Dear karl7,

That's an interesting question. I've always thought so. What are your thoughts?

I think anxiety is rooted in some way in a sense that one is vulnerable. I think the felt vulnerability can take different forms. Feeling that one's survival is threatened is one. Feeling that something in one's domain is vulnerable is perhaps another. These could be physical objects in one's domain, like one's house, car and so on. They could be relationships that are vulnerable or things related to relationships like one's job. Perhaps a third sense of vulnerability can come from psychological things: one's self worth being in jeopardy to things that could happen in the future.

Some psychology books I have read suggest that "perfectionism" is a huge source of anxiety . . . the way of looking at oneself and others and things and events in the world from the perspective of "could be better but isn't better" or "could be better but probably will get worse in the future." Perfectionism as an attitude can drive a lot of different behaviors but perhaps is connected to OCD. I don't know. What do you think?

People who are not perfectionists seem to be happier people. They tend to look at things and think "could be worse, but isn't worse, thank goodness." I think that tends to engender feelings of joy, of being lucky or blessed, feelings of appreciation and gratitude . . . happy feelings. The "could be better but isn't better" attitude seems to generate less happy feelings: guilt about the past, anxiety about the future, anger, frustration, sadness, hopelessness and so on.

My father was afflicted with OCD and it seemed to me that he was a very stressed and anxious person. Perhaps I am wrong about this though. I have read somewhere that OCD is about a sense of certainly and achieving it. Certainty can have some connection to perfectionism I think. Absolute certainly about many things is not possible, especially things that might happen in the future.

My father had an extremely stressful life. I suspect part of it was his perfectionism, that things were never good enough. Everything in his world seemed out of control all the time. At the same time, he was kind of obsessed about keeping our house in perfect order. I always thought this was his way of having a little domain where he had control in an otherwise uncontrollable world.

Perhaps I am mistake about all of this. I am often mistaken about things. Hopefully others here will see your post and respond with something helpful. Since I am not a physician or medical professional, I can only offer very fallible opinions about things, so please do not rely on anything I say.

I think I have some OCD tendencies too. I wonder if there is a strong genetic connection or possibly I picked it up from my experiences as a child. I have no idea.

Wishing you the very best!

Sincerely yours, Yao Wen