JOSH: Hello and welcome to Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg, the podcast about ideas that matter. I'm Josh Castle, the producer of the podcast, and I'm so glad you've joined us today. In this episode, Spencer speaks with Darryl Rossignol about OCD and OCPD, perfectionism, anxiety, and depression, and the impact of treatment or lack thereof.

SPENCER: Darryl, welcome.

DARRYL: Thank you. Thank you so much.

SPENCER: Is it true that you're a rigid perfectionist?

DARRYL: It is true that for most of my life I have been a rigid perfectionist. I think in the last few years, there's a lot of self-work that I've done, and I've made a lot of progress, but I definitely know people that would still categorize me as that.

SPENCER: Now you have a condition known as OCPD, not to be confused with OCD, which stands for obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. By some estimates, it actually is the most common personality disorder in America. Is that right?

DARRYL: Yeah, that's what the research tends to bear out.

SPENCER: It's pretty wild how few people have heard of it. I think almost nobody knows about it.

DARRYL: Yeah, as much research as I've done, I'm not sure who originally came up with the name for the personality disorder, but they definitely didn't do us any favors by so closely aligning us with obsessive-compulsive disorder, because I have to give that caveat every time I explain what OCPD is. But yeah, that's where we find ourselves.

SPENCER: So what are some of the fundamental characteristics of someone with OCPD?

DARRYL: So my elevator pitch for OCPD would be two distinct aspects of the disorder that tend to be universal among people that have OCPD, and that would be black and white thinking and the pursuit of perfectionism. With black and white thinking, it really comes down to these core beliefs that something is either, for example, clean or dirty, wrong or right, good or bad. Somebody was having a discussion with me, and they wanted to talk about what the greatest punk rock band of all time was. They said it was The Clash, and I said it was The Ramones. I'm going to be judging them pretty harshly for their opinion because I'm going to view my thinking as the correct way of thinking. So yeah, that black and white thinking kind of persists through every aspect of my daily thoughts and my daily interactions. With the pursuit of perfectionism, you usually end up with one of two types of people with OCPD. The perfectionism where they sort of forego a lot of important aspects of life in the pursuit of perfectionism, maybe it is a craft, a career, or education, and they're letting important familial relationships and romantic relationships go to the side. The other side of that is people that have that perfectionist mindset, but they allow it to keep them frozen. What I mean by that is essentially, you end up with heavy procrastination, people that don't even want to start a project because they fear that the end result will not live up to their high standards or that they'll never get there. Those two things, the black and white thinking and the perfectionism, are real hallmarks of OCPD.

SPENCER: For this episode, I've done a bunch of research on the disorder, and if I try to summarize it in one sentence, I think I would say something like, it's an obsessive focus on things being done the right way. The right way could be perfectionistic, like, "Oh, I have to do it perfectly." Or it could be, "Oh, this is the right way to do this, and every other way is wrong. It's taking a subjective opinion and trying to make it objective." Do you think that's fair?

DARRYL: Yeah, definitely. I think, for me, having OCPD and having worked for more than the last decade on my own personal experience living with OCPD, that is probably the number one trait or aspect of it that I had to really overcome because it was affecting all of my interpersonal relationships. People would find it difficult to get along with me; they would probably categorize me as highly opinionated. Learning to live in the gray is what I needed to do, and what other people with OCPD will benefit from trying to do so, getting away from that black and white thinking and realizing that there's a lot of nuance and subjectivity. For me, personally, it's been a funny journey because I've seen a lot of the world trend more towards black and white thinking as I've been putting in all this hard work to live in the gray. I think how you described it is a really apt description.

SPENCER: Yeah. I think many people, even if they don't have obsessive compulsive personality disorder, could benefit from thinking in more gray terms. One of the things we teach on our website, Clearer Thinking, is called Nuanced Thinking. It's these different ways of saying, going from true/false to probabilistic thinking, going from right/wrong to grayscale thinking, and so on. It's just a generally really useful life skill. But maybe you could give a couple of examples to help illustrate black and white thinking, how it manifests in your life. Also, I'd be interested in hearing some examples of perfectionism in your life.

DARRYL: Sure. In regard to the black and white thinking, it really did seep into every area. I found it very difficult to engage with people that I disagreed with, and especially, it gets really silly when you're refusing to engage with somebody. The example I gave earlier in terms of music is a big component of my life. To talk to somebody that favored bands that I didn't think were worth their salt was a big turn off for me. It was almost a repulsion to talk to people that I disagreed with. I'm not proud of a lot of the conversations that I had before becoming aware of having OCPD, but I would just butt up against people all the time. It could be religion, it could be politics. Those are already very highly divisive topics. For me, where it really was difficult was just having those normal everyday conversations where I found myself constantly judging other people's opinions, especially when there was no import. There was no weight to the discussion. We were just having a light discussion on the topic of art, for example. I found myself getting agitated by somebody else's opinions. The black and white thinking just persisted through everything.

SPENCER: I imagine that could be especially difficult in relationships, whether work relationships or with a romantic partner, where they want to do the project this way, and you're like, "No, that's the wrong way to do it. Why would we do it that way?" Then you create this impenetrable wall of, "No, I'm not willing to bend to your way of doing it". Does that come up for you?

DARRYL: Yeah. Before I was aware of OCPD, and before I put in a lot of the work that I put in, it was a constant roadblock for me. What I tried to do was build my life around the disorder. For example, in romantic relationships, I kept a certain amount of distance because I knew that my opinions would be points of contention. With work, at some point, I realized I was never going to be happy, and I was never going to make other people happy if I continued to work for other people. It became a goal to work for myself. This is pre-understanding OCPD and even being aware of it; I just knew that I was a challenging person to interact with, and I struggled to take direction from someone else. I had to rearrange my life to build my own businesses just to avoid those types of interactions. If it wasn't for the OCPD, I might not have become so entrepreneurial, so maybe a blessing in disguise, as there are a lot of things with mental health issues. Sometimes that was what I needed to do to cope with the disorder.

SPENCER: Do you have an example with a romantic partner, with a boss, where they saw things one way and you saw them a different way, and the OCPD made it really hard to compromise with them?

