Imagine your friend tells you they have OCD. You picture a person alphabetizing their spice rackbby emotional trauma level. Then someone else says they have OCPD, and you nod like you understand, even though internally you’re thinking, “Wait, there’s a P now?”
Let’s break it down. Not for fun. For clarity. Because confusion is the real mental illness.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): The Intrusive Thought Dumpster Fire
OCD is a mental health disorder. It involves obsessions (unwanted, intrusive thoughts that feel like a brain slug is torturing you) and compulsions (behaviors you do to try to shut your brain up).
● Example: “What if I ran over someone with my car and didn’t notice?” Then you circle the block twelve times to “make sure.”
● It’s ego-dystonic, which means people with OCD usually know their thoughts are irrational. But that doesn’t stop the anxiety from being very real.
● People with OCD don’t want these thoughts. They’re not proud of the rituals. They’re exhausted, not quirky(well, they are but not in a fun “Mr. Monk” kind of way).
OCD is not a fun personality trait. It’s not being “really into cleaning.” That’s just you being really annoying.
Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD): The Perfectionist Apocalypse
OCPD is a personality disorder, not an anxiety disorder. It’s a pervasive pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and control, at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency. People with OCPD believe that their way of doing things is the right way. And statistically, sometimes it is. Some common traits are:
● Reluctance to delegate tasks unless others submit to the exact same way of doing things.
● Perfectionism that interferes with task completion (the thing never gets done, but the outline is immaculate).
● Excessive devotion to work and productivity, to the exclusion of leisure and relationships (the DSM politely skips over the rage this causes in romantic partners).
Example: A person with OCPD might spend three hours adjusting the margins on a spreadsheet you didn’t ask for. Then they’ll email it to you with the subject line “fixed.”
People with OCD often feel misunderstood because their disorder is reduced to memes about organizing their closet. Meanwhile, people with OCPD might not even know they have it, because it can feel like just “having high standards”, until their relationships implode.
Mislabeling these two conditions is like calling a brain tumor just a really bad vibe. Keep telling yourself that while the damage spreads.
In Conclusion
If you’re unsure whether you’re struggling with OCD, OCPD, or just the collective burnout of living in a hyperproductive nightmare world, that’s fair. The lines can blur. But therapy can help you sort it out with compassion, clinical rigor, and maybe, one day, a little less existential dread.