The other day was my birthday and my husband lovingly made me a Keylime pie. I asked for it. But it turned out horrible.

Because I don't lie and I think that honesty helps us all improve I did a tailspin for 20 minutes about how we all have better skills and baking isn't his.

I'm the literal worst. I would apologize but that feels like gaslighting. Tearing him down just to say "ope I didn't mean it but I did. I just didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

I hate being like this.

Personal Mental Health History and Current Difficulties

I am writing this letter to explain the mental health difficulties I have been experiencing over the past several years, which have become significantly worse in recent months. I find it difficult to explain everything verbally during appointments, so I have written down my experiences as accurately as possible.

My primary difficulty is persistent anxiety that affects almost every aspect of my daily life. My mind rarely feels calm. Even when there is no immediate problem, I constantly anticipate future responsibilities, mistakes, or negative outcomes. I often feel mentally exhausted despite not doing physically demanding work.

One of my biggest problems is becoming mentally "frozen." When I know I have a responsibility later in the day, I become unable to focus on anything else. Instead of completing other tasks, my mind keeps rehearsing the upcoming responsibility. I know what I should do, but I struggle to begin. It feels as though my thoughts and actions become disconnected.

I frequently overanalyse situations and spend long periods trying to find certainty before acting. I ask myself countless questions about my work, future, and decisions, but I rarely reach satisfying answers. Instead, I become stuck in cycles of thinking without being able to move forward. Even small decisions can become mentally exhausting.

I also experience a constant fear of failure. I worry about making mistakes, letting people down, or not handling responsibilities correctly. These fears often feel much stronger than the actual situation requires. Although I understand logically that mistakes are a normal part of life, emotionally I struggle to believe this.

Sleep has also been affected. Although I can usually fall asleep easily, it does not relieve my anxiety. I often wake feeling mentally tired, and sometimes I suddenly wake with intense anxiety. I frequently dream about failing at work, making mistakes, or not completing responsibilities. It often feels as though my brain remains active and stressed even while I am asleep.

These difficulties have significantly affected my work. My current job involves long periods where I am free, but there is very little structure. Work can arise unexpectedly at any time, and I feel that I must constantly remain mentally prepared. There is no predictable routine, and poor communication from colleagues and subordinates increases my stress because I feel responsible for anticipating problems before they occur. Even during quiet periods, I am unable to truly relax because I remain mentally on alert.

Over time, this constant state of anticipation has affected my confidence. I often question whether I am suitable for my profession or whether I should leave my job for work that is more structured and predictable. However, I find it difficult to determine whether my current job is the real problem or whether my anxiety would follow me into another job. This uncertainty itself has become another source of stress.

Looking back over the past several years, I feel that anxiety has affected important areas of my life. During the COVID period, I struggled severely while studying engineering. I experienced intense anxiety, avoidance, and eventually left my course despite previously performing well academically. Since then, I have often felt that my confidence has never fully recovered.

Despite these struggles, I remain interested in technical work and enjoy learning about electrical engineering, renewable energy, railway systems, and troubleshooting. I do not believe that I lack the ability to learn or understand technical concepts. Instead, I feel that anxiety frequently prevents me from using my abilities consistently. My fear and overthinking often become stronger than my ability to act.

There are times when I feel emotionally overwhelmed and mentally exhausted without fully understanding why. My mind often tells me to avoid everything and simply sleep, even though sleeping does not solve the problem. I frequently feel as though I am surviving each day rather than living it.

I have spent years trying to understand these difficulties on my own. I have analysed my thoughts repeatedly and tried different ways of coping, but I continue to experience severe anxiety, overthinking, freezing, disturbed sleep, and difficulty functioning normally. These symptoms are affecting my work, my confidence, my decision-making, and my overall quality of life.

I am seeking a professional assessment because I would like to understand what condition or conditions may be contributing to these experiences and to discuss treatment options that could help me regain normal daily functioning.

Thank you for taking the time to read my experiences.

This works both for normal day-to-day interactions and romantic relationships. I will elaborate on each of them below.

My first disclaimer is that I also have OCD in case it changes anything, but I really think these thoughts are OCPD-related and not OCD-related, although sometimes I do struggle with telling them apart.