DARRYL: It was a regular occurrence for me. I don't know if I have one specific example, but I can tell you what my reactions would have been in those situations. A lot of times, especially with romantic partners, my go-to was to shut down. I became unwilling to engage. I knew that I wasn't going to convince the other person. I knew that an attempt to convince the other person was going to negatively affect them, whether it was going to make them sad or make them angry. I didn't know how to engage in a way that addressed the compulsive part of the disorder, where I feel this almost like a Tourette's type reaction, where there's something that I need to get off my chest. Long story short, I felt the need to retreat into myself. I knew that I wasn't going to have a successful outcome, especially with romantic partners. All of that silent treatment didn't get the result that I was looking for. These relationships didn't last. My coping mechanism was to just sort of shut down in those moments.

SPENCER: Because if you think you're not going to get what you want anyway, you can learn to shut down. But I've seen it go a different way. For example, many years ago, I worked with someone, and I don't know if they have OCPD, but I think they had at least some of the characteristics. An example that would come up would be, we're working on a project together. They'd want to do it a certain way. I'd want to do it a different way. It felt to me like it was essentially impossible to get them to even compromise a little bit; they were so rigid about their perspective and could only see it as their way is the right way, my way is the wrong way. It felt very objective to them, even though I think most people would say, "Well, it's debatable. There's a subjectivity to it."

DARRYL: Yeah, I think we're all a mishmash of a lot of different proclivities, things that we picked up along the way, personality disorders, mental health issues, anxiety, depression. There's a lot going on. For me personally, I tended to have a little bit more empathy than the average person with OCPD. Even in those sorts of situations, I might retreat back into myself.

SPENCER: Rather than setting a hard line and trying to force it.

DARRYL: Exactly. For me, becoming an entrepreneur was kind of the answer to that because I knew I was going to stay miserable if I had to constantly keep my opinions to myself. I was in managerial roles from time to time, and thankfully, I let my empathy guide me, but I found it difficult. I know people that worked with me found it difficult at times. I would try to use humor as levity, but I know it was challenging. I've talked to people from my past, so I'm aware of how it came across. On average, I felt like I was a little bit more empathetic and understanding and able to put myself in the other person's shoes than a lot of the people I've spoken with over the years with OCPD. What you describe is a very accurate and probably average encounter with somebody with OCPD.

SPENCER: It does make me wonder sometimes; there are just bosses that micromanage, but some of these cases might actually be a boss with OCPD who's putting this sort of rigid set of rules around other people's behavior because they think that's the right way to do things.

DARRYL: Yeah, absolutely. I think there's two sides to every story. It's tricky because I am aware that mental health issues have resulted in a lot of good outcomes. What I mean by that is, look at some of the most beautiful paintings in the world, listen to some of the greatest music ever produced, and then read the backstory, and you find out that the people producing these things were deeply troubled. The same with OCPD — I don't like to label other people, especially if they've never come out and said anything — but there have been a few articles written, and I've looked into his life, and Steve Jobs is somebody that a lot of times people like to put the OCPD label on. Again, I'm not doing that, but he did have a lot of the traits. You look at somebody like him and what he was able to accomplish, and I do think that there are a lot of people in running companies, in positions of power, that probably either have OCPD or are running with some of those traits, and it allows them to accomplish a lot. But there are casualties along the way. I think part of the work that I do is addressing the casualties and trying to pick up the pieces from what other people have dropped in the pursuit of success. So, as I said, there are two sides to it, but nobody should be mistreated at work. Nobody should be mistreated by a superior. Nobody should be made to feel bad when giving their best effort. So, it's tricky, but that's kind of the way I see it.

SPENCER: I think it's an astute point that there can be benefits to these kinds of traits; it's just that there are huge costs too.

DARRYL: Exactly.

SPENCER: I think that's often true with mental health. There are probably traits that are just pure downside, with no real benefit. But most traits have a complicated set of costs and benefits. When we're talking about mental health, it's usually that the costs have gotten too high relative to the benefits. I tend to be a worrier; that's kind of my personality type, and I do think there are some benefits. I think sometimes I will catch something important that other people might miss because I'm worrying, but it doesn't mean I'm not worrying too much for my own good, right?

DARRYL: Yeah, absolutely. There are people out there that are interested in harnessing the power of different disorders. I think that's a prickly subject, but I hear quite often people referring to their mental health issues as superpowers. I probably wouldn't go in that direction myself, but I do understand where people are coming from. I think when you look at culture and society, a lot of these things were built by people that are troubled. What would be fantastic is if we can offer those people the help they need while allowing them to still pursue the things they want to pursue and keep the same interests they have. For me, when I found out about OCPD and did a deep dive into it about maybe 13 or 14 years ago, I remember reading about it; it was like reading my own biography. I remember thinking, "Do I not actually believe these things? Is this my disordered brain, or are my tastes and beliefs predicated on the idea that I have this disorder?" The more research I did and the longer I worked on the disorder within myself, I came to realize that you can separate these things; they're not one and the same. The disorder is the disorder, and your beliefs are your beliefs, but they can heighten or amplify them. I think the key to all of this, to me, is awareness. By bringing awareness to people that this disorder exists, that this is what it looks like, and you're not a bad person if you have it, your life will be a lot better if you put some work in.

SPENCER: It makes me wonder what it feels like for you internally when you have this sense that something is right or wrong because there are two different related phenomena that I see that could map onto your experience. I'm not really sure which one does. One is that sometimes people just feel really convicted in their opinions. They're like, "No, that was a terrible movie. I can't believe you like that, and it feels like a high level of conviction; it feels objective." The second is what is sometimes called emotional reasoning, which is that whatever emotion you're feeling, you become convinced that the emotion reflects objective fact. For example, if you feel afraid, you assume there must be something dangerous, even if there's no evidence of danger, or if you're angry, then someone must have really trampled on what you care about, even if that may not reflect what actually happened. So, what does it feel like inside when you're like, "No, that's the wrong way to do this?"

DARRYL: It feels like nails on a chalkboard. I think people are a lot more familiar with obsessive-compulsive disorder. A lot of people listening may understand the thought processes and the feelings that go behind compulsions. I mentioned Tourette's earlier. It is a feeling that, for me, I can't let go of it until I express it. I think that's a good way to put it, and that's troublesome because it gets me into a lot of problems. I feel a sense of relief once I've said my version of the truth out loud. It is incredibly frustrating. Your skin crawls. People with OCPD tend to have very high rates of anxiety and depression, so I would say there are loads of anxious feelings. If you aren't able to express yourself and provide some sense of relief for your brain over time, that's where I think the depression starts to seep in as well.

