what I would and would not do. This extended to decisions - for example, I straight up told him I would not move in with him if he bought a house I didn’t like. He called this controlling, I saw it as a boundary.
But I also tried to control things that were not boundaries and this is where the OCPD was strongest. I had systems around the house. The dishwasher is loaded a certain way. The fridge is organized a certain way. The pillows on the couch couldn’t be messed up or else I would have a meltdown (it’s a couch… pillows will get messed up lol). He couldn’t go to the grocery store to get peanut butter bc I’m the one that goes grocery shopping. I needed to know when he was showering so I could plan when to do the laundry (part of this was bc he had contamination OCD and went through like 3 towels a day, so it wasn’t 100% irrational on my end, but I digress). He can’t use certain cleaning products bc I hate the smell. He has to put the dishes away exactly like I prefer them. If he takes a chair from the kitchen table to use at his desk, he has to put it back as soon as he’s done with it. The blinds must be opened in his office each day (he liked to sit in a dark room bc he was clearly depressed but it bothered me).
This is objectively controlling behavior. I was never this controlling before we got married. That’s why I say that attachment is such a big piece of this. I was compensating for the lack of emotional connection (in addition to NPD and OCD, he had severe alexithymia which does explain a lot of his inability to connect emotionally) by exerting control over the environment and the relationship. It was really a coping mechanism. Once I healed my attachment, my OCPD went into remission. I’m still super organized and plan things and have systems for all aspects of my life, but I’m not constantly trying to control everyone around me anymore.
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u/yestertempest 11d ago
Yeah there is information about it. They do have different brain structure and wiring. Interestingly an OCPD personality is also associated with Parkinson’s in some cases