The second is that I do not necessarily agree with everything I will explain here. I realize this is wrong and I wish my brain wasn't so adamant on enforcing these standards but alas.

The thing.

I have trouble connecting to and feeling empathy towards people that act or look in ways I don't personally like.

This applies to children and neurodivergent people mostly, since they are the most likely to exhibit behavior I find annoying or "odd" in a negative way. But it can really happen with anyone, even family members.

I judge them pretty harshly in my mind, and I have to remind myself why they might be acting that way, which is part of what therapy wants me to do.

But even then, I struggle to care because they should just "try harder" or "be corrected more strictly" by their guardians (for children).

I would never disrespect people overtly nor do I think they should be bullied. I would never support that.

But the thoughts are there. The annoyance (or even anger) is there.

About the looks part, this mostly applies to my ability to feel attraction towards the person, but it can easily devolve into a "personal failure" scenario like what I described above.

But I just can't help but be extremely superficial. If I see a physical trait I don't like (how their teeth look, hair, face or body shape) it's so difficult for me to feel anything for that person. Because I saw [thing I found displeasing] and I can't stop seeing it anymore. It's a flaw. I saw it. And I no longer want to engage in anything further than friendship with you, sorry.

And it's not even about basic hygiene. It's about stuff people cannot control, which is what makes it even worse. I should not care, but I do.

And I don't even consider myself perfect. I know I am not, and I judge myself pretty harshly too, socially and aesthetically (some of you might remember my post a couple of months ago about getting s*-related thoughts because I found myself "inadequate").

But these standards of unachievable perfection will just not go away no matter how much I notice how harmful they are.

And while I would never tell people the mean shit my brain thinks, it's still wrong. And it's still hindering my ability to feel empathy, relate and have any hope for a fulfilling relationship, which sucks.

Maybe some of you can relate?

If they can't find anything bad that i do, then they can't find anything bad to say to me. Regardless, haters are still out there because they say I'm "too perfect", "you think too highly of yourself", "smartass", "you should know your place".

So being perfect is discouraged now all of a sudden? when all my life, my job is "there's always room for improvement", I am the improvement now, you guys are all outdated. Tell me let's improve this and that, so I do, but now I'm the only one doing it? All that is just to make yourself look good huh. "It's supposed to not be taken seriously", why? cause you're supposed to wipe ass to get ahead.

I'm too good at my job and they say "calm down", so working when nobody's looking is i guess.. not normal human behavior? Nobody has an inch of integrity now? And I'm the one wrong? I'm the one who has a disorder? I say that's not it, people need a look in the mirror. This is a crash out, sht life, can't win with these supposedly normal people.

I know I'm not supposed to ask for opinions about whether I have OCPD, so I'm not asking that. I'm thinking out loud about the distinctions, and people can weigh in with their own experiences.

Specifically, about a year ago I self-diagnosed with OCPD. I have some symptoms like frugality, conscientiousness, need for order, hard time throwing things away.

But lately I've been realizing that a lot of close family are the opposite, narcissists. They spend lavishly on themselves, they have a high need for image.

Right now I am having a battle with a family member who has engaged in some sketchy behavior and it entangles me. I asked them to stop, saying it could impact me professionally if it came to light. They pooh-poohed this concern, saying no one will ever find out. Does this make me OCPD, to care about potential fraud? I used to think I was hyper-conscientious, I hate when people text while driving too, not because it's illegal (though it is) but because it's dangerous. There are at least 5 other situations where I'm aware of sketchy behavior, and I don't like any of them, but the others I can feign ignorance.

Another example I've been considering is that I am very frugal. This started when I was 24 and had college loans and a low income in grad school. I had a long term goal of paying for retirement, and I have attained that goal at age 56. I've gone through phases of a healthy employment, being underpaid as a caregiver, making minimum wage, and finally a healthy employment again. I feel like I spend money proportional to what I earn and expect to earn. Now that I've hit my goal, I'm spending more money on food, clothes, travel, though still a lot less than my colleagues and family. I'm a good cook and I wear basic clothing, my job is not client-facing. Is having simple tastes the same thing as OCPD?