SPENCER: Let me give you a little scenario. Suppose that you hire a housekeeper, and the way they make your bed is really different from the way you like it made. You're feeling significant discomfort around this, and you express, "Please make it this way." They say, "Oh no, that's not the right way. The way I made the bed is actually the better way to make it." So I'm curious, what would you experience in that moment?

DARRYL: It's a very funny example to me because my skin would start to crawl the minute you said you hire a housekeeper.

SPENCER: So you wouldn't hire a housekeeper because they wouldn't do it the right way. Is that why?

DARRYL: More or less there would be certain things that I would be okay with and other things that I wouldn't. I have personal experience; when I was really young, I worked some cleaning jobs, and I was able to see how other people did the job, and it made me highly uncomfortable. So the idea of hiring somebody or bringing in somebody for that would be really tough, but I know that your audience appreciates examples, and I know when talking about a disorder, personal stories are going to go a long way. I think that relates strongly to an issue I had with a lot of romantic relationships, and I'm glad that it doesn't persist to this day. One of the more awful sides of it was that somebody with OCPD, particularly in a romantic relationship, can be incredibly controlling, and there are a lot of things you'll tell yourself to allow yourself to get away with that sort of behavior. For me, for example, if I had a romantic partner and they wanted to clean the bathroom or do the dishes or prepare a meal, even because of the mess that can happen during the time it takes to prepare a meal — some people are neat, some people aren't. I've been with both — allowing somebody to cook or clean was deeply troubling to me. It was something that I just couldn't allow. I rationalized, "What partner wouldn't want to be with somebody that does all the dishes? What partner wouldn't want to be with somebody that makes the bed and cleans the bathroom and does all the meals?" I told myself that story in multiple romantic relationships that always ended not on the best terms. For me, I would say, "I'm a good guy. I'm doing these good things," and the other person just felt completely controlled. They felt like every little thing they did was being watched. That's getting into the more ugly side of OCPD. For people that don't have OCPD but may have somebody in their life with it or suspect that they do, I have to imagine what I'm saying right now is probably ringing alarm bells for them.

SPENCER: That's a really great example. I'm wondering, though, suppose that your romantic partner says, "No, I really want to cook." Or, "I know the way I do the dishes is fine." Or, "The way I clean is fine." What do you experience then when they're saying their way of doing things is all right?

DARRYL: Genuine anger. I think the first response would be to try and be empathetic, try and put myself in their shoes, and then say, "Okay, go ahead and prepare a meal," but I'm going to be there. I'm going to be over their shoulder. I'm going to be watching the whole thing. Once they're done and they've cleaned up, I'm going to go in and do a secondary cleaning behind them. If that was contested, if they said, "Look, you got to get out of the kitchen," then genuine feelings of anger are going to arise, and I may shut down. I may use harsh language, all things that I am deeply ashamed of from my past. Without recognizing these things, there's no moving forward. There's no getting better. There's no making the change.

SPENCER: It's clear you've made tremendous progress. I do want to get into that, but for someone who doesn't have this disorder, I want them to really understand what it feels like to have it to help them empathize and relate. From my perspective, when I hear, "Okay, you were angry." I actually don't understand why you were angry. I'm not saying that it was invalid, but I think I don't understand it. Could you unpack that a little bit? Why anger? Because usually anger is an emotion of feeling like someone's trying to obstruct you or someone's trying to destroy something that's valuable to you.

DARRYL: That is actually how it felt to me when somebody wants to prepare a meal, and I've told them I feel really uncomfortable with that idea. I have a specific way of organizing things. I have a specific way of cleaning things. If I'm not there to witness whether or not you're doing things in alignment with how I need things to be done, I feel disrespected by the other person. I feel antagonized a lot of the time. That's when the irrational side of OCPD kicks in. Instead of thinking, it's all feeling, and I'm not looking at the situation logically anymore. Emotion has taken over, and I think, "Okay, this person is upset with me. They're trying to get even with me. There's something nefarious going on here," and I start building up resentment towards the other person. The things that you said seem like they wouldn't apply in this situation because it's such an everyday, minor thing, but those are the sorts of feelings that I wasn't able to control that would start bubbling up inside of me. At the end of the day, I would just assume that this person meant me harm on some level.

SPENCER: It's such an interesting example where two people in the same situation have completely different experiences. They're totally orthogonal. The person who is being told, "No, I don't want you to cook. I don't want to clean, or if you do it, I'm going to have to monitor and redo it afterwards," from their perspective, they're just like, "What? Why can't I clean? Why can't I cook? I did something I've done for years. What's wrong with me that I'm not good enough to do this, or that you have to look over my shoulder and redo it?" Whereas, from your perspective, it's like, "Why are they disrespecting my wishes? This is so important to me. Are they trying to get even with me?" There's almost no overlap in those two perspectives.

DARRYL: Right, and as the relationship degrades over time, this person now knows your Achilles heel. I take my share of the responsibility for the relationships in the past that I damaged. There would come a time when somebody would intentionally want to antagonize me. They would get burnt out, rightfully so, but they would clean a room, for example, and intentionally take an object and put it in my worldview where it didn't belong. They would intentionally do that because that was letting me know when I walked in the door, "Hey, I've cleaned this room, and you don't know what I did." When those sorts of things happen, you start questioning everything. You're like, "Did this person genuinely want to make me dinner, or did they do it to upset me because yesterday or a week ago, we had an argument?" Always in the beginning, I take full responsibility, but people get upset over time, and people aren't perfect, and everybody has their own thing going on. I did feel in instances where — and this was the same with workmates, the same with friends, family members — people would figure out what bothered me, and if they wanted to bother me, then they had the tools to do so.

SPENCER: In retrospect, obviously there are people that will use your weaknesses against you. Maybe they're not very nice people, or maybe they're just mad and they're pissed off on what you did.

DARRYL: Absolutely.

SPENCER: But I wonder, in retrospect, how many of those cases do you think they were genuinely doing this to mess with you versus they actually just accidentally left something out of place and you're just very, very attuned to that?

DARRYL: Yeah. I mean, that's just something these relationships, as I said earlier, didn't end on the best terms. So I don't have the ability to go back and ask, and I would love to. I would love to go back and say, "Hey, I was an absolute asshole," and I would love some clarity on some of the things that happened, because this is something every person in the world goes through. You break up and you don't get all the answers you want. You go through this period of grief, and you go through this period of frustration, because you want to know, "Was it all my fault? Was it all their fault?" This is a normal thing that people go through. I'm sure what you're saying is accurate. I'm sure there were times where I made assumptions and they were absolutely incorrect. But I think towards the very end of it, it became pretty obvious. And again, I don't blame them. I don't hold it against them. It's very understandable to me, but it did make it difficult for me to have any sense of clarity as to, "What is actually going on in this relationship right now? I'm just confused all the time."

