What is OCD? - Scrupulosity

In this post on OCD I will talk about a type of OCD known as scrupulosity. In previous posts I have talked about well known types of obsessions such as contamination and germs but also mentioned that someone with OCD can experience unwanted thoughts about anything that is thinkable.

In its simplified form OCD is usually considered an anxiety disorder. However in the latest version of the DSM this has been changed and I would agree with the change. The reason is that OCD is an extremely complex disorder and anxiety is only one part of OCD. Other emotions can be just as strong in someone with OCD depending on their obsessions and it is important to understand what these emotions are in order to have a successful treatment.

I think this is particularly noticeable in scrupulosity OCD. A person with scrupulosity has obsessions related to the areas of morality, relgion or ethical and legal matters. With scrupulosity the emotion of guilt is one of the main motivators that drives then person to perform compulsions.

The guilt that a person with scrupulosity feels is not the everyday guilt that one may feel from committing some minor transgression such as telling a white lie but is the feeling of impending doom, darkness and damnation. A religious person may have the obsession that they are damned for eternity or that they have committed some unforgivable sin. They are filled with doubt about their own salvation and are guilty without a crime.

People with scrupulosity tend to have a perfectionist nature and hold themselves to extreme moral standards that are not required of others. For example a religious person might be saying a prayer and they will feel that they weren't sincere or that they might not of had the right inflection when saying it and then repeat the prayer over and over until they feel they have done it right. In extreme cases this can take hours to recite a simple prayer.

Another common compulsion for those with scrupulosity is the avoidance of reading religious texts or looking at religious imagery or even avoiding attending religious services. This is because all of these things will trigger extreme guilt inside the person and the person will avoid them in order to try and quell the emotions they feel.

It is believed, although it can't be confirmed because he lived so long ago, that Martin Luther suffered from OCD and scrupulosity. There are stories about how Luther would continually go to the priests to confess about the smallest of sins he believed himself to have committed and that the priests would get annoyed and tell him to come back only when he had an actual sin to confess.

Because of the extreme guilt they feel, people with scrupulosity will often experience the need to confess in order to relieve the huge burden they feel or to try and get confirmation that they are not the horrible person that their mind tells them they are. Although scrupulosity most likely occurs in religious people it can occur in people who are not religious as well.

Another part of scrupulosity can be related to the strict adherence to laws or ethical matters. A common thought is that a student will think they have plagiarized someone on an assignment even though they have not used any sources but themselves and everything is in their own words. This can lead the person to rewrite over and over or even destroy their work because they are not able to write it without feeling they have done something ethically or morally wrong.

In my own experience as a musician I had extreme obsessions about copyright laws. At one point I was unable to listen to music on youtube because it might have been put their illegally and I didn't want to break the law by listening to it. Furthermore I had spent about 5 years composing music which had taken me enormous amounts of time to complete and with the click of a mouse I deleted all of it because my mind told me I had stolen the ideas from other people.

In this post I have given a brief description of scrupulosity and some of the obsessions and compulsions that people experience but this is only the tip of the iceberg of scrupulosity. Check out my other posts on OCD for more info:

https://steemit.com/psychology/@timspeer/what-is-ocd-obsessions
https://steemit.com/psychology/@timspeer/what-is-ocd-an-introduction