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Combining Pure-O and 'Not-quite-right" OCD?


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Hi,

I'm pretty sure I have a combination of the Pure-O and 'Not-quite-right" OCD 'sub-types', but while there is a fair bit of information on them both online, I've never seen anything with them in combination. To summarise, I've always had a bit of an obsession with philosophical topics, but lately (for the last few years at least) I've found that I'm always getting hung up on really obscure 'triggers' - it seems like almost anything will cause me a spike of anxiety, and I'll go off into rumination about what it means. I think it's because of all my thinking about things like meaningfulness (the 'meaning of life', and in general), so any thought that strikes me as potentially non-meaningful, I'm then compelled to ruminate about, to figure out what it means. It's kind of like everything has to be significant in some way, and if I can't work out its significance, then I'm stuck ruminating on it. 

The reason I say it's combining Pure-O and 'Not-quite-right" OCD is that I feel something needs attention, but it's never something physical, like straightening an object up, it's always in my mind, like I have to sort my thoughts out, and if I have an anxiety spike about a certain thought or feeling, or even just a general theme, and can't figure out what caused it, then I'm doomed to ruminate. I never manage to confront the fear of not knowing either, because I'm always convinced I could miss something important (probably some philosophical insight or some insight into my own mind.)

Any thoughts very welcome!

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Hey there.

Don't get hung up on labelling your OCD. There's several general themes but an infinite variety of obsessions. At the end of the day, it's all OCD and it's all treated the same way.

You definitely need to slow down and stop your ruminating. Big thing is, when a trigger pops up, what if you just left it alone? You don't have to find the meaning behind your thoughts.

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Hi Koala,

I think I may have something similar. I ruminate a lot about whether life has any purpose. It's recently got worse, with me overthinking the purpose of why do people do what they do and does friendship have any meaning. I find no answer to these ruminations and just end up getting anxious, wondering whether I love my family, do I feel empathy and so on.

I've been diagnosed with OCD but often wonder whether I have lost the ability to care for others.

Sorry I can't give much advice but I believe that trying to stop the ruminations is a great help.

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Hi Koala

Your OCD sounds really closely related to mine!  I've had just about every type going over the years - some of the more common ones and some pretty weird ones as well.  I've been finding it very difficult to explain this latest one, but similar to yours and understanding things 'perfectly'.  So let's say someone says something that doesn't quite make sense, or is ambiguous...I have run explain to myself EXACTLY why it didn't make sense, the EXACT literal meaning of what they said, and each EXACT interpretation.  And this can take hours.  Literally.  Then once I've settled upon the 'facts', I have to explain it clearly to myself, in my head, or out loud, until it feels 'just right'.  There are lots of other examples too, but basically, anything I can't understand/explain exactly is causing me massive amounts of stress right now.  I read something on the BBC website this morning which triggered me off, and I'm still trying to work it through 5 hours later.  During this time, I have done almost no work because I just cannot focus on anything until I have dealt with this thought.  I know the answer is there but I just cannot find it!

Maybe that isn't very helpful, but I just want you to know that you are not alone in this.  If you find anything that works, please let me know and I will do the same.

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Thanks all. Yes, it's pretty bizarre. I think there's a logical problem where if the anxiety is about meaningless thoughts, then explaining the thoughts means that the anxiety isn't justified (and therefore is 'meaningless'), but if the anxiety is justified then the thoughts are meaningless. It's sort of a logical loop. I find that if I think something is meaningless and then can work out the meaning, then that still doesn't help because I then think "that all makes sense, I must have misunderstood what the trigger was - there must be something else that was (or seemed) meaningless." Almost like I think something is meaningless, and then if it isn't, I have to work out why it seemed meaningless - the "meaning behind the meaninglessness". It's pretty crazy - like my mind goes out of its way to give me a hard time.

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