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SPENCER: Now on the mental state question, if you were disagreeing about a more subjective preference, like, "Oh, is this a good band or not?" Would you also feel angry or would you feel a different emotion, more like disgust or something else?

DARRYL: It varied, but some level of mild anger might be a common reaction. I think more often than not, it would prevent me from going further with that person, and I think that's a real shame. I could have maybe built genuine friendships over the years, but I judged this person prematurely for an opinion on something that just really didn't matter.

SPENCER: So you've kind of looked down on them in some way because they don't have the right preference.

DARRYL: Definitely. And I bring up music because I play a little music. I had a career for a long time DJing, so it was a big thing to me. I was in a lot of conversations about music. But it always goes back to a memory I have of working at a record shop when I was really young and just judging every single purchase that came across the counter, to the point where I actually got to the point where I wouldn't sell people certain records. I would say, "You need to go to another cashier, or you gotta let me talk you into buying something."

SPENCER: Wow. This is serious like, "This is not a good record to buy." Wow.

DARRYL: So I think a record snob would have been a nice thing to call me. The reality is I was being a jerk, but that's again, the conversations we have in our own heads to justify certain behaviors. And for me, it was, "No, I'm helping this person; this person doesn't understand." But the reality is they had a different taste than me, and I was preventing them from picking up the album that they had been waiting to buy.

SPENCER: I just want to say I really appreciate how forthright you are about this. I know it's hard to talk about, and it's personal, and obviously some of it's stuff that you regret and might be ashamed of. So yeah, thank you for your honesty on these topics. It really helps illustrate the disorder for people that want to understand it better.

DARRYL: Yeah. It's not comfortable talking about these things, but I have made it part of my life's mission to try and help people with OCPD and also help people that are impacted because they have somebody in their life with OCPD. I have to forego all of that and dive headfirst into being as transparent as possible. For people listening, I don't love this. It's not my idea of a good time, but I think unless we're very truthful about these disorders, we're not going to get anywhere. We're not going to help people. We're not going to get to the bottom of things. It's a small sacrifice that I have to make by being transparent about past behaviors and actions.

SPENCER: We've delved into the black and white thinking piece. Let's talk about the perfectionism piece. Maybe you could give one or two examples in your life where perfectionism comes in.

DARRYL: Absolutely. I feel bad jumping back to music, but this is an example I use quite regularly because it sticks with me today. I love music. I played the guitar for many years, and I'm a terrible guitar player, and perfectionism is the reason why. When I pick up the guitar and go to practice, it requires a lot of practice to get good, and that in-between where you're playing all the time but you sound terrible is a really hard headspace for me to be in. Every year, or every two years, I'll buy a guitar and play it for a month or two, and I become immensely frustrated with the speed, or lack of speed, with which I'm progressing. I don't think that there's anything wrong with me. I don't think that I'm the world's worst guitar player, and that's really what's going on. I get stuck in my head, and I'll record it and listen back to it, and all I'll hear are the mistakes, the wrong playing at the wrong tempo. What that results in is really crushing my self-esteem and my self-worth. I become very depressed when I pursue something that I'm really interested in, and I don't pick it up quickly enough, so I'll drop it and feel sad and frustrated and unable to complete things. I've gone on both sides of it as well. I've been highly ambitious, to the point of what I talked about in the very beginning of our conversation, where I'm foregoing relationships, I'm foregoing fun in the pursuit of success. I did that for a long time, and I had enough failures where they started to chip away at me, and I lost a lot of confidence in my ability. I kind of went in the other direction and started becoming somebody that would procrastinate tremendously because I feared the outcome. I thought if anybody ever sees this or hears this or looks at this, they're going to laugh, and I'm going to be a joke. All these little inner dialogues where I just beat myself up all the time. That's a little bit of how perfectionism works out in my life.

SPENCER: It's so interesting, because perfectionism can cause people to do things to a truly excellent level and produce better output. At the same time, it can absolutely ruin people's ability to accomplish anything, and it's kind of this fine line between the two. I had a friend many years ago, and sometimes he would completely redo work from scratch. It would be 95% done, and he would just start over. He was really talented, so he could kind of make it work, but he would literally double his amount of work to get things done, and it really blew my mind. But in the end, he did produce a good product, but it was extremely painful in the process.

DARRYL: Yeah, actually, another example I can give you is that I've lived a lot of lives, I've worked a lot of jobs and had a lot of small businesses, and for a period of time, I was doing web design, and I had a decent roster of clients. But in order to gain more business, it was going to be imperative that I built myself a website to advertise my services. That website was never done. The domain was purchased. I built that website 10 different ways, and it never was good enough for me to launch. It never, ever went live. I would finish clients' projects. They would take a long, kind of like what you're describing with your friend. They would take longer than they needed to, because I would quite often start again from scratch, but I would get there. It was a paying client. I knew that I was going to have to suck it up at some point and live with whatever I produced. But for my own personal project to get that off the ground? Impossible.

SPENCER: Is this challenging as a YouTube creator? Because your YouTube channel, OCPD: My Life in Debris, you do a great job of producing education around OCPD, but I imagine that the videos are never good enough for your own standard.

DARRYL: The YouTube channel is probably one of the most difficult things I've ever done, and continues to be so difficult on so many levels. I talk about this a lot in the videos, and I catch a lot of flack for it, because people say, "Get to the point." But for me, the equipment has to be the best. The setup takes forever. I get incredibly nervous on camera. The editing process of having to look at my face and listen to my voice, there's probably the only part I like in producing the videos is working on the graphics that go into the videos. I find that fun. I find that creative, but everything else that goes along with it is really tough. The channel is still alive. I still intend to continue producing videos, but for me, I've had some health issues in recent years. Because of that, I put on weight, and I haven't felt comfortable on camera, and so that alone has been enough to dissuade me from producing videos in the interim, while I'm working through all of this stuff. So yeah, I'm obsessed with how I look, how I sound, with the editing from A to Z in producing those videos. I'm also currently working on a new podcast as well, and it's slightly easier because I'm not on camera, but all of those hurdles I'm still dealing with, and I can feel myself getting nervous even just talking about this, because it does bring up a lot of difficult feelings in me. And also, as we said a minute ago, I'm talking from my own personal perspective. I'm discussing things that aren't always the most comfortable. I'm talking about things that I don't always want to let people know about, but I feel are important. So there are a lot of challenges. I don't know what it's like for you to produce a podcast. I've listened to a lot of your episodes. I think they're fantastic. But I think behind the scenes for a lot of people that do this, there are a lot of nerves. You said you're a worrier, so I'm right there with you on that.

