CLUSTER C PERSONALITY DISORDERS

10 Signs You Might Have Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder

For those who ever wondered whether they have OCPD

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder is different from OCD, even though there is overlap between them. The ways to distinguish them are:

• Presence of Obsessions and Compulsions

Someone with OCD has irrational thoughts that continually repeat (obsessions) and irrational behaviours that are performed repeatedly (compulsions). Someone with OCPD, on the other hand, doesn’t have personality traits directed by uncontrollable thoughts or irrational and repeated behaviours.

• Feelings About Obsessive Behaviours and Thoughts

People with OCD usually feel distressed by their obsessions and compulsions even though they are unable to control them. People with OCPD, however, believe that their behaviours have an aim and purpose and are unlikely to think they have a problem.

• Consistency of Symptoms

The symptoms of OCD tend to fluctuate depending on patients’ anxiety levels. Obsessive and compulsive behaviours are a way for people with the disorder to cope with fear and anxiety. In other words, symptoms will lessen when patients are not experiencing high levels of anxiety.

OCPD, on the other hand, is a personality disorder, which means it’s all-pervasive and the maladaptive behaviours tend to be persistent over the long term. The symptoms do not fluctuate depending on anxiety levels and are present in almost every area of the person’s life.

Here are ten signs you may have OCPD:

1. You are a perfectionist

People with OCPD are perfectionists to the level it may interfere with task completion. They may fail to complete a project because their overly strict standards are not met. They are rigidly orderly or organized and, as a result, lack flexibility, openness and efficiency. They demand from themselves and others perfection and excessive attention to minutia.

While people with other personality disorders often show evidence of perfectionistic tendencies, those with OCPD are the most severe in this regard.

2. You are preoccupied with details, rules, lists, order, organization, or schedules

People with OCPD constantly draw up lists, rules, orders, rituals, and organizational schemes. Actually, they value compiling and following rigid schedules and checklists more than on the activity itself or its goals. For example, if they plan a trip, they may become so obsessed with budgeting and scheduling that they stop looking forward to it. In other words, they can suck the fun out of everything for themselves and others through excessive attention to logistics.

3. You are excessively devoted to work and productivity

People with OCPD tend to be workaholics, but this is not because they like to work or need the money. They tend to draw their sense of self-esteem and confidence from their accomplishments. They are workaholics because their job is like their narcissistic supply.

This is different from NPD because narcissists want accomplishments to brag and garner attention. In contrast, people with OCPD are much less concerned about attention and are focused on the work itself.

They often sacrifice family life, leisure, and friendships for productivity and output. They believe only they can get the job done properly, even though they are not very efficacious or productive in most cases.

4. You are inflexible about matters of morality, ethics, or values

Socially, people with OCPD can be resented and rejected because they can be self-righteous to the point of bigotry. They are so excessively conscientious and authoritative that it is often difficult to maintain a long-term relationship with them. They regard their impossibly high moral, work, and ethical standards as universal and binding.

People with the disorder also struggle to see other people’s perspectives. As a result, they can be as rigid in their views as they are in their habits, often looking down on people who disagree with them. They may find themselves getting into a lot of arguments where they and the other person are just talking past each other.

5. You follow self-imposed rules even when they make no sense

Most people may follow specific rules to get things done, but people with OCPD have rules they follow even when it makes no sense. As a result, they may start to feel restricted by their own self-imposed rules and limitations, but they feel unable to stop.

Furthermore, they often cannot deal with any deviance from their rules, timelines, or schedules. As these may not make sense to anyone but them, they can cause significant problems in their interactions with other people.

6. You are reluctant to delegate tasks or to work with others

People with this disorder do not like to delegate tasks to others unless they can micromanage the situation to fit their expectations. The same applies to when they have to work together with someone. This is because they trust no one to get the job done up to their standards, making them difficult to deal with in work settings. In addition, they tend to be very stubborn and unwilling to accommodate others’ preferences.

7. You are extremely frugal

People with OCPD see money as something that needs to be hoarded for future catastrophes, but unlike healthy people, they will take this to the extreme. They may skimp on essentials even if they have the money to spend, and they have a miserly spending style that extends to themselves as well as other people. Essentially, they engage in what one might call “compulsive saving”.

People with this disorder feel unable to discard worn-out or worthless objects even when they have no sentimental value. They are so terrified of change that they rarely discard anything, relocate, deviate from the familiar route to work or embark on anything spontaneous. This is due to their view of the world as hostile and unpredictable.

8. You have experienced mood lability from a young age

While it’s normal to have experiences with anxiety and depression throughout life, it is not normal if these are chronic and experienced most of the time.

People with OCPD are emotionally dysregulated. Their emotions can be all over the place, and these are often unexpected, eruptive, explosive, dysregulated, chaotic and disorganised. It can also be difficult for them to label these emotions.

They tend to suffer from social anxiety, pervasive shame (the sense that you are flawed and defective as a human being), depression and low self-esteem. They often have a “thin skin” and take things personally and tend to externalise blame when there’s a conflict.

9. You have a fearful-avoidant attachment style

People with this attachment style fear abandonment and have a deep-seated fear of rejection, which means they worry that they will be hurt if they allow themselves to become too close to others. As a result, they can go to extreme measures to avoid real or imaged separation or rejection, such as by people-pleasing even at a cost to themselves or making suicide threats to guilt people into staying in relationships.

Due to their attachment issues, people with this disorder have a high need for interpersonal control. Unfortunately, this often leads to hostility and outbursts of anger at those around them. As a result, they are typically seen as overly rigid and controlling since they often expect their coworkers, friends, and family to conform to their “right” way of doing things.

10. You struggle or have struggled with eating disorders, especially anorexia nervosa

People with OCPD often have extraordinary self-control and a remarkable ability to delay gratification. There’s a significant overlap between OCPD and eating disorders. At the core of OCPD is perfectionism, extreme rigidity, and excessive need to exert control over one’s environment. These characteristics are also used to diagnose some eating disorders.

References:

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596

Young, S., Rhodes, P., Touyz, S., & Hay, P. (2013). The relationship between obsessive-compulsive personality disorder traits, obsessive-compulsive disorder and excessive exercise in patients with anorexia nervosa: a systematic review. Journal of eating disorders, 1, 16. https://doi.org/10.1186/2050-2974-1-16

Wiltgen, A., Adler, H., Smith, R., Rufino, K., Frazier, C., Shepard, C., Booker, K., Simmons, D., Richardson, L., Allen, J. G., & Fowler, J. C. (2015). Attachment insecurity and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder among inpatients with serious mental illness. Journal of affective disorders, 174, 411–415. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2014.12.011

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