Creatives and OCD

“I’ve been so OCD about this idea I have.”

The term OCD has become something of a badge among creative people. I recently heard a podcaster joke about being “OCD” about his preparation and filming setup. On its own, it was an offhand and passing comment, and yet the sentiment of it does land. There’s something real in the overlap of being someone creative who also obsesses over the quality of their work. Still, this kind of common, everyday use of OCD terminology can create a lot of cultural minimization towards the actual experience of OCD.

Creativity and OCD both involve a relentless drive, a thinking process that won’t leave ideas alone, and even the need for things to feel right. In both creative people and those with OCD, there’s a lot of thinking about your thoughts, a concept known as metacognition.

Highly creative people are often flooded by a constant stream of ideas in the form of novel associations and new possibilities. Thoughts and images demand attention and have an immediacy to them.

On a first glance, people with OCD experience something that seems similar to this: intrusive thoughts that feel urgent and compelling. But at its core, the OCD thinking process is actually very different than the creative thinking process.

When you’re deep in a creative “problem,” you’re pulled forward by a certain sense of excitement. In exploring a creative thought, there’s something that feels bigger and more energized than you or the moment. You hammer away at it because you want to see what it becomes, sometimes for long stretches of time. The creative engine is run by desire, curiosity, and often a determination and drive towards something that feels awe-inducing or even deeply mysterious.

The OCD engine is doubt. Relentless, fear-inducing thoughts. Doubt that often feels disturbing, or antithetical to who you are as a person on a fundamental level. The thoughts can often feel threatening. “What if this terrifying idea I have about who I am, about the future, about my life, is true? I have to do something about it.” Compulsions can extinguish thoughts, but only temporarily. There is not that sense of reward or satisfaction that might tail-end a creative thought process.

While creative perfectionism can overlap with OCD, they are not the same thing. Creative perfectionism, run by the creative engine, often leads to those feelings of satisfaction and creative curiosity.

I grew up with a kind of cultural conflation around the idea of being obsessed, particularly with musician parents who were passionate and dedicated towards their craft. They would often work on the same songs for hours into the night, replaying the same measures over and over again. Yes, there may have been something obsessive about it. There was a kind of comfort about witnessing it, too. Sometimes I’d think, “they’re so obsessed with their music,”  but in a way that admired.

Around creative peers, being obsessive was worn as a sort of badge. The tortured artist. Someone who suffers in pursuit of their vision, who won’t let it go until it’s right.

What drives creativity is often passion and spirit. But it’s much more interesting to identify as someone who is obsessed with process, who feels compelled to create and is driven by something romantic or mysterious. This kind of identity seems more pointed than something as “simple” as enthusiasm or pride.

Creatives often focus on culturally-significant themes, romance, specific people, colors, chords, and so on. Creative processes tend to mirror the circular ways we focus on our ideas and what inspires us . By all means, it can seem obsessive.

In OCD, this kind of positive, adoptable identify isn’t immediately or readily available. It can be more akin to a kind of invisible scarlet letter. The thoughts are intrusive and feel wrong, but they also feel wrong not to answer. These are not expressions of who you are, but feel disturbing to everyday life, to your sense of peace to your sense of self. Life gets organized around keeping thoughts and actions in check, and around trying to feel normal and okay in the face of it all. This ends up feeling like something to hide, not something to feel proud of.

Highly creative people with an OCD diagnosis face a particular tension in their lives. Their creative vision and drive of their passion exist, but it’s masked by the repeated doubts, disturbing thoughts and feelings, and sense that something is fundamentally and permanently wrong. The future can seem bleak and hopeless in the eyes of OCD. Creative people with OCD often feel trapped, ashamed, and privately convinced that things won’t change, while trying to achieve focus and commitment around their creative goals.

I am trained in Inference-Based Cognitive Behavior Therapy (I-CBT) for OCD, which is designed to help you get to the root of intrusive thoughts, and back in alignment with your most authentic and creative self. If you feel creatively driven, but stuck in thoughts, habits, and life patterns that seem to get in your way, therapy for OCD can help.