SPENCER: It's so funny because I don't feel any anxiety in my podcast.

DARRYL: Well, brilliant. That's amazing.

SPENCER: I am a worrier but I don't worry about that in particular, interestingly enough. I can imagine having a very high standard, an impossibly high standard. When you hold other people to it, you might feel angry, frustrated, or maybe disgusted. But then when you hold yourself to it, it might produce a different set of feelings because it's so high you may not be able to live up to it, even though you're trying really hard. So how does it make you feel when you can't live up to your own standard?

DARRYL: This is where it really gets into what happens with a lot of people with OCPD. I think most people with OCPD start to develop other mental health issues as a result. You go long enough with low self-esteem. You go long enough without feeling confident in your abilities. Eventually, social situations start to become very difficult. In a social situation, I feel judged, I feel as though people are criticizing every take that I have, everything that comes out of my mouth. Eventually, these things lead to more isolation. I know that was my experience, and I know that's the experience of a lot of people I've spoken with. Sometimes, not by choice, a lot of people damage relationships so badly that they end up having to be alone. The feelings of anxiety when being around other people, the feelings of depression, it feels like there's a connection that's far removed from just not achieving perfection, but it really is. The slope that you end up sliding down is that you don't achieve perfection, you feel bad about yourself, you take that feeling and start applying it to other areas of your life, and you become despondent. You feel lonely, depressed, and anxious, and those things build and build to the point where, another thing you mentioned at the beginning is that the data seems to bear out that this is probably the most common personality disorder. Among mental health issues, OCPD tends to have quite a high rate of suicide amongst people with it as well. The despair can really build just from not being able to achieve the level of accomplishment you're trying to reach, whether it's actual perfection or your version of it. These feelings just build and build and lead to worse outcomes.

SPENCER: I think it differs in different studies, but the figures I've seen have ranged from about 2% prevalence to 8%, which would suggest, "Okay, let's say somewhere in the middle of one in 20 people." That means that people know lots of people with OCPD, right?

DARRYL: Right, yeah. It's a pretty wild statistic. There's no hard, fast number, but I think that it isn't outrageous to say that the number is 8% when you're talking about OCPD traits. Whether somebody has diagnosable OCPD, that's a different thing. But in terms of people going around with these sorts of black and white thinking, or perfectionistic traits, or the pursuit of perfectionism in most areas of their life, I think that that's pretty common. I feel as though I run into those people quite often. I don't like to pathologize people, and I'm not in any position to diagnose people, but I can pick up on those traits, and I see them in a lot of people, and I do, anecdotally, feel like that number is also growing.

SPENCER: Sometimes, Scrooge from A Christmas Carol is given as an example of someone who might have OCPD as a kind of archetype. I'm wondering what sort of traits of Scrooge suggest OCPD. I'm also interested to know if there are other archetypes in popular culture, other examples that represent OCPD.

DARRYL: So yeah, Scrooge is a great example because one aspect of OCPD is being miserly. Scrooge is definitely a great example of that. In terms of — I don't think we've said this word enough in regards to OCPD — rigidity, being rigid is a very common trait. I've seen, maybe you can help me out with this. There's a sitcom with a bunch of nerds.

SPENCER: The Big Bang Theory.

DARRYL: That's the one. I know people have pointed out, I've never watched that show myself, but I know there's a character on that show that people point to quite often as being extremely rigid and challenging to deal with. People point that out as being somebody with OCPD, or an example of somebody with OCPD.

SPENCER: Yeah, I think sometimes Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory is thought to have OCPD.

DARRYL: Sheldon Cooper, yeah, Sheldon Cooper is a good example that people hold up as somebody with OCPD. It's been a while. I did produce a video on my channel that went into pop culture references of people with OCPD. But in general, it's somebody that's difficult to work with, somebody that might be really preoccupied with details, excessively devoted to work. Another trait would be religiosity. People with OCPD quite often tend to be highly religious. This was my own personal experience. I was a highly religious person growing up. When I mentioned earlier about reading about OCPD for the first time, and it felt like reading my biography, one of the things that came up was being highly religious, and it made me question my faith and my belief. So not only was I going through OCPD, but I was having this crisis of faith at the same time. Finding out about OCPD and learning to live with it, and also attempting to work on it can be really tricky because you start questioning all of your belief systems. I know I got a little bit away from your question, but I think being highly religious and being miserly are two key components for a lot of people that have OCPD.

SPENCER: Right, it seems to be that there are these strong central tendencies almost everyone with OCPD has, like perfectionism and rigidness and the feeling of being right. But then there are side things which are maybe correlated with it, but not everyone has, like being miserly or being deeply religious. Does that seem right to you?

DARRYL: Yeah, that's exactly right. So early in the conversation, when I kind of gave my elevator pitch on OCPD, I didn't dive into all of these things because those two traits, the black and white thinking and the perfectionism, are constant with people with OCPD. These other traits are more sporadic, and not everybody with OCPD is going to be miserly. Some people are going to get on Amazon and shop to their heart's content, and other people are not going to. There are people with OCPD that are atheists. This doesn't apply across the board, but it really has to do with having core beliefs and not being able to let those go or make alterations to those beliefs because they're so tied into your identity because of the obsessive-compulsive nature of OCPD.

SPENCER: Now I can imagine that being religious with this disorder might make you incredibly intense about following the rules and doing everything perfectly. Is that what you experienced?

DARRYL: You would think so, but the truth of it is that there's also a component that tends to buck up against rules, buck up against society at large. For me, I had this faith; I believed in it, but I also didn't like the idea of being told what to do. There was a strong strain of rebelliousness that ran through everything that I did. I did believe it; it was a core belief. But I also knew that I tended to be a rule breaker as well. I think that's a pretty even split amongst people with OCPD. There tend to be people that build these core beliefs and then follow the rules to the letter. Then there also tend to be people with OCPD that bristle at the idea of being told what to do, and so they struggle more with their beliefs.

