Obsession

I truly believe that I am a sufferer of the so-called obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD, or another jargon, anankastic personality disorder), which is a mental disorder characterised by a general psychological inflexibility, a chronic preoccupation with rules, procedures, perfectionism and excessive orderliness.

It is my philosophy that everything in my world has its place in a divinely designed order (of course my own order, nothing to do with divinity) which can never be questioned by others. I enjoy filing things away, put things in neat order, tidying up rooms, washing dishes and on and on, all of which, most importantly, have to be done by proper procedures. All of these are absolutely symptoms of OCPD, and therefore I have to accept that I am indeed an OCPD suffer.

I have consulted some psychology and mental health literature, together with web sites of related foundations such as OCD-UK and OCD Action, and found that fortunately OCPD is not as serious as obsessive compulsory disorder (OCD).

OCPD is usually confused with OCD. They are actually two distinct disorders, although there is only one more 'P' in the former.

According to OCD-UK,

[OCD] sufferers experience repetitive, intrusive and unwelcome thoughts, images, impulses and doubts which they find hard to ignore. These thoughts form the obsessional part of ‘Obsessive-Compulsive’ and they usually (but not always) cause the person to perform repetitive compulsions in a vain attempt to relieve themselves of the obsessions and neutralise the fear.

I don't think I have any concern about

contamination and germs, causing harm to oneself or to others, upsetting sexual, violent or blasphemous thoughts, the ordering or arrangement of objects, and worries about throwing things away.

As I do not feel any needed to perform ritualistic actions repeatedly, for example, washing my hand every three minutes, but rather just tend to stress perfectionism above all else and feel anxious when I think something is not in compliance with the divinely designed order, I'm definitely not an OCD sufferer

I have been keeping a diary for about 18 years, to the extent that I feel I must write something down every single day and it is an offence to leave one day blank in my diary. Even when I am so tired, unwell or when I forget because of too much intoxication to write anything, I will definitely do it the next day.

I suppose the reason why my thesis moves so slowly must has something to do with OCPD – every word, sentence, paragraph, section and chapter has to precise, no-nonsensical and impeccable.

The deadline of submission is the end of 2006. I may have to compromise perfection for the sake of getting the doctorate.