Little Big Town – "Boondocks" (2005)

You can take it or leave it

This is me

This is who I am!

I have good news and bad news for you today.

2 or 3 lines has always been self-absorbed as all get out.  But last month, I produced a series of posts that represent a personal best when it comes to narcissistic navel-gazing.

But it’s a new month – “Narcissistic November” is over.  Today’s post will bring an end to what probably seemed like an endless series of posts discussing obsessive-compulsive personality disorder . . . and then we’ll be ready to move on.  

That’s the good news.  The bad news is that I’m not going to do another audio advent calendar this year.  I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the decision is final.  Doing 24 posts in 24 days last December left me plumb tuckered out, and a wise man learns from his mistakes.

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According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – or “DSM-5” for short – an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder diagnosis requires the presence of four or more of the following behaviors:

1.  Preoccupation with details, rules, schedules, organization, and lists

2.  A striving to do something perfectly that interferes with completion of the task

3.  Excessive devotion to work and productivity (not due to financial necessity), resulting in neglect of leisure activities and friends

4.  Excessive conscientiousness, fastidiousness, and inflexibility regarding ethical and moral issues and values

5.  Unwillingness to throw out worn-out or worthless objects, even those with no sentimental value

6.  Reluctance to delegate or work with other people unless those people agree to do things exactly as you want

7.  A miserly approach to spending for themselves and others because they see money as something to be saved for future disasters

8. Rigidity and stubbornness

I plead guilty as charged to #1, #2, #3, #5, and #6.  And I wouldn’t deny that #4 and #8 probably apply to me as well.

That leaves #7.  I don’t think that I’m miserly, but I am frugal.  (I hate to spend more than I have to – even when the amount in question is small.)

But whether #7 applies or not, there’s little question that I exhibit more than enough of the behaviors listed in the DSM-5 to justify an OCPD diagnosis.

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Just before I started writing this post, I stumbled across a Free Press article titled “Nobody Has a Personality Anymore.”

“Today, every personality trait is seen as a problem to be solved,” according to the author, Freya India.  “Therapy-speak has taken over our language.”

She continues:

[W]e are being taught that our personalities are a disorder. . . . Now you are always late to things, not because you are lovably forgetful, not because you are scattered and interesting, but because of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).  You are shy and stare at your feet when people talk to you, not because you are your mother’s child, not because you are gentle and sweet and blush the same way she does – nope, it’s autism.  

You are the way you are not because you have a soul, but because of your symptoms and diagnoses; you are not an amalgam of your ancestors or a curious constellation of traits but the clinical result of a timeline of childhood events.

Exactly!

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Here’s something else very interesting that I learned from that article.

Survey data on self-reported mental health diagnoses shows that liberals in general, and white liberal women in particular, are more likely than other groups to say that they suffered from a mental health condition (e.g., depression).

However, mental distress is more strongly linked to one’s generation than it is to one’s gender or political orientation.  

Each American generation since the baby boomers is progressively more depressed than the generation that came before.

A 2024 survey of over 3,000 Americans found that 67% of Gen Z men and 72% of Gen Z women believe that  “mental health challenges are an important part of my identity.”   But only 27% of baby boomer men and 34% of baby boomer women said that mental health challenges represented an important part of their identity.

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I’m a boomer male, so it should come as no surprise that I have chosen to reject an OCPD diagnosis.

I don’t care how many of the DSM-5’s criteria for OCPD apply to me.  

I may be weird as hell.  (That’s part of my charm!). But I don’t have a personality disorder – I just have a personality!

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I’ve featured Little Big Town’s “Boondocks” before, and I’ll probably feature it again.  

I love “Boondocks” despite finding it somewhat lacking in authenticity.  (You might feel the same way about 2 or 3 lines.)

Click here to listen to “Boondocks,” which was a top ten country hit in 2005.

Click here to buy “Boondocks” from Amazon.