Use OCD as a splinter skill in a GOOD obsession?

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GoldTails95
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05 Mar 2015, 6:24 pm

I am sick to death of the OCD obsession that makes me look like a loser procrastinater. It has changed my effort image to how my family thinks of me and because of that OCD has got me on its very last nerve. I want to channel my OCD and my autism into doing something I want to learn, Biology and Marine Biology. I know a prespctive to increase knowledge I bio, marine biology, and oceanography to replace the obsessive thoughts that are giving me pain. I have heard from psychologists that distracting yourself into a totally new interest is a way to relieve OCD symtpons. But when I try to learn bio, the thoughts in my head just drop. Yet when I know something new about my painful obsessive interest, I soak it in like a songs. Any REAL way I could do to switch the channel? I think changing my to the personality I REALLY want to be along with not being afraid of it and going strongly firm on it and doing actitivies related to my mind interests could actually be a real mind trick for my case? Any other good ideas?


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ToughDiamond
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06 Mar 2015, 9:16 am

I've had some success in using special interests to do useful things, but most of the time there just isn't enough overlap between my interests and the interests that the real world imposes on me. I think most courses are at least partly designed to test whether the candidate is able to tolerate long periods of boredom and hard work.

When my special interests have proved useful, it's probably because I habitually ask myself whether or not my plans will "work," i.e. if an activity doesn't look as if it will have any practical value, I'll see it as a non-productive, recreational thing, and apportion my time accordingly.

Self-employment might be easier to match with a particular obsession. I find it a lot easier to work on "random" matters if I myself have worked out that I need to, than I do if it's just other people telling me I need to.

It's also difficult because of timing issues. An activity might be well-matched to a laudible goal, but it's still quite a waste of time if I spend way too long trying to get a perfect result when it doesn't need to be perfect.