Who is Mr. OCPD?
Who is Mr. Obssessive-Compulsive-Personality-Disorder, nicknamed “Mr. OCPD”? Easy: me. But also you. You, me, anyone struggling with OCPD or anyone who recognizes herself or himself in between the lines of this website. I am a male so it’s obviously “Mr.” OCPD but a slight leap of “fate” and it would have been Mrs. OCPD blogging her way on to you.
Though I usually adopt a very personal perspective in recounting the psychological stories of Mr. OCPD, myself being the protagonist, I nevertheless expose those thoughts and events of my life as though they could be just as applicable to you or to anyone else. I write knowing that some will, hopefully, recognize themselves. Hence I am simultaneously a very personal Mr. OCPD and a very generalizable Mr. OCPD. Remember: you might have the same trait as I have, but in SLIGHTLY different forms or with slightly varying contents, triggered by similar stimuli or even processed through resembling thoughts. Nevertheless, the pattern remains.
To call myself Mr. OCPD is a bit seedy you might think, as it implies that my life revolves around OCPD and that it is my main defining characteristic. You are entirely right: naming myself “Mr. OCPD” does indeed imply exactly that! To the difference that I now refer to my virtual self : Mr. OCPD only lives on the Internet and nowhere else. In the real world Mr. OCPD does not exist and is rather one aspect of my whole personality, my real self . The anonymity of the Internet does allow me to create this persona called Mr. OCPD but as you can well imagine, I do actually carry on a normal life just like everyone else. OCPD does of course affect my everyday life but at this moment in my life I consider that I am no more incapacitated by my handicap than the average person can be by its own physical or psychological difficulties.
My "pedigree"
In terms of OCPD the earliest memory I recall about something really “abnormal” going on might have actually been something like 4 years ago. As you can imagine, OCPD is not something that appears out of the blue one day; it surfaces gradually. It is a condition that has always been an inherent part of my self; up until not long ago though it had not gotten the opportunity to fully develop itself and live through its symptoms. It had been somewhat latent all of those years. As demonstrated by one of the main contemporary models in many scientific domains and specifically in psychology, an individual “carrying the latent trait” may never even see the trait manifest itself during the course of its life. Only the specific combination of certain factors during times of vulnerability (e.g. stress, trauma, biological dysfunction, environment, education, etc.) may bring about a manifest OCPD.
This being said, I have of course always been somewhat of an OCPD-proned individual even during the earlier stages of my life as that is how I have been brought up. My personality in its entirety has been revolving around (and still probably will always do) OCPD. The nuance though is that lately (in terms of years) it has become really destructive and I have come to suffer a lot from this condition. Consequently I have started to consider myself as an “official” OCPD-affected person. Even if I was OCPD-influenced in the past anyway, I was not conscious of it or at the most I thought it was only “normal”, whereas now I can clearly identify the discomfort it puts me through.
I have been seeing a therapist last year in 2009 for an extra-short cognitive behavioural therapy of 5-6 sessions, obviously aware from the beginning on that the length of the therapy would not be bring about conclusive results and substantial progress. However the decision was not mine: I was moving from one city to another and also experiencing major instability in events of my life. In addition, I have been taking the SSRI antidepressant Luvox (fluvoxamine) for the past year now and I have to admit (as I had always been skeptical of medication) that they have been salutary in their effect. I do indeed recall the anxiety and distress that I felt when I finally decided to step on my pride to go and consult a GP before it would be too late. As you may well know, no medication has been specifically conceived for OCPD nor OCD; antidepressants are however prescribed as they have proven to be effective in alleviating such conditions.
A few personal demographical factors:
Age: early 30's
Gender : male
Nationality: Canadian
Education: Masters (M. A.) in Psychology
Professional occupations: part-time researcher, part-time teacher