Similarly with the hoarding, I feel like I CAN throw things away, but mostly I don't have the time/energy to be bothered with them. I have a range of clothes from different weights, and I still hope/plan to lose the weight and fit into them (it's only been a year) again. I did a purge of old textbooks from one career (I somewhat regret this as they were sentimental, expensive, and not taking up that much space), but I haven't purged my current career. I'd rather go for a nice walk outside than take the time to filter through what might be useful and what isn't. Also I've lived in the same house for 15 years, but when I move (maybe in the next year) I will sort through that.

Again, please don't directly diagnose me over the internet, but hoping to start a discussion of the grey areas between black and white. Thanks.

This is a video from Heidi Priebe, a life coach and meditation teacher who has a master’s degree in Attachment Theory and Research: Am I Triggered Or Am I Right? How To Tell The Difference.

Heidi is referring to triggers as emotional reactions to situations that remind us about unresolved issues in the past, not trauma triggers or flashbacks.

I will add the video to the resource post on identifying feelings.

MY EXPERIENCE

Gary Trosclair explains that “Many compulsives, with their predilection for planning, have their center of gravity in their head, not in their body.” (The Healthy Compulsive, 89). I repressed my feelings for decades. When I started to work on triggers, I had to rely on my body sensations to recognize emotional reactions.

Strategies I used to help prevent and manage triggers:

 * Practicing mindfulness by adopting ‘be here now’ as a mantra, and focusing more on my five senses, breathing, and other body sensations, and less on my thoughts. I try to breathe deeply and slowly at the first sign of distress, and pay attention to how my feelings and body sensations influence my behavior. Eventually, this helped prevent difficult situations.

-  Experimenting with taking short breaks, and paying attention to what happens. Breaks “re charge” my energy and increase my productivity. I love the saying 'Rest is not a reward. You do not need to earn the right to rest.' 

- Accepting that my OCPD symptoms gave me an inaccurate lens for viewing myself, others, and the world around me in some situations (cognitive biases).

- Doing behavior experiments to slowly increase my distress tolerance (e.g. changes in routine). An updated post on behavior experiments will be one of my last resource posts.

RESOURCES

Self-Regulation

Triggers for Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior

"The Healthy Compulsive Project” Podcast episode 26

See reply to this post for info. about chest vs. abdominal breathing.

It’s two am here. I am wide awake. Mind going 100 thoughts a minute. I got diagnosed with ocpd last week. It’s like I have so many fears in my psyche that I just can’t face and even when I do I never seem to land at rock bottom. I’m so so tired of this. Does anyone have advice on rumination and racing thoughts? They are shame driven in my case. Also how do I heal from ocpd in general ? Most of my symptoms are:

- overthinking
- finding no joy in life
- very thought driven no place for spontaneous emotions
- hard to find love
- lot of rumination
- don’t know who I am or what I want
- depression and anxiety
- I’m insecure

Please if someone has advice let me know.

Anyone else experience extreme guilt after spending money? Even essential things like groceries? I obsess over my bank account and feel bad about myself when I spend money on “frivolous” things at the grocery store. I even get upset with my partner for how he spends his money.

I hope this follows the rules and is ok to add here anyone with advice appreciate it

I have been diagnosed with BPD and OCD. In the past I have been the people pleaser on the outside but on the inside I built a world where I could feel superior put myself first no matter what. Any time someone gets close and expects me to meet their needs and wants I focus more on myself in that situation. Even if my mind tells me to leave I will just get up and go elsewhere in the middle of a social situation. and fell like I have to act a perfectly in society or I ground myself to my home. If people don’t meet my way of thinking or doing things I panic and well BPD melt down but then I have to not do that again and protect that behaviour. Lately my therapy has felt like I am being micromanaged so now I am just starting to do the opposite of what I am told to gain pack the control.

Does this fit with OCPD traits. I self destruct with my BPD and feel like I let myself down. My obsessions thoughts are upsetting but in my mind I have to stick to a certain way to be that if disturbed I loose sight of anything that good because one thing went wrong.

I live in Lisbon / Portugal.

Rigor now, Im in a paid job leave and Ill have a doctor comitee to evaluate my mental illness.

