link between DID/OSDD and OCD?

self harm mention TW

while walking to work this morning i was thinking about my OCD. i was exactly 5 minutes late clocking in because i had to turn around to make sure i actually closed and locked the front door 3 times, once turning back when i’d already passed the street corner. i left the house early but ended up wasting close to 20 minutes just walking back and forth to the house and the street, trying to convince myself i closed the door well enough. what i was thinking about was how my OCD thrives on my self-distrust. i can never fully trust that i did the thing i logically know i did, even if i remember doing it. so i started thinking, where does that distrust come from?

we have OSDD so we don’t experience massive time losses or blackouts, but so many of my memories feel inaccessible or warped to some extent. i have childhood memories where none of us know if they are real memories or dreams we mistook for reality. i can recall what other alters do but it feels like watching a movie shot from the perspective of a different main character, different thoughts opinions feelings etc.. while not having amnesiac barriers between us we certainly all have mild amnesia about parts of our life, and we’re best described as “spacey” or “airheaded.” so reflecting on all this got me thinking—is the self-distrust born from how my OSDD affects not only my recollection but how my brain specifically encodes memories exacerbating/fueling my OCD? 

i think it totally is. which is slightly depressing because you’re always told “don’t worry OCD is cureable! you just need to change your maladaptive thought patterns and you’ll be a-okay again!”, and that doesn’t really work if the core problem is how my brain works on a really fundmental level. we could “work on this” by pursuing final integration (all alters dissolving into 1 identity state), but that’s not something any of us are actually interested in (though we have some edgelords who’ll claim to want the rest of us to disappear sometimes lol). i’m sure it’s still possible to heal from OCD while having a complex dissociative disorder but it sure does seem incredibly difficult.

the main treatment for OCD is the “fuck it we ball” attitude. if you seek reassurance (like i did, walking back to the door so many times to reassure myself i closed it; also when i think i’m experiencing a completely imagined medical crisis and i go to ask another person if they think i’m right or wrong) you’re only feeding into the disorder even if it feels like it helps or solves everything in the moment. what you’re supposed to do is force yourself to trust that you closed the door, that turning back would be silly, that the consequences you’re terrified of are not as severe as you’re feeling they’ll be. 

but if i didn’t close and lock the door it might’ve swung open because i’ve been told it’s done that in the past after i’ve left—and if any of the pets get out that will permanently change my relationship with everyone in the house, and myself for being responsible. and those previous couple times the door opened after i left, i (whoever i was at the time) was certain i’d closed it. i hear plenty of stories from family about things we’ve said & done that i have 0 memory of at all, and i’ve told stories about my memories that those same people question because they don’t line up with their experiences. how can i even really trust the memories i do have, how can i ever know for sure i actually closed that door, and in light of that why should i try to convince myself it would actually be fine, nothing would change, might as well leave it wide open anyway? i know that i’m supposed to be fighting OCD in ways other than self-harming increasingly more destructively and i am trying, but i feel like a lot of the solutions that are usually suggested to OCD patients don’t work for me because i have moderate-to-severe pre-existing memory issues. 

anybody else with both OCD and a CDD, or any sort of memory troubles, feel this way? has anything worked well for you guys that you’d suggest? even if you don’t have an answer hey thanks for reading this far anyway, have a complimentary beer 🍺

anyway i’m gonna do some research today and see if there’s any studies or anything related to this. maybe i’ll update the post if i find something cool