[tryinghard]

This system I think comes from the US but I find it easier to understand than the ICD.

To explain Axis I/II - Axis I is neurotic conditions (anxiety, depression, OCD, eating disorders, BDD, SA); and Axis II is characterological conditions (BPD, OCPD, AvPD, DPD etc.) The idea being that Axis II traits (your personality) can be the root cause behind Axis I conditions in some people.

My Axis I conditions have changed so much over the years and morphed from one to the other that I've started to find it easier to view myself on the second Axis and concentrate on those things - I.e. which personality traits could I probably tone down/change to make my life easier. It just makes more sense to me.

I have not self-diagnosed with PD because I don't believe I have a full-blown PD (would have fit the full criteria ages 11-13, but not since then). But I think I have significant OCPD traits and that these are the driving forces behind pretty much everything I struggle with. The problem is, I have known which traits I need to tone down for....well over a year...but I can't seem to change. It's like I notice them, I try not to go down the same path, and yet I inevitably do.

My pattern is to focus so much on work and strive so completely towards work that I exhaust myself and end up either physically or mentally ill or both. In addition, I tend to focus in on one tiny part of the whole - a flaw - and lose sight of the bigger picture, wasting a lot of time and energy trying to get everything perfect. On top of this, I don't have a suitable strategy for dealing with the emotion this brings up, with my only real strategy to be to ignore any emotion and hope it just goes away. I find that when I experience an emotion, I'm just left with the thought: Right....so what do I do with this? And the temptation is just to ignore it again. I find it difficult to trust emotions and I find their messages confusing - for instance, "I'm angry. That's a waste of my time, it doesn't help me in anyway, so I guess I just ignore it." If it doesn't have a practical purpose or there is not a practical change to be made, the entire experience of emotion seems wasteful to me. But eventually all of this ignoring emotions leads me to bad places.

Over the past year I have been both trying to fight against my tendencies AND monitor how they affect me. I have exhausted myself to the point of illness three times in the last nine months, and have physically collapsed twice. This is probably not great, especially as I have been deliberately trying to change!

I just wondered from others how much success you feel you've had combatting those traits which feel like they are more part of your personality and how much change you've managed? Is it equally frustrating for you to see yourself landing in the same patterns and not feeling like you truly know the alternative? It really should be such a small change - a tweak - stop focusing completely on work, don't take your computer on holiday with you, stop measuring yourself entirely by achievements and find other things in life. It couldn't be more simple. But when I try to move away from those things, there's nothing to replace them - it's kind of like, I don't know any other way to be. I don't know if that makes sense...