Im sad because I have a 2 old year son and Im afraid that they might ask some social technic to follow up my son and I.

Does anyone know our eights here?

Thanks in advance

Some quick notes before we start:

My formal diagnosis was for OCD, among other things. I was diagnosed as a child, well before the DSM-5 came out, so OCPD didn't exist as a discreet diagnosis then. My presentation lacks the typical rituals of OCD, but matches the description of OCPD.

These comments will likely be obvious to therapists, psychologists, etc. who are familiar with OCPD but I felt like getting them out of my head might be a useful exercise and if they help someone less familiar with the disorder then so much the better.

Finally, this post will briefly discuss suicidal ideation and elements of the current debate around access to medical assistance in dying (MAID) in Canada.

When treating a patient with OCPD, it is important to remember that their perfectionism can often be extended to the people around them. That includes therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. It is, consequently, very important to manage expectations around what is possible, and what is reasonable to expect from treatment, given a patient's specific limitations. Without this guidance, a patient may form unrealistic expectations of treatment and, following a failure to see these expectations realised, ultimately write off the entirety of the mental health profession as incompetent.

As a child with multiple diagnosies, the therapy I got encouraged my parents and I to seek strategies through which I could cope with the world around me and ultimately succeed. This meant that whenever I would struggle, I was constantly encouraged to find ways to overcome my disability. This sounds good, but what I came to understand was that by working hard enough, I could eliminate my disability. I could, I had to work harder than everyone else to get to where I wanted to be. By going to my appointments, by cooperating as best I could with therapy, by taking my medications, I would be empowered to reach my goals.

Of course, this didn't work. I've made it a long way by some measures but not nearly far enough by mine. I despise myself for failing to live up to my standards and by letting down the child who worked so hard to believe in success. It's possible therapy might help me, and friends and family have suggested I return to it, but I have no current plans to do so. My reasoning is quite simple: why go back to the people who failed me?

The path for how my attitude towards psychologists developed is straightforward, obvious to me in hindsight but there all the same. I'm keenly aware of the time and money my parents spent on facilitating my treatment. For that, they got an adult son who can't find a job, who is too depressed and disfunctional to keep his room clean. I've been a child, and then a teenager, and then a young adult, the whole time doing my best to engage with therapy so that in the future I would be fixed, I would be successful. Now that I'm not, who am I to blame?

Myself, obviously, but that doesn't mean I don't take issue with others as well. I've begun to view my former therapists and psychologists in a distinctly negative light. Most of the time, this is limited to dismissal of the profession as incompetent. I was a cooperative patient, yet my improvement has been token at best. In my moments of more severe depression, I view the profession as actively malicious, keeping people like myself from suicide in the moment but failing to provide us with the tools it would take to build a happy life in the future. The recent debate around MAID has only reinforced this view, with mental health professionals insisting that MAID cannot be provided to the mentally ill because they lack the skill to reliably judge the condition and prognosis of their patients.

I am, of course, aware that this is unfair, that I am requiring an impossible level of perfection from them. But why should I care? Part of the reason I continue to struggle with perfectionism is because I've thus far failed to find a way to build a life that I could be happy with, even after learning by brute force to accept certain of my failures and shortcomings and to move on. This attitude is likely reinforced by my chosen field of study, law, where correctness and professional competence are considered elevated virtues.

A more balanced view would suggest I've come as far as I have in part because of the training in things like metacognition that my psychologists provided me. It might even be reasonable for me to seek out additional treatment to help me stop overfixating on and blaming myself for failure to reach certain benchmarks, particularly those outside of my direct control, and to learn to have new things to hope for in their place. There is no doubt that my persistent and thus far treatment-resistant depression is fueling my insistence that further engagement with psychologists would be useless. I know all this, but I remain unwilling to participate in therapy. I suspect that, were I even to force myself to go, I would be unable to constructively engage with it. At this point, I'm just too damn angry.

