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Comment by looskyer | Hacker News Reader

> OCD is not adaptive in any situation.

> And, to be even more clear, these are unfit mutations, that lower their subjects' reproductive success.

I don't believe this first claim is true and from my understanding the second isn't supported by current evolutionary thought. Could you explain more about why you believe these syndromes are never appropriate responses?

I can offer my own anecdotes that OCD gives me a competitive advantage in many aspects of life despite its drawbacks. But I'd like to hear more of your thoughts.

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I would love to hear your anecdotes about OCD’s competitive advantage, if only because I find it extremely hard to believe.

OCD is not a knack for being organized or orderly. Without even mentioning the compulsions, it’s a never-ending onslaught of intrusive thoughts and corresponding anxieties.

Managed well, it’s still a permanent distraction that’s always in the background. Managed poorly, it’s life-ruining. I don’t see how either could yield a competitive advantage in any scenario.

OCD isn't double-checking your line-spacing in a document, it's being unable to leave the house in under 45 minutes because you check the stove twenty times, then the door lock twenty, then turn around 5 minutes down the street to check again, then make a deal with yourself that you'll check the stove 3 times in a row and then not allow yourself to do it again, only you do it again anyways and finally take a picture of it so you can discretely check the photo on your phone when you're out on your date that you showed up half an hour late to.

I’m not the person you responded to, but I’ve lived with a person who had a case of OCD that I’m confident saying is definitely not adaptive. To give one anecdote among many, this person would spend the entire day in the shower because they got a spot of grease on their pants. Episodes of this severity were common (ie. sometimes happening daily for extended stretches of time). They explained the cause of the behavior as a failure of communication between the part of the brain and solves a problem and the part that needs to acknowledge that the problem has been solved so the solving can stop. I don’t know if that tracks with psychiatry, but explanation made sense to me.

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