In the past at emotionally unstable points I've had really difficult times controlling myself. I've turned to alcohol to a great excess, had huge problems with my weight and eating habits, and I used to bite my nails pretty badly. Probably not as bad as some people but I've been in and out of therapy during my teens.

My assumption would be that there are quite a few people under the INFP type who've had OCD or similar issues.

 

Had short OCD-run, it took like 1-1,5 years about, I didnt got any help from anybody I cured it by myself, not funniest thing to have but when I realized what it is all about it started to go better. The first year was bad: I was like "wtf is this, do I have schizophrenia or what, then I read about it from internet and the rest is history, now am not very neurotic anymore.

To be honest I think OCD is quite common among INFPs
Anxiety-->Being neurotic---->Having OCD symptomps

I even would say that INFP is top 5 type who likely get OCD, our OCD is just kinda different than J types OCD.

 

Same here. I had OCD at a stressful time in my life. And I also cured it by myself. Researched a lot about it and by understanding why it's happening I actually stopped all the behaviors.

 

I suffer from an intermitent fear of HIV. I go for tests and even when they come out negative, I am back to where I started. It's pretty bad when I am under a lot of stress and anxiety. I use EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) to bring it under control. The mind is a powerful thing.

 

Like @LittleHawk had stated, when i am faced with tough emotional instability,it is hard for me to control some of my actions. I myself had become somewhat a pothead during this time which in a way kind of helped. It just numbed out emotions when i was high, when i would drink during this time i had the adverse affects. OCD is something i suffer from but not to the extreme that we all have heard about. In times of instability it becomes hard for me to maintain my composure.

I do pick at myself and have an odd obsession with my skin. I dont pick at things to the point they bleed but i have caused some scars just because i cant leave certain areas alone.

 

Typically with OCD, the obsessions are about germs, sex, religion, one's children. Do you all obsess about those things? What have you all done to make your OCD better? What drugs have you tried and which worked and which didn't?

I am also curious to read that no one has sought out medical attention for their OCD. I am curious to know if INFPs have an aversion to doctors. My ISFP father is particularly hard headed when it comes to my giving him medical advice.

 

I'm not sure about the Fi/self-mutilation hypothesis, but I think it's an interesting thought.

[edit/ off-topic]



Oh, but I do hate doctors. And dentists. And anyone else who wants to examine me. When people only care about your health. It's an uncomfortable, impersonal situation. But that's just me.

 

I know I'm way late to this thread, but I'm an INFP (presumably--most tests say I am; I thought I related until recently when I became fixated on how I could have been wrong all along and might actually be an ISFJ) with pretty severe anxiety and OCD. My OCD usually manifests itself in pretty ritualistic ways (most dealing with "If I do this, then inevitably this other thing will happen). Recently though, it's started to take form in medical worries. I've been in and out of urgent care and my regular doctors multiple times in the past few months for a number of reasons.
I've been medicated since I was a kid (Zoloft), and while it does help, it definitely numbs me out a bit. Instead of feeling quite deeply and constantly imagining different futures/scenarios, I just kind of ride things out. In college, I went off my medication and dealt with my anxiety in much less healthy ways. It didn't work too well.

 

I'm a wolf-biter. I think that's under the OCD umbrella. It's particularly acute in stress but as I'm often preoccupied, I'm just plucking away much of the time. Feels like aux/dom Fi would exacerbate OCD. Unsure.

Besides this, I've had some pretty bad hypochondriacal episodes that I won't get into.

 

Obsessive thinking has been pretty typical with me. Preoccupations, emotional perfectionism. Compulsive acting out related to body image issues, severe when I was younger.

 

Fiona Apple is an infamous INFP with OCD.

I don't have OCD but I have dealt with obsessive thoughts or behaviour as part of hypomania.

 

I am an INFP. When I was a child I had OCD behavior. One of the compulsions was that I HAD to turn pencils so their inscriptions faced down onto my desk. If I didn't do that..., ...
As I got older, things kept adding onto the compulsions. I couldn't eat in certain places during lunch, and eventually I couldn't eat anywhere but home. I nearly starved myself at a week-long summer camp. A counselor forced me to eat near the end of the week and I was absolutely terrified. Around 5th grade I HAD to randomly fold my hands and bow my head in prayer or, ..., ..., ...
I realized that people would look at me weird, like something was wrong with me. I have had a difficult relationship with religion as an adult. Religion can cripple someone with OCD.
I was socially rejected. An ex-friend told me in the bathroom that she wanted to be my "secret friend," but no one could know. I understood exactly what that meant. I felt anger and pain and desperation.
When I was coming into adolescence, I NEEDED to be accepted by SOMEONE and wanted to be loved more than anything else. So, one at a time, I forced myself to stop the compulsions. I didn't realize what I was doing, but one need outweighed the others so much that I braved the "bad stuff" that might happen out of sheer desperation for friends.
Unfortunately, ending compulsions does not end the obsessions. I'm close to 50 years old and have spent my life fighting against the horrible thoughts. I searched desperately for help and have been on medication half of my life.

Crying myself into numbness so I could go to school the next day. Then Crying every morning before going to work as I fought the terrors inside of me. Distractions like work temporarily distract me from my ruminating thoughts. I worked so hard to become well. Yoga did wonders to settle my soul into peace. But the obsessive horrible thoughts never went away. Every weak moment in my life opened the flood gates of horrible, and now angry, thoughts. I feel anger toward every person who hurt me throughout my life, especially toward myself. The anger has built up because my mind won't stop reliving all the hurt that has occurred in my life. I have fought against compulsions that tried to insist that someone I cared about would die if I didn't comply. But how do I battle the thoughts that created the obsessions in the first place?