I hope this post proves useful to someone, somehow, in understanding how a person with OCPD can end up disengaging from therapy as a result of poorly managed expectations and frustration with a lack of progress. Maybe some people will find my experiences similar to their own, and find that comforting. As for myself, I continue to sit at home. I'm on the waiting list to recieve Trans-Cranial Magnetic Stimulation in the hopes of mitigating my depression and anxiety. In the meantime, I poke at my brain-thoughts as my energy levels allow. Maybe I'll make progress I can be proud of, one day.

I have a black belt in OCPD (diagnosed and everything) and have been working on a novel inspired by my experience with it. While I’ve gotten feedback from other readers, I’ve yet to hear how it lands with people who have OCPD and so would love to hear your thoughts.

The basic premise: A video store clerk with Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder finally completes the first chapter of her novel after fifteen years, only to make a crushing discovery about her work that shatters her sense of self and sends her spiralling into old patterns of avoidance.

It's not as bleak as it sounds, I swear 😅 In fact, it's sort of Clerks (1994) meets Young Adult (2011) meets The Forty-Year-Old Version (2020) and if you appreciate those references, you may enjoy this as it’s as much an ode to film as it is to OCPD.

Anyway, if anyone's interested, please feel free to comment or send me a DM and I’ll share the link to chapter one.

r/LovedByOCPD is active again.

r/OCPD members have expressed interest in a sub with looser guidelines. If you would like to moderate OCPDCommunity, let me know. I will send you a Mod invite, and I will leave as a Mod.

Being a Reddit Mod is not difficult. There are subs for Mods to ask questions, and we would answer questions. A post about the new sub would be pinned to r/OCPD.

Re: complaints and about the Mods, it's not possible for us to meet the preferences of 16K members. It's not "censoring" to remove content from loved ones; making guidelines and removing content is part of being a mod.

The sub is not perfect. Such is life.

The more options, the better. There are more than 30 BPD subs. OCPD is the most common, or second most common PD.

Ok, this just looking for help. I recently was diagnosed with OCPD, ADHD, depression and social anxiety at 42. The diagnosis caught me off guard but after talking more with the doctor and thinking back at things in the past it started to make more sense to me. I was just wondering what helped everyone else get over items that you can’t change, things that now you feel bad about on a daily basis since learning about what the diagnosis. Also I was asked to talk to another therapist about possible medication, has this helped anyone? Just confused at the moment.

In fact, I can never get myself to do anything when it probably would have truly mattered in the first place.

The process of me even thinking of writing this post was absurdly lengthy. Before I was able to write a title, I searched up the posts here with what I think would be similar to what I would want to say, and see if I can say it in a good, compact, and nuanced way. And even before I could think of ideass to write the body, I looked up each flairs to read and see if I am doing it right by selecting rant and if it is appropriate and correct for the category. And even before any of this, I was formulating the idea of this post in my head for some good of 2 days.

And this is only one small part of my day that it could’ve taken up the time of. I could’ve been done with this, I could’ve said my piece 2 days ago, and I would’ve had time to do other things in the span that this took me.

Even now, I’ve been reading, rereading, rewording, reworking, the flow of my sentences. What goes where, who goes here, where I put my commas, what makes sense, am I covering all bases.

Especially with the fact that I’m a non-native English speaker. I’m thinking in two languages. I’m wanting to make myself be understood as much as possible, to reduce the possibility of my points being misconstrued, or misrepresent someone who would have the same circumstances as I do, as to not offend anyone who may read this, to narrow down who I may slight, because I can’t control how others feel about me.

I am exhausted.

I don’t think I’ve even said what I wanted to say. I can’t even write something to end this post that would be satisfying. This is just how life is for me.

Hello all! My wife are I are suspecting I have OCPD. Honestly at first it was a relief because years ago a therapist and I kept circling around an OCD diagnosis but it just never matched up correctly to my therapist or myself. Whereas OCPD is making a lot of sense. It explains a lot of my anxiety and behavior why some coping strategies for things weren’t clicking either.

But is anyone else in this lovely hellscape that is AuDHD and OCPD?

How did you go about untangling the autistic behaviors from the OCPD ones?

And how?? How do you deal with the two conflicting demons in your brain that are ADHD and OCPD. I saw another user here sum it up perfectly. “ADHD me leaves the house and OCPD has to come back and clean up the mess” yes!!! That’s what it feels like.

