OCD is NOT what you think

Ok, I'll try to keep this short because this week is all about moving in. Yes, I've made the big move from Texas to Illinois for grad school in a mere 22 days! But as I start to organize my belongings, I'm reminded of a semantic error I hear all the time. Being neat does not make you OCD. Organizing your desk a specific way does not mean you have obsessive compulsive disorder.

OCD is defined as people who "feel the need to check things repeatedly, or have certain thoughts or perform routines and rituals over and over. The thoughts and rituals associated with OCD cause distress and get in the way of daily life." The NIMH do a pretty good job of breaking it down. Basically you can't help but do repeated actions (aka, compulsions) because of obsessive thoughts. These are people who wash theirs hands so much they become raw and painful, but they're still experiencing obsessive thoughts about the germs on their hands. This is a serious mental disorder that is often trivialized.

*crying* Why aren't my bananas stacked?!

I hear friends all the time say, "I so have OCD. This morning I spent 2 hours reorganizing my closet!" NO. JUST NO. You do not have OCD. You have OCPD. This is a personality disorder (which can be a bit difficult to clinical-ize as it is). The best way to describe OCPD is "characterized by a preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and mental and interpersonal control, at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency." For example, when I was a tiny tot, my mom used to slice up a banana for me as a snack. I would carefully create two towers of stacked banana slices and then eat an equal number of slices from each stack so that they would stay even. Being a 'banana stacker', as my parents used to call me, would be a mild form of OCPD, not OCD. When you avoid doing school work by cleaning out all the old papers you don't need on your laptop, that's mild/symptomatic of OCPD.

So yes, I've spent an inordinate amount of time organizing and reorganizing the kitchen in my new apartment. It verges on OCPD, but not OCD. Next time you have a moment of uncontrollable need to clean/organize/neaten/align something, remember that you're experiencing OCPD.