OCD

My “welcome” mat reads

“I have CDO. It's like OCD but the letters are in alphabetical order, As they should be.”

The sentiment is one found on T-shirts and other items as well. The aim is to be cute, but the idea raises some interesting questions.

The basic one is “Where do you draw the line between obsession and compulsion?” Only your psychiatrist knows for sure. Or at least claims to know. But that “knowledge” is really little more than prejudice, judgment, and guesswork. The diplomas on the wall are all that give the diagnosis its validity.

We all do things in particular ways. For many the choice of action is called habit; for others it's because “that's the law (secular or religious)” and violation of law is anathema. Still others act in a particular way because of memory or tradition – or even obsession or compulsion. We're governed by what Freud called our “superego.” I'm not quite clear how he differentiated between ego, superego, obedience of whatever law we followed, timidity and inhibition, societal taboos, peer pressure, and a whole host of other governors. They're all part of a spectrum of controllers, and where you draw the line is as much dependent on your own place on that spectrum as the place of the individual whom you are evaluating.

Or is there a spectrum? The whole idea of a spectrum suggests a progression from one to another – either increasing or decreasing in force. And there is an overlay of “better” and “worse.” But I'm not sure that's the right way of viewing the situation.

We do things in a particular way because, well, that's the way we do them. (How's that for a truism?) The judgment as to whether or not they are pathological may be less based on us than the biases and guesses of those who would judge us. That's not to suggest that our actions may not be irrational, but what is viewed as irrational isn't necessarily pathological.

A view that rules or dogma should take precedence over thoughtful evaluation may reasonably be seen as fanaticism, but that, itself, is the rule rather than the exception. In our country we're divided into two main political factions and, for the most part, we vote according to our affiliations, finding justifications for positions that we would condemn were they taken by our opponents. Is the compulsion to vote according to party loyalty any less unhealthy (to our country as well as ourselves) than that to put letters in alphabetical order?

Perhaps it's unhealthful and, indeed, foolish to fear germs lurking wherever you look, but it's true that they're there. And a preoccupation with them, however distracting it may be to the obsessive, doesn't harm his country and his fellow citizens. When we label him however, we lessen the need to examine our own biases, fetishes, and foibles. We're normal. He's crazy.