SPENCER: You can see it going either way because, on the one hand, you want a sort of set of rigid rules to follow. But on the other hand, you might disagree with what you're being told about what those rigid rules are, what the right way of doing it is, in which case you don't want to do what they're telling you; you want to do what you know is the right rule. Does that sound right?

DARRYL: Yeah. And then that gets really tricky when you add in the concept of a higher power or God into the equation because you're battling with this idea that, "Well, this is my Creator. So I definitely should be listening to what my Creator is telling me to do." But then you have these internal desires. You have things that you want to do, and maybe they don't quite align with your religious beliefs. I was raised in quite a strict religion, so there were things that I wanted to do. For example, I wanted to go to college; that wasn't looked upon as a good move in the religion that I grew up in. So I decided, regardless, I was going to pursue college. Those sorts of things, I would struggle with. I felt guilt around those things, but I also felt like I had to pursue the things that I wanted to pursue. There was no question that I was going to do this. It was just how much guilt was I going to have to carry going into it?

SPENCER: Going back to talking about Scrooge, there's another aspect of his personality that we didn't touch on that I think might be relevant for OCPD, which is taking the fun out of things or taking the meaning out of things. You're supposed to be spending time with family and really enjoying it, but then it's not about the family. It's about doing things the proper way, or you're supposed to be relaxing, but even in your time relaxing, it's so structured that you can't actually relax. I'm wondering, is that something you think is common among people with OCPD, and how would you describe that?

DARRYL: I deeply relate to that. For me, I jump back to childhood, and I've had OCPD traits as far back as I can remember. When you're a kid, you want to have your friends over, do sleepovers, that sort of thing. I couldn't relax. If I had a friend over, I was just constant. I was obsessed with, "What are they going to do while they're in my bedroom? Are they going to touch my books? Are they going to touch my records? Are they going to move things? Are they going to eat a sandwich and not wash their hands and then touch my belongings?" It was really tough to be in the moment. I've had a few moments in my life where I've really felt in the moment, and I've noticed how different that is from how I live my life. It's really difficult to get fun out of things and enjoy time spent with other people if you're constantly obsessing over things being clean or organized, or you're always worried about the opinions of other people, whether that's their subjective taste or what they think of you. Fun, joy, happiness, those tend to be absent in the lives of people with OCPD.

SPENCER: When we talk about obsession with cleanliness, there's a stereotype that people with OCD, rather than people with OCPD, have this kind of cleanliness obsession. While the two disorders are very different, there are some common elements. You can see why there's some relationship there. What I've read is that about 25% of people with OCD have OCPD. Could you tell us about the relationship between the two disorders and how they are similar, but also importantly, how they are different?

DARRYL: Definitely. Externally, I think there's a lot of crossover. If you were just observing behaviors of people with OCPD and OCD, you might see a lot of commonality. I brought up the cleaning, and you referenced it. A good way to explain the differences is that they really come down to the thought processes. Let's say you're observing me and I wash my hands 20, 30, 40 times in one day, as somebody with OCPD, I'm just doing that because I believe that's the right number of times to wash your hands. These are the occasions in which you would wash your hands before or after doing something for me that is an objective truth. When I look at somebody and they're not washing their hands 40 times a day, I'm thinking, "That's a crazy person." This is what life is like for people with OCPD before they're diagnosed. If they genuinely have OCPD and they're living with it but are unaware of it, they're just looking at everybody else, wondering, "Why is everybody crazy? Why is everybody behaving like this all the time?" You take somebody with OCD, and they are generally much more aware that they are experiencing a mental health issue, that this is a disorder, that their thinking is disordered. They understand that their behavior may be perceived as unusual, so when they're washing their hands, it might be because they believe in an irrational outcome. For example, if I don't wash my hands 40 times a day, then my parents are going to get sick. There's no connection, but it's an obsessive, compulsive feeling that they're going through internally, but they can recognize logically as being untrue. They just have no way, until they get help, of controlling those actions and behaviors on their own.

SPENCER: It's also interesting, someone with OCD might feel intense anxiety until they wash their hands, and then they feel better, but then they start having another thought that makes them want to wash again, and they feel anxiety and wash their hands and feel better. Is that different from what someone with OCPD would experience?

DARRYL: Yeah, there would have to be some sort of trigger. I'll just use myself as an example. I have an aversion to the feeling of oil. This is one of the things that I feel most uncomfortable talking about because it's unusual, and people perceive it as strange behavior. Our skin is naturally oily. Our face tends to be the oiliest part of our body, and for me, if I accidentally touch my face, I need to go and wash my hands. It's not because I think something bad is going to happen; it's because I now believe that my hands are dirty. They now have the oil from my face on my fingers, and I need to go and wash them. There's going to be something that precedes the behavior that we can use to justify it, and we can explain it to people. They may still look at us weird, but we feel like we've explained it in a way that's rational, when it really isn't. If I were to sit down for two hours and not touch anything, I'm not going to feel the need to get up and wash my hands. It's only until I've touched something that I feel has this texture that doesn't sit well with me that I'm going to get up and do it because now I feel like my hands are dirty. But there's no connection to anything outside of that.

SPENCER: Another aspect of OCD that happens to a lot of people who have it is this sort of doubting that occurs, the doubting of their own intuition or the doubting of their own memory. For example, they might wash their hands and then think, "Oh, but did I really wash them well enough?" They'll wash them again, and then they'll be like, "Okay, but I'm not really sure I got every spot." And then, over and over, or they might think, "Did I check the stove? Did I turn it off? They'll check it," but then they'll walk away and think, "No, but maybe I missed it," and they'll go back again. Is there an analog of that in OCPD, or is that really just an OCD phenomenon?

DARRYL: I think there's some crossover there. I've personally experienced those sensations, and I've talked with therapists about it. I've taken tests and been tested for OCD, and I didn't come up as somebody with OCD. So just anecdotally, that feels accurate to me. I would say that I'm able to work past that, where my experience is that people with OCD can't. I can leave the house, forget whether or not I've locked the door, and work through those uncomfortable feelings to the point where I'm not going to turn around and go back home, while somebody with strong OCD tendencies is not going to be able to resist; they're going to have to go back and check, maybe multiple times. So I do think there's some crossover. There's not a lot of information to confirm that. The research on OCPD is extremely limited in terms of personality disorders and mental health issues. All I can speak from is anecdotally, but I do feel that for me, that does apply.

