Perfectionism or OCD?

I am acutely aware that I am a serious perfectionist when it comes to certain things.  One example of this is work.  I always ensure that I do every piece of work to the ultimate best of my ability, even basic things like web editing and emails.  If there's a formatting mistake I get annoyed until it is all corrected.  Spreadsheets must look neat and not a scattering of thought.  Borders must be of specific densities, cells of specific shades.  This is perfectionism, and it can be a pain in the rear as things that could take five minutes often take twenty as a result of my need for everything to be just so.  

Yes, you can also get large ones

I'm not too concerned about this though; after all, striving to be 'perfect' when it comes to work must be, I assume, at least part of the reason I got this new job.  Always taking things on and taking time to respond to emails quickly, even when I'm snowed under being perfectionist with other pieces of work, could represent me as a hard worker... I like to think I am.  This is also in light of the fact that I am now starting to work evenings for this new job even though I'm not paid to do so, because I want to do a good job.  There is, of course, an argument that I need more of a social life so as to prevent this, but that's a blog for another time no doubt.

I'm also perfectionist when it comes to other things too, but to what point does it merge into OCD?  Take washing up, for example.  I have to wash up after my main meal each day and can't leave the dishes there untouched.  This isn't really a contamination thing, although that said I'm not keen on the thought of dirty dishes lying there for too long.  But overall, it's more of a 'I need to do this now' thing.  I've always had what I call 'an obsession' with doing little things like this in a certain order to a certain level of perfection.  When I've cleaned the dishes, they are clean, trust me.  So it's a combination of needing to do them in a fairly routine manner and doing them well... otherwise what's the point?

I already know that this is a minor inconvenience; it can be a pain in the backside to feel like I have to do things at certain times, but usually it never becomes more than this. 

Is this OCD?  I don't know; I would wager it's probably just a trait of personality.  Does something like this become OCD when it becomes a problem?  Where does one draw the line between being a perfectionist and having OCD?  

Going back to the cleanliness thing - a typical external manifestation of OCD and often used as the butt of jokes to describe OCD as a condition.  I have little hand gel soaps all over the place, I shower thoroughly once a day and feel dirty if I eat something without washing my hands immediately before.  But is this a problem?  I don't get sickness bugs (touch wood - note the irony) and although I am prone to colds I would take that over getting anything worse.  So maybe cleaning my hands more than the average person is simply good health and sense rather than OCD.  

Where OCD has become a problem for me is twofold; a) where doing things in a certain order or a certain way has triggered anxiety and b) the manifestation of a type of Pure-O, whereby I have a song stuck in my head that refuses to budge (I don't think this is something I've ever really written about so watch this space).  But personally, apart from things like the cleanliness being mildly irritating sometimes, I wouldn't deem it problematic.  But I would probably class it as OCD.  

This trait of mine is obviously linked to my wider anxious history.  But why in particular might I be a perfectionist or have OCD?  Firstly, regarding perfectionism, I believe it's a fear of failure.  I was rarely told off at school, but I can vividly remember most of the few occasions I was or when I got a disappointing mark for a piece of work.  Rather than seeing it as 'just one of those things,' or character building or constructive criticism, I saw it as failure and subsequent anxiety.  So avoiding this feeling has probably resulted in much of the perfectionism.  

The cleanliness thing has probably been seeded by my parents' love of cleanliness.  You could eat your dinner off the floor in my parents' house and their vacuum cleaners don't half do some miles.  Granted, my parents don't use copious amounts of hand gel, but at the same time I don't vacuum the floor in my house very often... maybe similar traits just manifest in different ways.

OCD is a serious condition; I've seen many documentaries and heard stories of people who have debilitating rituals that they have to go through.  I'm lucky not to have this and when I do things that could be classed as OCD, I reflect on the fact that actually, they're not causing me any great problems.  I'm rationalising about it - a CBT technique used to alleviate anxiety, of course.

As I mentioned before, I will have to share my Pure-O (if that's what I've had) experiences on this blog soon.  That occurred at the height of one of my most anxious periods; whether the anxiety caused the Pure-O or vise-versa is still something I debate with myself about today.  Anyway, I'll leave this for another time.  

Best wishes
Al