Last semester, a classmate and I went to one tutorial session to see how it would work for us. The topic of the tutorial was about personality disorders. When we were discussing obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, the tutor told us a story of a woman with OCPD who was featured in a TV show or something like that. This woman looks perfectly normal if you meet her outside her home; she is neat and is always made up nicely. But when the people from the show checked her house, the place was a pigsty. She has two dogs so there was poo everywhere. In my mind, I saw leftovers and creepy-crawlies all over the place. They asked the woman why she allowed this to happen and she said that if she cannot clean her house perfectly she might as well not do it. Hard to believe but as my psych instructor always say, “You never know how people think.” I also love it when she says, “Don’t laugh. You don’t know who you’re seating next to.” Anyway, the point of this entry is all over the place now hehehe. I remembered this because…

MY ROOM IS A MESS! It’s been nagging me, even when I’m at work. Sure I have 1-2 hours available before or after work. But I can’t and won’t do it until I have that perfect day when I can do everything from start to finish. I have things to clean, organize, put away, and I need to make some sort of plan/schedule of stuff that needs to be done before fall. I must be going crazy.

Anyway, going back to personality disorders, I learned that OCD is different from OCPD. OCD is easier to control or treat or, dare I say, cure, whereas OCPD is not something you (doctors, therapists, etc.) can change. Your personality is who you are, period. People who have personality disorders are ego-syntonic, meaning they don’t believe or realize that there is something wrong with them. A person with depressive disorder, who suddenly lost interest in activities/people they ordinarily enjoy and spend time with, could take medications, have therapy, and eventually get better. On the other hand, a person with schizoid personality disorder will have a persistent pattern of avoiding people and relationships, nothing anyone can do about that.