What Is Compulsive Personality Disorder?

Julius is a man who is very successful at work. He says that he has liked doing things well since he was young and that he spent many hours making sure that his homework and homework were “passable”. He defines himself as an organized, neat and perfectionist person.

In his own words , things are either done perfectly or not well at all. Then you have to start over and do it all over again. He likes details and he likes when things are in harmony. He likes routine and consistency. He thinks that the way he gets things done is the reason for the success he has now in his work life, even if he still thinks that is not enough.

What’s wrong with Julius?

From this point of view one might think that Julius – a successful man, highly valued at work, a hard worker, organized – has no problems. But the truth is that Julius’ personality creates ruptures in other areas of his life. Julius has an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. 

A person with this type of personality is defined by an increased perfectionism and an urge to want to control every situation. Being a perfectionist doesn’t mean making an effort to get things going as well as possible. That is normal and desirable. Rather, a perfectionist is a person who claims that what they set out to do must be perfect. The problem is, perfection doesn’t exist. Therefore, that person can spend hours and even days doing something that another person would be able to do in much less time.

Perfectionists tend to end or postpone things for fear that they will not do it perfectly. Because of their need for perfection, they are never satisfied with their results because they always think that they can do even better. As a result, they have a greater level of fear within them, which causes them to suffer and not be able to enjoy their successes.

The thinking of these people is called polarized thinking. That is, things are either black or white, good or bad. Either you are perfect or you are a failure. Since they never reach perfection despite their successes, they ultimately consider themselves failures.

People with such a personality are often completely dedicated to their work. They never take a vacation, even if their boss tells them to. Work comes first, often they bring work home every day without parting from it or engaging in other activities. Obviously, because of this behavior, their social and romantic relationships deteriorate because they no longer plan leisure activities. Even when they participate in such activities, they feel uncomfortable and think that they are just wasting time.

Relationships with coworkers are also difficult because they are unable to hand over work to others or accept help from others because they think the others are not competent enough.

As can be inferred from all of these characteristics, the central belief of these people is the need to get things done perfectly. They also have a strong fear and fear of failure or making mistakes.

What can Julius do?

It is true that personality disorders are difficult to correct, but psychotherapy combined with medication could be helpful for these patients.

First, it would be necessary to work on the faulty belief about perfectionism and control. The goal for these people is to learn and internalize that perfection is an unreal concept. It doesn’t exist and committing yourself to accomplish something that doesn’t exist will only bring fear and frustration. This in turn causes one to suffer, to be aggressive and unkind, or to distance oneself from one’s surroundings and isolate oneself emotionally.

The person has to allow himself to make mistakes. To be wrong is human and we as humans can and should make mistakes. Making mistakes enables us to learn and grow in every aspect of our lives. It means nothing more than that. Seeing a mistake as an absolute failure is wrong and we should help the person break away from this mistaken idea and be more rational.

It is also very important to learn to enjoy social relationships and free time. These people think that enjoying free time and participating in non-work-related activities is unnecessary. But the truth is that everyone in the world has to rest, switch off and recharge their batteries in order to perform better afterwards.

As these people are, they feel physically and mentally exhausted. Therefore, we should work with them on these ideas so that they understand that there is time for everything and that rest and pleasure are necessary in order to feel good physically and mentally.

People with this personality disorder should ask themselves, “What is the worst that could happen to me if I fail at this task in the end?”   Thinking about it can help one realize that we often form thoughts and images of disasters and drama in our heads that ultimately don’t exist.

The concerned mind always thinks that something worse is going to happen than what actually happens in the end. This leads to unnecessary suffering, which makes problem solving more difficult.

Images courtesy of http://amaltiempobuenapsique.com/2012/10/01/combate-el-perfeccionismo/