What is Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder?

What is Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder?

Obsessive-compulsive disorder, often shortened to OCD, is the mental illness responsible for causing obsessions, which are repeated undesired sensations or thoughts, and compulsions, which are the urge to repeat a behavior over and over. Some people with OCD experience both compulsions and obsessions. It is important to note that OCD does not concern such habits as nail-biting or experiencing negative thoughts. You may not wish to have these thoughts or complete these actions, but with OCD, you feel powerless not to do them. Therapy for OCD, along with TMS for OCD, can help you find relief from your mental illness.

What is Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder?

Everyone encounters thoughts or habits that sometimes repeat. OCD is more involved than these minor quirks of mind and action. If you have OCD, your thoughts or behaviors take up a minimum of an hour daily, exist beyond the grasp of your control, are not enjoyable, and interfere with your some part of your life, from social connections to work or school. Medications and therapy for OCD can help alleviate and control symptoms.

What are the Signs and Symptoms of OCD?

While OCD can occur in a variety of forms, most cases can be categorized into one of four types. Checking is the first symptom to look out for. You may check ovens, locks, light switches, or alarm systems. You may have repetitive convictions that you suffer from a medical condition like schizophrenia. Contamination is the second. This is a fear that things you contact may be dirty; it may result in a compulsive need to clean.

Symmetry and ordering constitutes the third type of OCD. You may find yourself adjusting picture frames that do not belong to you but are slightly askew. The need to line things up in a certain way can be overwhelming. Finally, the fourth type of OCD involves ruminations and thoughts that are intrusive. This is an obsession with a certain train of thought. These thoughts may be disturbing, even violent.

Is OCD Different from Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder?

OCD and OCPD, or obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, constitute a source of confusion for healthcare professionals, researchers, and patients. While they have names and symptoms that bear similarities, OCPD and OCD are two distinct types of mental illness. Each has unique, specific characteristics. With OCPD, there is an excessive requirement for perfection and control over your environment and relationships. If you have OCPD, you likely will not see a need to seek help. You feel your behaviors are normal and rational.

How Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder Affects Your Life

With a better grasp of what is obsessive compulsive personality disorder, you can see its impacts on your life. If you have OCD, you may be aware that your habits and thoughts make no sense. You do not carry these things out because of enjoyability, but because you simply cannot quit. If you try to stop, you feel bad enough about it that you start again. Obsessive thoughts include:

  • Constant awareness of body sensations such as breathing or blinking
  • Worries about someone, whether yourself or others, getting hurt
  • Ungrounded suspicions that a partner has been unfaithful

These persistent and recurrent impulses, thoughts, and images cause distressing emotions that include disgust and anxiety. You likely are aware that these impulses, thoughts, and images are simply something conjured by the mind and are unreasonable or excessive. Unfortunately, reasoning and logic do not settle the problem of obsessions.

A compulsion is a repetitive behavior or act of the mind that you feel driven to perform due to an obsession. These behaviors attempt to prevent or reduce feared situations and distress. When OCD is at its most severe, your constant repetitions of specific rituals can occupy the entire day, causing normal routines to be impossible. While the compulsion may ease the worry, offering some relief, obsessions return and cycles repeat again and again. Compulsions include:

  • Cleaning to mitigate the fear that you will be contaminated by dirt, germs, or chemicals. You may spend hours cleaning your surroundings or washing yourself.
  • Repeating in order to dispel anxiety. You may utter a phrase or name, possibly repeating a behavior a number of times.
  • Checking to be sure that such potentially harmful details were not overlooked. This can include fears of forgetting to have locked the front door. The heart of this fear is that someone will be harmed because of a forgotten detail.
  • Arranging and ordering to minimize discomfort. Books may need to be placed in a particular order or household items arranged to a perceived perfection. Symmetry is often important with this type of compulsion.
  • Mental compulsions can be a response to intrusive thoughts or obsessions. Some people say phrases or silently offer ritual prayers to help ease their anxiety or prevent potential dreaded events from occurring.

How TMS Works for Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder

Soon after the manifestation of symptoms, you should seek treatment. Compulsions can grow more problematic over time, causing problems both physical and mental. When medications and psychotherapy fail to sufficiently mitigate your symptoms, try Pulse TMS for OCD treatment. This stands for transcranial magnetic stimulation. It is a deep brain stimulation therapy that uses a powerful magnet. This changes the brain’s activity in certain, particularly targeted areas. TMS aids in changing the information flow between neural pathways and neurotransmitters. This alleviates obsessions, anxiety, and compulsions in those with OCD.

TMS for OCD is a simple hour-long outpatient procedure. You remain awake throughout the procedure and can return to your normal day soon after a session. Studies show most patients seeing an improvement in function, experiencing reduced symptoms that cause distress, after about a month of TMS treatment. Those experiencing positive results regarding their OCD symptoms often find a decrease in their symptoms of depression and anxiety as well.

When you understand what is obsessive compulsive personality disorder, you can identify your symptoms, their effects on your life, and the need for treatment. Pulse offers TMS for sufferers of OCD of all ages. Contact us for more information and to achieve a healthy, normal life.