I was diagnosed with OCD at 16. I can definitely verify I had it bad as a small kid. As young as five I remember having to do rituals to save my mother from dying. This included, but was by no means limited to, having to touch things like doorknobs six or a multiple of six times (going into the triple digits). This was not my only obsession or compulsion at all, it took up a lot of my energy until around the age of 11 and defined my life for me in a lot of ways. By the time I was diagnosed, I don’t think I had ocd. CBT did not do a lot to help it, other than ameliorating some social anxieties. 

I now have BPD. I haven’t been diagnosed but there is no doubt in my mind. I recently met a really incredible person and they became my fp. I had a bpd freak out and think I destroyed the relationship. But the thing I’m wondering about is this: before it happened, I had been aware (at least I thought) of the problems as related to bpd and trying to cope with them. When it happened, all that completely shut down and I was dead to any inner voice that told me to amend my thinking. It reminds me so much of how I felt as a little kid with what was often crippling ocd and accompanying emotional freakouts. So, so much. 

It occurs to me that, when you’re young, the “magical thinking” aspect of ocd is more palatable to your unformed brain. Rituals to prevent events you fear from happening seem not totally illogical. But at a certain age as we progress, the magical thinking thing no longer works. I wonder if a certain amount of bpd started as ocd in children. In that sense bpd could be seen as “obsessions about people” (indeed this is the exact phrase I communicated to the therapist who diagnosed me at 16), but without any accompanying compulsions, unless we’re talking about all the self-destructive behavior we’re all so familiar with;) When magical thinking is no longer an option, our obsessions move from static events that “might” or “mightn’t” happen, to human beings, who are always dynamic and unpredictable. 

Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts or experiences related to this?