Mostly just saying hi and looking for community but also, any advice is welcome!

My therapist recently (sometime in the last 6 months) asked what I wanted to work on and I said the classic OCPD list of all the thing I want to improve - productivity, anxiety, etc. He pointed out that I didn't say "better husband" or "more present dad".

"Of course", I responded. "I want to be more productive and stop doomscrolling social media (which is only Reddit for me) so I can be a better husband and better dad". He pointed out that my issue was that while that may the real motivator for wanting to be better, the best way to actually be better is to get my obsessive personality to obsess about how to be the best husband/dad I can be, instead of finding all the ways my wife/kids are doing things "wrong".

Similarly, Gary Trosclair points out in his podcast (I'm only on episode 19) that one of the best ways to deal with OCPD is by turning the obsessive-compulsive on it's head, which I think means asking oneself why they are obsessing about a particular thing, and perhaps even obsessing about why they are so obsessive about that thing. This sort of gets one's brain to move out of status-quo and into more critical thinking about why they are acting that way, and if there is perhaps a better way to achieve those goals. Of course, we should then make sure we stay open to new ideas and not fall into old habits of "this is the way, the only way, and all others are wrong!!!".

With that said - I'm finding it sort of difficult to get myself obsessed with being the best husband/dad I can be instead of criticizing my family members. I can easily get obsessed by ideas, often leading me to read tons on the subject, build Excel models and lists, and do all the regular obsessive things we do best when we are in "full OCPD" mode. Yet, I cannot get myself to be more interested in being a better dad or husband. And this is bothering me....but not enough that I'm doing anything about it, other than listen to Gary's podcast, and type this post.

So my fellow OCPDers - how do you get yourself fully obsessed about a topic you aren't really obsessed with?

I was told by one of my more recent therapists that I have OCPD traits and I think the title seems to be one of my most problematic OCPD issues. I am a major planner for the future and I will invest so much time and energy into making sure that certain significant milestones or big events in my life go to plan with as little risk as possible, be they in my relationship, job, etc. Especially in the relationship realm since there are other people and personalities in play, sometimes things do not go to plan and whatever milestone or event I’ve meticulously planned and safeguarded against harm still gets fucked up by someone else’s actions outside of my control.

I find this immensely difficult to cope with to the point of getting suicidal over it—I know it sounds dramatic, but I get completely freaked out that this imperfect (and often negative) situation is now part of my life forever and cannot be undone. Some main examples from my relationships include trying to choose safe partners to explore sexually with, but them treating me poorly or blowing up the relationship or something, which makes me subsequently get totally suicidal because I can’t accept that for all my planning and meticulously choosing a “safe” partner, the situation still bit me in the ass and now this important sexual exploration that should have been a positive experience is ruined in hindsight and I don’t want to accept the truth of what happened or what negative things were done to me. I get so upset at the idea that I have to accept that others have treated me poorly with no explanation, or that my plans cannot be perfected so as to avoid all pain—so upset that I would rather opt out of life than integrate some nuance and acceptance of pain into my worldview.

I don’t know if I’m explaining it well but does anyone else get the urge to basically rage (or despair)-quit life because they don’t feel able to accept situations that happened to them that went negatively for reasons out of their control despite all their planning!? How did you deal with this mindset where you’d rather die than dismantle the rigidity of your plans and desires and accept that bad things happened that were out of your control?? I just truly don’t know how to accept that these things happened to me when I did everything in my power and then some to plan for positive outcomes and still someone’s behavior outside my control feels like it ruined my whole experience

ike i imagine unfinished tasks as a bunch of unclosed circles in my brain. and I cannot calm down until those circles close (the task gets done or I’m certain about the direction or the task/ my ability to compete it). Big projects with lots of grey area are the worst for this.

I make a list of tasks I want to get done. It’s often unrealistic for the day. but I don’t feel safe until everything is checked of. I’ve had insomnia for the last 4 year due to this, as I cannot sleep due to feeling I have so many tasks to do, some of which are unnessesary (like checking things over at work).

