I have OCPD

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Oh god. It explains everything. Everything. I can link pretty much all my issues (apart from a few social ones) back to this diagnosis. I took a self-rating and got 87/100:

71-100. Severely O-C. You are adaptive but quite uptight, insecure and driving hard. The closer you are to the rating of 100, the nearer you come to playing brinkmanship at the ragged edge that borders on exhaustion of your adaptive reserve and a slump into depression.

http://psychcentral.com/disorders/sx26.htm

Apparently (from what I've read) I'm doomed to a life of misery; making others and myself miserable, being hateful and hated, and depression.

I want to fix myself but everything seems to say that it's impossible and it's inherent in my personality; a.k.a. it's who I am and I can't change myself.

Well I have anxiety and OCD, whether I fit into this category well, possibly. I wouldn't be surprised at all.

All I can say is don't try and fix yourself, all you do is give the perfectionist element in you more power. Meds has helped for me. Are you on meds sunshower?

I managed to stop myself from doing something stupid, so now I will write.

"All I can say is don't try and fix yourself, all you do is give the perfectionist element in you more power."

This will be a problem, because this is currently my only hope. There is nothing good about OCPD. I can't allow myself to live without any good qualities. Otherwise I would classify as a leech of life.

Once you are aware of a trait that causes difficulty for others, you can try to find a work around. For me, when I find myself about to begin a rant because my wishy-washy husband has suddenly changed the schedule for the flimsiest of reasons and upset my expectations yet again, I take a deep breath and remember that is my AS rigidity speaking. I make myself remember that nobody will die because of a change and that reacting the way I want to react is totally inappropriate and will make things worse rather than better. I take a few more deep breathes and try to self calm and usually do. I remind myself that my husband is not wishy-washy; he is flexible. I remind myself that he is a good person (which is true) and that he is always trying to accommodate other people and has more sensitivity about other's needs than I do. Therefore what he is doing is correct, and I need to get over myself. Then I can go along with the change in schedule and remain calm and happy.

I don't know if this helps you or not. But awareness should help you see what is going on better. Some AS people have friends or spouses that will use code words or actions to clue in the AS person that they are doing something inappropriate. Sometimes they will help you practice what you are supposed to say and do.

Myself, when I need to scream about things, I get in the car, drive to an isolated place, and then scream myself hoarse, pant a while, and then return calmer.

My own realization that I probably have OCD was a major factor in subsequently realizing that I probably have AS, yet one psychiatrist in year 2000 even asked me what OCD was and claimed not to have heard of it before.

Man's search for Meaning

It's not even in the category of "self-help" books, and the author never thought of it as a self-help book, but it has helped me and a lot of people that I've given it as a gift. Even a relative that is a psychologist thinks that it's the best book that he has ever read.

I think OCPD is a strange sort of anxiety disorder. The odd thing about it is that the goal seeking behaviours and rigidity are actually considered a logical behaviour in western society, as it is a Go-Getting, Ambitious society. I think people can develop these behaviours in response to stress but then it becomes hard for a person to figure out where their own true personality begins and which aspects of the personality developed in response to stress.