Who is a compulsive and obsessive person?
Obsession and compulsion don't always fit neatly into boxes. Maybe you follow relentless rituals to prevent an irrational fear. Perhaps you feel a constant need for things to be balanced and even. Or maybe your demanding internal standards mean you regularly work fourteen-hour days, then still find time to colour-code your wardrobe and scan the lawn for stray blades of grass. In clinical practice, the experience of both obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and obsessive compulsive personality traits is rarely clear-cut, and they often overlap. But at the end of the day, we are people, not just labels from a diagnostic checklist.
I've experienced both OCD and demanding internal standards from both sides of the therapy room. As a psychologist, I've spent many years helping others with their struggles, and for over three decades, I've also been managing my own. I've seen five therapists, each with different approaches, with no single silver bullet, just an accumulation of knowledge and a slow process of piecing things together.
This book isn't a clinician's guide or a self-help manual. There's no promise to 'overcome OCD' or 'let go of your unsustainable standards.' Instead, it's a brutally honest, unfiltered reflection on obsession and compulsion, from both clinical practice and personal experience.
No neat answers, no miracle cures, just the messy, frustrating, and unpredictable reality of leveraging life as a compulsive and obsessive person.