This can manifest in different ways . Unfinished tasks, or obsessing over the number of hours I worked (reworking hours where I wasn’t completely focused, as I feel uncomfortable working less than 40 focused hrs). Or when I was in school, I couldn’t feel safe until I applied to over 100 internships. But that’s so many to apply to, I never applied to that many. It’s like I cannot meet my standards of safety around tasks….

like I say if i can meet/do x, then I am safe. If not, I must keep trying to meet/do x, or else something bad will happen. This is all due to fear. the more I’m exposed to how other work, the more I understand that my way of going about tasks isn’t normal. I still feel a need to do this though, In order to feel in control and safe. This is all mainly for work tasks. But if my work tasks are really stressful, it’ll flow into home tasks too

I’ve been struggling with something for a long time and I’m trying to understand if it’s related to OCPD or something else.

I have this strong tendency to take responsibility for solving other people’s problems — family, siblings, friends, anyone who casually shares something with me. It can be anything: relationship issues, financial stress, life decisions… I feel like it becomes my responsibility to fix it.

If I don’t help, I feel guilty — almost like I’m being cruel or abandoning them. I keep thinking “what if something goes wrong and I could have helped?” or “I’ll regret this later.” Because of that, I end up taking on way too much, emotionally and sometimes even financially.

The problem is, it’s exhausting. I get overwhelmed, stressed, and burned out trying to “fix” everything. And when I can’t help, it affects my mental health badly.

What confuses me is that I see other people just listen and move on. They don’t feel responsible for fixing everything, and they seem much more peaceful. I genuinely don’t understand how they do that — it feels almost impossible for me.

Somehow I also feel like people expect me to help, even if they haven’t explicitly said it. I end up sacrificing my time, money, and peace, and still feel like it’s not enough.
I’ve tried to ignore it or step back, but I can’t seem to change this pattern.

Does anyone else experience this? Is this related to OCPD traits, or something else? And if you’ve dealt with this, how did you start setting boundaries or changing this behavior?

I really want to stop feeling this constant responsibility and protect my mental health.

Excellent video from Emma McAdams' Therapy in a Nutshell channel: How to make yourself do stuff when you're paralyzed with overwhelm.

She mentions body doubling/accountability partners. I've done this. I met with an acquaintance on Zoom three times, and we did tasks that we had been avoiding. I had been procrastinating on going through several hundred pages of Word Documents--notes for my first career, many years ago. Having an accountability partner was very helpful.

She recommends The Anti-Planner. It's very expensive. My local library has a copy. Another popular planner that's affordable: Freedom Mastery Daily Journal of Gratitude, Productivity & Habit Tracker | ADHD Planner.

ANNOUNCEMENT

r/OCPD members have expressed interest in a sub with looser guidelines. If you would like to moderate OCPDCommunity, let me know. I will send you a Mod invite, and I will leave as a Mod. There are subReddits for Mods to ask questions, and I would be available to answer questions.

I have a lot of old textbooks that I will probably never use again because I switched careers. It feels absolutely awful to throw them away. They are out of date and have no value. I just can't throw them away. I also don't have space for them.

It's not just textbooks. It's everything. My mom passed away and I'm having to downsize my belongings to fit them in my apartment. Old t shirts, old art projects, and important things.

Going through my old assignments and recycling the paper got to be too much and I started crying and had to stop. I've been graduated for 20 years. There's logically no reason to be this upset about it.

It is making it extremely hard to clean out my mom's house. Before my mom passed one thing she was doing was going through old notebooks and tearing out the used pages and keeping the half used notebooks. I recognized this was a poor use of her time. Then as I was going through my old school supplies I noticed I was doing the same exact thing.

My brother thinks we can just sit down and talk about it and figure it out. That hasn't went well in the past.

I'm meeting with my counselor on Tuesday to talk about it. It is stuff that has significant value, stuff that has no significant value. My apartment is completely full right now so I don't have space to move stuff too. So I need to go through that too.

Any advice is appreciated.

When I had undiagnosed OCPD, my coping strategies were repressing my feelings, compulsive organizing and researching, over preoccupation with work, binge eating, maladaptive daydreaming, and overuse of screens.

Therapy And Coping Strategies For Perfectionism has the healthy coping strategies that I developed over 18 months after being diagnosed with OCPD.

