OCD & Curiosity

[NotRock]

Hello everyone, I hope you are having a good weekend

I wanted to know your opinion about curiosity, I think that something "positive" like it, can be harmful in some cases in people with OCD. At the end OCD is "the doubt disorder", and curiosity tries to kill the doubt, doesnt it?

 

I will try yo explain better: From my point of view its clear that searching about info in google can be related to OCD compulsion (if we investigate about the topic we worry).

But of course life is not white and black (see how much I learned ), so imagine that a particular google seach is 5% related to a topic you worry (OCD) and 95% related to your own curiosity. Sometimes I fall into this trap and ,at the end, I feel that my OCD, although not dominating, is definitely a little bit stronger, at least for some hours).

Whats your opinion? We should try to supress curiosity if it is minimally related to OCD?

 

Thanks for your support and have good weekend.

[DRS1]

1 hour ago, NotRock said:

Hello everyone, I hope you are having a good weekend

I wanted to know your opinion about curiosity, I think that something "positive" like it, can be harmful in some cases in people with OCD. At the end OCD is "the doubt disorder", and curiosity tries to kill the doubt, doesnt it?

 

I will try yo explain better: From my point of view its clear that searching about info in google can be related to OCD compulsion (if we investigate about the topic we worry).

But of course life is not white and black (see how much I learned ), so imagine that a particular google seach is 5% related to a topic you worry (OCD) and 95% related to your own curiosity. Sometimes I fall into this trap and ,at the end, I feel that my OCD, although not dominating, is definitely a little bit stronger, at least for some hours).

Whats your opinion? We should try to supress curiosity if it is minimally related to OCD?

 

Thanks for your support and have good weekend.

I can struggle with this as I will spend hours happily researching topics or reading about things and that's not a compulsion but on similar topics that affect my OCD can be a problem. For example if I read an article on relationships or sex (or anything remotely sexual related) then that's not necessarily an issue and that's fairly normal for those without OCD without having to worry about it. However, if I feel the urgency to find out the information and can't put it off then generally I know it's a compulsion. It's most obvious if I'm looking for that "answer", I feel like it's been answered but then the next day it would start again and so for me that's not a good thing obviously.

 

In a sense, I naturally think very black and white anyway (I'm autistic so for some reason that's just a default thinking pattern for me albeit very unhelpful as it can almost work into the OCD) so it's not easy realising it's not black and white. Another thing that's interesting too is if you read an article or a news story you don't agree with a single sentence then for me at least OCD can turn that into "Oh my god, you read that single sentence, that must mean you agree with it" which to be honest at this point is absolutely hilarious.

 

So I don't think its a matter of suppressing any sort of curiosity around anything but more recognizing when there is the feeling of urgency and when there is not. If it's urgent then it's not curiosity, it's a compulsion. If it's curiosity, then there's no urgency and I can be curious about things even if the topic broadly may overlap with OCD. Here's the thing too, everything that's ever been a possible topic at all in the whole existence of the universe is fair game to OCD, so we can't simply avoid being curious about things and wanting to learn just because OCD has "taken" that topic. Avoiding it would be letting OCD win.

[NotRock]

22 minutes ago, DRS1 said:

So I don't think its a matter of suppressing any sort of curiosity around anything but more recognizing when there is the feeling of urgency and when there is not. If it's urgent then it's not curiosity, it's a compulsion. If it's curiosity, then there's no urgency and I can be curious about things even if the topic broadly may overlap with OCD. Here's the thing too, everything that's ever been a possible topic at all in the whole existence of the universe is fair game to OCD, so we can't simply avoid being curious about things and wanting to learn just because OCD has "taken" that topic. Avoiding it would be letting OCD win.

thanks, this is gold, you put word to some of my thoughts and now I have in much clearer

[DRS1]

8 minutes ago, NotRock said:

thanks, this is gold, you put word to some of my thoughts and now I have in much clearer

No problem