SPENCER: Yeah, I think it applies to everyone, also, to some extent. Sure, kind of a matter of degree. Everyone has had that experience where they, "Did that thing? I can't remember, I was distracted." But someone with OCD might get stuck in a loop where they do it 20 times.

DARRYL: And people with OCPD don't tend to get stuck in that loop. So that's where it would differ.

[promo]

SPENCER: Let's get pragmatic here. I imagine listening to this episode, some people might have thought, "You know what this is starting to sound like someone in my life, right? My family members, my boss, etc." Obviously, we can't diagnose someone formally just by knowing them. But what are some things that you would look for to give you a sense of whether someone had OCPD from the outside. If it's a family member, a coworker, etc.?

DARRYL: I think the number one thing is going to be that rigidity, that inability to be flexible or bend. Especially, I think it becomes really apparent when it's things that are just opinions, all of the different subjects that we've talked about, whether it is what is good food, what is good art. If somebody's inflexible in those areas, I think that's really speaking to something worth investigating. So I would be on the lookout for that rigidity. If somebody is pursuing perfectionism, that's not always obvious to an outsider. You might not see it, but I think the black and white thinking is something that people can pick up on pretty easily. And so I would say, look out for that. There's another component, which is that not everybody with OCPD appreciates this topic, but there can be a lot of anger, and sometimes that anger really gets to unacceptable levels. It leads to unacceptable behaviors, especially in romantic relationships. Personally, I never feel as though I've crossed that sort of line. But I do see examples, and I do hear from people that have crossed that line, and they're being open about it. I've also talked to people that are in relationships with people that are diagnosed with OCPD, and they talk about the levels of anger that they have to deal with when communicating or just dealing with that person in life.

SPENCER: To clarify, is that specifically around the rigidity piece, like if you're challenging the person's rigidity, they get angry? Or do you mean other kinds of anger?

DARRYL: It comes from that, but it can just come from the person spending so much time in their own head and not living in the real world. For example, I could be having an inner dialogue with, let's say it's something, because this is a thing I think a lot of people now relate to. It could be a political thing. I could be thinking about a group of people and having some really negative thoughts, and that anger could start building up in me, and then all of a sudden somebody comes over to say hi, and I just explode on that person. It has nothing to do with anything that they've done. And so that's the sort of thing that people encounter when dealing with OCPD, this unreasonable anger that they can't even pin to anything. It just seems like it's coming out of nowhere. And that's because people with OCPD tend to spend a lot of time in their own heads, and they're not having positive dialogues with themselves; they tend to be really hyper-focused on the things in life that make them the most angry.

SPENCER: Suppose someone listening to this has a family member, coworker, or friend who has OCPD, and even knowing that they do want to have this person in their life, how can they relate to that person better? How can they make their relationship healthier and communicate better with that person?

DARRYL: For me, I think for anybody talking about this subject, it's really tricky because OCPD is highly treatment resistant. For somebody to get help, they've got to be at rock bottom. For most people, they've really got to hit rock bottom, and they've really got to want to change. There have to be some serious repercussions in their life for not changing for them to want to actively work on themselves. My suggestion, and I never feel comfortable giving this suggestion because it puts a little too much onus on the person that doesn't have OCPD, is to perceive this by saying, if this relationship is important, if this is a critical relationship that you need to maintain and you want this person to be in your life, you need to approach them very gently. If we're not talking about the OCPD specifically, but just maybe an argument or something that happened, and you want to be able to talk to them about that, I usually suggest giving them a warning, saying, "Hey, last week we had this discussion. It didn't really sit well with me. I have some mixed feelings about it, but I don't want to ambush you with this conversation. You weren't expecting it. Can we schedule a time to sit down and talk about this?" When you do sit down to talk about it, I think as gently as you can, explain to the person how their actions or words negatively impacted you, and maybe even have a few ideas about how your communication could go moving forward. As unfair as it may seem, being gentle with that person is going to be your best bet at getting through to them.

SPENCER: Do you think during those conversations with someone who has OCPD, you should operate from the assumption that they're not going to be able to see their side as wrong, or their perspective as wrong, but you want to be able to still operate more effectively, even if they're not willing to see their side as potentially wrong?

DARRYL: I think it's a really slow process. If you believe this person has OCPD, it doesn't necessarily matter whether they do or not, because if they are exhibiting these traits, most of these OCPD traits are unacceptable in interpersonal relationships. It doesn't really matter if they have it or not. If you really want to get to the point where you can talk to this person about working on their traits, it is a very slow process. You need to stay focused on how you feel in response to their behaviors and their words, without putting too much of the blame on them initially. Over time, you can start shifting the conversation from, "You said this thing, and it made me feel this way," to "You said this thing, and that's not really an acceptable thing to say." You're kind of holding their hand and slowly walking them through this process. This is something that could take months. It could take years. If your end goal really is that you'd love to see this person get treatment for what they're experiencing and going through, then patience is key. In the meantime, you really just want to try to temper their behaviors by letting them know how it's negatively impacting you. If that person respects you and loves you, then they're going to want to make the changes. People with OCPD are not inherently bad. They're not inherently evil. They don't want bad relationships. They don't want bad outcomes. They just feel compelled to do these behaviors that are unacceptable. They're unacceptable in society. They're unacceptable in relationships. It's that compulsive aspect that makes it really difficult for them to hear the other side and to want to work on themselves. But you can chip away at it. You can get to the point where they start recognizing that their worldview and the way that they interact with people doesn't line up with societal norms. It doesn't line up with kindness and empathy. You can get there, but don't expect that to be quick. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

SPENCER: It seems like really good advice. The more you can understand the worldview and internal feelings of the person with OCPD, the better you can design your communication so that it doesn't trigger them, but they understand that this is important to you, and if they value you, this is what you'd really like them to do.

DARRYL: Definitely.

SPENCER: Suppose a listener hearing this conversation starts to think, "Huh, maybe I have this condition." What would you advise that they do? What's a good first step?

