Having had Pure O (obsessional OCD without external counteracting compulsions) type OCD, off and on, over the course of my illness I can tell you with a straight face that I am grateful that my primary from of OCD is, more or less, classical contamination/washing type. Pure O puts you into another circle of hell.
People with Pure O type obsessions are even more reluctant to talk about them then those with the more outward type OCD. People just think someone like myself, is weird or idiosyncratic. That’s bad enough I suppose. But if I had, say violent obsession, where I thought I might go crazy and do someone some harm and I talked about those. Some would become alarmed about that.
In the post linked below, a fellow sufferer with Pure O talks about that. And he goes on to talk with great clarity about the difference between obsession and delusion and ego-syntonic verses ego-dystonic. It’s worth the read.
I recently had an interesting symptom. I told a few folks about it and they acted kind of alarmed. This is completely the wrong approach. There is no reason at all to be alarmed about OCD symptoms, as there is no threat of danger or violence in them. The only thing they do is make the person anxious and often make it difficult for the person to function.
3 Responses to “Pure O”
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Robert Lindsay on Mar 03 2007 at 7:35 pm
Thx for the write-up! I finally got the nerve to write about this - usually I just write about politics. Maybe I will email you…
Robert Lindsay on Mar 05 2007 at 5:24 am
Howdy incertus. I can’t find any email here on this blog to contact you with. My email is on my blog. I’d love to hear from you if you want to write me. If not, fine.
Incertus on Mar 05 2007 at 8:30 am
Heh. I don’t think I’d have the nerve to blog about politics. To may trolls and other lower forms of internet life. I dropped you an email.