oc...what?

According to my Holy Trinity of Mental Health (i.e. my psychiatrist, therapist and general practitioner), I have the following mood disorders:

1. Dysthymia (chronic depression, no shock there)
2. Generalized Anxiety Disorder (eek! What does that mean???)

and...

3. Mild OCD

Bizarre, right? But it turns out that certain things I always thought were personality quirks are actually symptoms of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). I don't mean what you typically think of when you hear OCD - couting, tapping, checking locked doors, organizing objects, etc - but rather my cognitive behavior.

Here are my OCD tendencies:

1. Perfectionism
2. A rigid sense of right and wrong
3. Constant worrying
4. Over analyzing
5. Strongly opinionated
6. Wanting everything to be defined/in the right place/labeled

among other things.

I never really thought that those could be symptoms of OCD. Pretty interesting to learn. I think the golden nugget in all this information is that I can truly change those things about myself. I'm not just stuck with these character flaws.

And for the first time in my life, I think I can change.

wg