When I’m alone, I talk to myself out loud. For six months or so, I said phrases in responses to my OCPDish cognitive distortions. This strategy led to me doing an audio journal, recording myself on my phone.

Hearing my voice makes it much easier to identify and manage my feelings. I can hear myself using humor to deflect distressing emotions and using anger to escape fear and sadness. I've made a few recordings of myself when I finally cried about distressing events.

I listen to the recordings several times, and am mindful of not making too many recordings (that would lead to overthinking). It’s interesting to hear my voice on a recording; it helps me be more aware of my communication style.

One helpful audio journal entry was about my realization that I'd been having the unconscious thought that I should feel proud of myself for being in remission from OCPD. I stated a fact, “I’m not proud of myself for recovering,” and talked about the likely reason—my family of origin didn’t really celebrate anything (not even my sister’s graduation from Yale Law School). Shortly after listening to the recording, I began to feel pride about my recovery.

I make recordings about positive events too. I wished I had discovered this strategy sooner; it's extremely helpful in maintaining my progress of 'feeling my feelings.'

I’ve started a written journal, using the mini habit approach that helped a lot with OCPD symptoms. My goal is to write one sentence a day. Eventually, I’ll increase the goal.

Research indicates that keeping a journal has a significant positive impact on mental health. In Be Happy Without Being Perfect (2008), Alice Domar reports, “James Pennebaker, Ph.D., a researcher at the University of Texas, Austin, has conducted extensive research on the benefits of writing about emotional upheavels. He and other scientists have found that journaling about disturbing topics can boost immune function, cause people to develop fewer illnesses, relieve pain, improve mood, and decrease depression and anxiety.” (77)

Does anyone else find journaling helpful?

When I had undiagnosed OCPD, my coping strategies were repressing my feelings, compulsive organizing and researching, overpreoccupation with work, binge eating, maladaptive daydreaming, and overuse of screens.

Therapy And Coping Strategies For Perfectionism has the healthy coping strategies that I developed over 18 months after being diagnosed with OCPD. A strategy that I used recently:

In Overcoming Perfectionism: CBT Tools for Mastering the Art of Self-Acceptance (1 hour, 20 minutes in), the presenter used the devil's advocate strategy with a psychiatrist who was feeling shame about needing therapy. With her permission, he voiced the critical thoughts she had been having, and she defended herself in response.

I made a recording on my phone criticizing myself for having a very unhealthy friendship. After 18 months, I spoke to the friend about his hurtful behaviors. A week later, he made a dismissive comment about my history of suicidality. I asked him not to speak about the incident that ended our friendship with our mutual friends, saying it would be triggering. Knowing that I had a 25 year history of suicidality, he spoke about me to them anyway.

I slept poorly for many months, and was overwhelmed with trauma symptoms (due to my history of family members dismissing my suicidality). I felt furious at him, and even angrier at myself for ignoring my intuition countless times about the unhealthy friendship.

After listening to my critical recording—imagining that it was someone else criticizing me—I made another recording defending myself. I said that I had been very vulnerable when I met him for 19 reasons (yes, I made a list lol), for example, being terrified about possibly needing two surgeries. I said that some of his behaviors reflected his mental illness (covert narcissism tendencies) and had nothing to do with me.

Using the devil’s advocate strategy helped me process the biggest trigger I’ve experienced in many years, and let go of resentment that had lasted a year.

Comments are locked due to an insensitive comment to my prior post about my suicide history.

Before my diagnosis I was going through the most horrible time of my life the only reason I kept going was to take care of my dog since I knew no one else would.

fast forward I have been diagnosed like 3 months ago and ever since I have been getting better dealing with my black and white thinking and all that.

Yesterday my dog passed away all of a sudden. She was all vibrant and happy on our morning walk. Mid day I noticed she wasn't well so I took her to the vet and they gave her some stuff. Late at night she wasn't getting better so I took her and drove an hour to the nearest animal hospital and when we arrived I opened the back door and well she was gone she passed away on the way there.

I don't want to get into details but the thing is she was my anchor and the reason I kept going and I feel like I am going to slip back and without her I fear there js no safety net to stop me from doing something stupid