"Beneficial" OCD... striking a balance

[manuel_moe_g]

Hello TinyBelgianSteps, let me welcome you to our little forum! I see you have already begun contributing to the threads, and that is awesome!

I don't know about living with OCD, but many of the observations you made apply to me. I am constantly managing my anxiety, and my high level of awareness from that and fear of future failure helps me in my job.

What I have learned:

[1] Things either work for you, or you work for them.

[2] Perfection is a joke. When you are 60% ready, you know for a fact you should have already started. Forward motion and failure are the best teachers. If you only have to fail once to learn a particular lesson, you are way ahead of the curve.

[3] The "day-to-day" "moment-by-moment" is the only thing real in this world.

[4] "Executive control", "willpower", "self-discipline", "self-control", "will-to-change", "will-to-do-what-is-strange-and-difficult" are all the same thing, and you have precious little of it. Precious precious precious little of it - your supply of "willpower" is so very tiny, so very precious, so very dear. You have to use it now to makes decisions and commitments now so you can rely less on that tiny supply of "willpower" in the future, so you can use that little bit of "willpower" on higher-level goals. Or not. But if you are lucky enough to experience what you call "tomorrow" you will know the difference. The goal is to ratchet up to higher and higher levels of moral responsibility. Or not.

I don't know if what I wrote is actually helpful, but it is helpful to talk about these kinds of things, and society does anything except talk about these things, leaving people adrift and in pain. Seek out the very few people talking about such things and make your own reality.

No matter what you decide, I am cheering for you because you are the expert on your own experience. Please take care, all the best!

[weary]

Hi.
So your post caught my eye immediately because I myself have a PhD and it happens to be in biochemistry and also I have a touch of the OCD . I'm not officially diagnosed with OCD - my therapist says I'm a bit more on the obsessive side than the compulsive side (but I lie awake at night thinking about what he really means by that...) - but I struggle with depression, anxiety, low-self esteem and I do spin out into obsessive thoughts and occasionally compulsive behaviors. Yep. And if you haven't met our good friend imposter syndrome yet, you likely will at some point... ask me about that sometime.

Yeah, science types and OCD go together like peanut butter and jelly. You are right in that it can be a superpower that is used for good, but like any superpower, when out of control, it wreaks havoc.

that there are many, many procedures that I carry out on a daily basis, and my OCD brain wants to assign an infinite number of rules to all of them.

I hear you. I struggle with perfectionism and not wanting to show my work, and have since the second grade.
Here's a thought. Assigning the rules is good. Double checking is good. How do you know when you're going overboard? Do science. Do the control experiment. When doing a procedure, use your rule and don't use the rule another time. If you see a difference, you know the rule is helping. If you don't see a difference, you might be able to unclench your sphincter a smidge on that particular thing. But that way, you will feel like you have a legitimate reason for doing so, and you're not just throwing caution to the wind.

I don't know... honestly, I think I would kind of like to have a high-functioning OCD graduate student working in my lab. Especially a thoughtful and self-aware one like you seem to be. Again, you seem to have some mad skills using it as a superpower. I actually have a grad student working for me at the moment that's bipolar, and that's a bit more of a challenge.

As far as advice, I have found cognitive behavioral therapy to be helpful in managing anxiety, which is really at the root of most OCD type behaviors. There are many good books and workbooks out there, but there is one called Mind Over Mood that I have used that I have found particularly helpful. In general trying to put specific words to the general feeling of anxiety or panic that can compel you to engage in the OCD thoughts or behavior can help you learn how to come up with ways to talk back to it in a rational way.

I've spent hours and hours and hours doing painstaking work that's ended up being entirely pointless.

Um, I really hate to be the one to tell you this, but that is what grad school is all about...

That's long enough of an answer for now. I hope to hear from you more in the future - PM if you need to. I'd be glad to have discussions with you that are more specific to dealing with these issues in the context of working in the lab, etc. And listen to what manuel_moe_g has to say. That guy is a wise man.

[Jitters]

This is an old post, but it struck a cord with me. I too have a little bit of OCD, but never been diagnosed. In my field of intensive care nursing being obsessive is very useful. Triple checking everything and completing tasks in ritualistic order are our bread and butter. It's probably part of what attracted me to the field to begin with. I find that when I do a behavior I like to analyze why I do a behavior. For me if I'm doing a behavior that is taking up a lot of my mind and is obsessive I wean myself of that behavior. Of course it's easier said than done I still check all locks three times... I would suggest therapy or support group. It's super scary, but I think I'm going to start soon so I believe in you!