I'm exhausted from fighting my head 24-7. Covid has left me in a place where I am not distracted as much from these thoughts as I work from home. However, the stress of interacting with others is lower. My life feels like a Catch-22 with my need to connect with others and the amount of anxiety and stress that being around people brings. Being INFP is a living contradiction between needs and wants.

I often wonder how much better off I would have been if I had born into a society that appreciated what INFP's bring to the table. Our strengths are deemed as weaknesses due to what society currently values. We appear to be cowards to others who can't understand our minds. I wish others could experience a day in my head to understand how strong I actually am.

 

I don't know a lot about obsessive compulsive disorder, but I do know since I was a child I could see tendencies in myself to become anxious and constantly second guess myself and need to recheck things multiple times which I actively forced myself to ignore and let go. I am still careful about avoiding things that would feed any anxious thoughts, and I'm certainly a worry-wart anyways.

I do have some little bored habits when I don't know what to do with my hands or when I'm waiting around like running the back of my thumbnail against the tip of my other fingers sort of like squeejeeing the sweat off (I have sweaty hands), and when I'm wearing something with a zipper I tend to absentmindedly run the fabric edge of the inside of the zipper under my fingernails - like... I can't not keep doing that and it annoys me so I either have to zip it up all the way or not wear things with zippers. I don't find other ways to fidgit with my fingers once the zippered thing is off, so... it doesn't feel like it's particularly emotion driven. shrug

 

I don’t think I could be formally diagnosed by a psychiatrist but I do love to “organize”.

On the shelf, I love for all cans in the pantry, to face forward, so I can see the labels.

I get great comfort in folding laundry into piles. It is easy and I just sit there sorting and folding. Easy on my mind.

I like sorting pens, pencils, pins and paper clips.

I like for all my gnomes, snowmen, figurines, books to be facing forward so I can see them properly.

I’m picky about certain foods: mayo can’t be “melted” or stand out on the counter for too long, I usually won’t eat any food that is old or has been in the refrigerator for over two days and here’s one that drives my husband crazy about me — I won’t eat food someone gives us because I don’t know what they have done with the food before it got to us. Sneezed? Coughed? Pissed on it? Christmas cookies made by others, is absolutely out of the question. I don’t know what you do in your kitchen. Maybe you are cooking naked and dangling your nasty bits in my Christmas cookies. I’m not taking a chance.

Okay, maybe I’m a germ-a-phobe. My husband stuck his hand in a pickle jar, early in our marriage, and I lost it. I told him he “contaminated” the whole pickle jar. Use a fork for god’s sake!

He is unaware he has food on his hands or face, then he touches doorknobs or toilet handles, and makes them greasy. Or has food on his face while talking to me. I’m waaaaaay too sensitive to not feel food on my face and I HATE getting my hands dirty. I feel that right away and remove it asap.

I don’t do repetitive stuff though, like wash my hands, over and over, check doors, over and over, but I do like for things to be “straight” on shelves, like mentioned above. I don’t have repetitive thoughts.

 

I have some symptoms of OCD--mostly just obsessiveness. When I was a teen I had some compulsions, but I think after learning what intrusive thoughts are, my mental health improved, regarding OCD.

I wasn't formally diagnosed but a couple psychologists have mentioned there are some similarities.

I just learned about something called "relationship ocd" and wondered if avoiding relationships for the past...since 2011, as well as really any romantic physical touch (like I went on a few dates and no kissing), could be related.

But even without ROCD, it could be an extension of some OCD like avoidance of getting into a new one (or really having any kind of physical intimacy).

I think I sometimes underestimate the obsessiveness and how it acts without the obvious compulsion part, if I do have some kind of underlying OCD like cognition.

Relationship OCD

By Guy Doron, PhD, and Danny Derby, PhD Case Example #1: At the age of 30, after many dating experiences, Evelyn found someone that she thought was great. He was... Read more »

iocdf.org

Some of these are very familiar--but I never had the stereotypical OCD compulsions that are really obvious in children. And since I'm actually pretty quiet and reserved irl about my thoughts, and especially my personal feelings, it's not like it shows.

How OCD Can Cause Cognitive Distortions

Learn how obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by a number of errors in thinking called cognitive distortions.

www.verywellmind.com

.

I sort of disagree with the last one in that link though--emotional discomfort intolerance. I think it's a bit more complicated--someone suffering from intrusive thoughts or OCD is probably in an unhealthy level of emotional discomfort (just from my own experience), so emotional discomfort could also just be a fear of that level of discomfort that comes from Obsessive thinking about upsetting/disturbing things. They have a high tolerance, imo, for emotional discomfort, but still react to it with fear because of the disordered way they've experienced it (in excess...due to the obsessions).

This could result in over-sensitivity and even over vigilance, but imo that's more like a Pavlov's dogs reaction to the emotional discomfort of OCD...which is incredibly uncomfortable. It's because it's so painful that they are afraid of triggering it.

But idk--I'm not a psychologist. Just seems sort of like a misleading name for a condition that creates a lot of chronic emotional pain and discomfort (at least from my experience--it's far far more painful and uncomfortable to be in the grips of it than functioning normally. I mean, it's your f*cking head--it's got a lot of sway over your perception and ability to enjoy life or function.)

I've always been functional for the most part, if I do have some kind of OCD condition. But I tend to keep that inside for the most part.