[moosebear]

That article didn’t have any sources and blamed pathological perfectionism on psychic wounds. Ok, it’s not a bad theory, but remember when we figured out that some peptic ulcers came from H. pylori, not just being uptight?

Behold some really fascinating research on perfectionism, OCD, and Tourette’s:

1. Perfectionism predicts OCD symptoms. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0005796795...

2. Tourette’s, OCD, PANDAS share immune disregulation link. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5174185/

3. Yale: Mice with grooming tics cured by giving them histamine https://news.yale.edu/2017/06/05/tourette-tics-vanish-mice-t...

4. Oxford: Connection between basal ganglia, histamine, and OCD & friends https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4917894/

I know the article was about personality/perfectionism not tics/OCD, but I find this idea that issues around “obsessiveness” could have an immune/histamine/basal ganglia cause so fascinating, since I myself have OCD and would very much enjoy not having it, even if that took the edge off my high-achieving/driven personality. They haven’t teased it all out and there is no medical treatment based on all this yet. But maybe someday?