DARRYL: I think making an appointment with a therapist is definitely one of the earlier steps in the process. It's tricky advice. We've touched on this a little bit, but with OCPD being highly treatment resistant, finding the right therapist can be a lot of work. I've gone through the process. One of the things that I talk about in my YouTube videos is that process, because the odds of you clicking with the first therapist that you find are incredibly low. Over time, you really need to work on developing a relationship of trust and respect with your therapist, because they're going to have to tell you uncomfortable truths. I have a therapist, and he uses the term "prickly" quite regularly in terms of, "I'm about to tell you this thing, you're not going to like to hear it, but this is something that we need to discuss now, where we've reached the point where we're not going to get any further unless we talk about this tough subject." So I do think that people should reach out, they should find a therapist, but understand that it's a process finding the right therapist, and then it's also a process to build up that trust and respect so that when they do tell you those things that are difficult to hear, you're willing to hear them. I would also strongly recommend that people go to ocpd.org; there is a plethora of information on there. You probably have a similar experience to me, where if you do have OCPD, it feels like you're reading your own biography there. Those are probably the first two things I would do. But then, as you're getting into it, as with any mental health issue, leading a healthy lifestyle, surrounding yourself with good people, getting involved in healthy practices— all of these things will help you to reduce stress. Stress is a massive trigger for OCPD. We've talked about it without directly talking about it, but a lot of the things that I brought up, my reactions to things, and the escalation and elevation of those reactions are directly related to how stressed out I feel in the moment. I would say work on the things in your life that are causing you the most stress, and find somebody that you trust that you can talk to.

SPENCER: And why should someone with OCPD go to a therapist and work on it? If they think that they're right, they might think, "Why am I working on it?"

DARRYL: You don't have to. First off, you don't have to do that. You can go the hard route and try to work on things yourself. I would say, anecdotally, I suggest that people take my advice because I've been there, done that. It feels a little, I don't know, I don't like saying that, but it's also true. I've gone through a lot of different treatment programs. If you were to name something right now, there's a 99% chance I'd say, "Yep, I've tried that out." The aim of therapy should be to help you look inward and as deeply as possible to get to the hard truths. I'll give you an example. I'm open about this on my YouTube channel. I've been married twice in the past. I've been divorced twice, and in between those two relationships, I was unaware of OCPD. I absolutely knew something was up with me, but I didn't know OCPD existed, and I knew that I was not going to be able to get into another long-term relationship unless I worked on myself. So I worked on myself, and I worked on myself, and I worked on myself, and I thought I'd made a lot of progress, and then I got into another relationship, and it became very clear to me that as soon as I was living with somebody else, all of the hard work that I did quickly unraveled. I think that the work you do on your own is never going to be as impactful and as long-lasting as the work you do with a professional. Again, I say that knowing that it's very, very difficult to find the right professional, and it's going to be very difficult to find somebody when they tell you, "Hey, this behavior is unacceptable," that you're going to be able to listen to them. Another thing that I talk about, that I think people don't like to hear because it's not as hopeful as people would like the information to be, is the earlier you get help, the better your odds of overcoming this disorder. I've talked to thousands of people over the last eight to ten years, and these things over time really set themselves in stone, to the point where even if you get the help that you need, it can be damn near impossible to make the changes that you really want to make. I know that isn't as hopeful as people would like it to be, but by saying that out loud, what I'm really hoping is that if you're younger and you are aware of this, that you go get that help, because it will make a world of difference at a young age, and it's not going to make as much of a dent in your issues when you're in your 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond.

SPENCER: What does that mean from the point of view of the person getting the treatment? Does that mean they have better relationships, that they enjoy life more? What's in it for them? From their own selfish point of view, why should they get treatment?

DARRYL: The pursuit of perfectionism, perfect action doesn't exist, is a fruitless pursuit, and so you're always going to be dissatisfied. You're always going to be unhappy. I think the best-case scenario for somebody with OCPD is that they only have OCPD. It doesn't develop into anxiety, and it doesn't develop into depression, or there are a few other disorders out there that are loosely connected to OCPD as well, but the best-case scenario is that you're a very, very lonely, highly successful person. That's the best-case scenario. The best-case scenario, if you get help, is that you have joy in your life, that you have peace and contentment, that you're able to get along with other people, that people enjoy being around you, that you don't feel isolated, that you don't feel solitary, that you're not lonely all the time, that you're not under the weight of crushing depression. And so the upside is massive for getting help, and the upside to not getting help is, I don't know, maybe you make a lot of money, but here's the thing, you can be successful even with treatment. I'm an example of that. I have successes in my life, despite having put in a lot of work to get over a lot of these OCPD traits. There are people out there, I think we touched on this briefly, that believe that you can harness the power of the good side of these traits and diminish the negative connotations of having these traits. Maybe that's true, maybe that's not, but for me, that's risky, and so I would rather just work on minimizing as much of the OCPD as possible, instead of trying to harness it. But people out there are free to do what they want to do, but my suggestion is work on the OCPD first, and then start putting your life back together once you've got things more under control.

SPENCER: Final question for you, what do you think actually works in terms of treatment to help people with OCPD? I know it's hard to treat, but what do you think is the most effective stuff that you've seen?

DARRYL: So I would say anything that is going to relieve stress is going to be a big complement to therapy. So exercise, meditation, and active hobbies. For me, I do a little bit of surfing. I like indoor rock climbing. I like a little bit of cycling. So anything that's going to help you reduce stress is going to be, especially in the beginning, immensely helpful, because if you can reduce the amount of and the frequency of angry thoughts that you're having during the day, it's going to put you into a headspace where you're more open to change. It's going to put you in a headspace where you're more open to listening to others' suggestions. So I think stress reduction is really, really important. I think mindfulness and meditation are both excellent techniques to help give you some perspective. I think for me, therapy is where I really am able to work on perspective; that, to me, is like the number one thing that I get out of it. So gain perspective, use mindfulness, use meditation, reduce stress, and then I would again strongly suggest professional help as well to help guide you through all of this.

SPENCER: Darryl, thank you so much for coming on. This was fascinating to hear about.

DARRYL: Thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure, and I've enjoyed this a lot.

[outro]

JOSH: A listener asks: "Has data on parental happiness or lack thereof been a major contributor to your decision not to have children?"

SPENCER: It hasn't for me. I don't have children, and I don't plan to have children. But I think part of the reason why it hasn't really contributed to my view very much is that averages, while they can be very informative for policy and can help us tell whether something is worth trying. If there's some intervention, and on average, it doesn't even work, then it's probably not very interesting to try it and certainly not interesting to promote it throughout society. For other things, averages are kind of less informative. So the average perspective of parents, I don't know how much it should really inform you when you have so much information, so much evidence about yourself. And I think there are a bunch of things we can say about ourselves that put us into the bucket of more likely to be happy having kids or less likely to be happy having kids, and that will probably trump the averages, although I think it's still interesting to consider the averages and reflect on whether they apply to us.