I'm on the planning phase of my WIP and I recently found out I probably have OCD (I'm just recently learning about it). While analyzing one of my OCs, a man who used to be very famous but lost most of his fanbase after a misinformation spread, I noticed he might have some obsessive thoughts about not screwing the fanbase he re-grew and has compulsively entered a new job and post too much on social media to protect his popularity, and this made me think of writing him as having OCD, but I'm not sure he could fit in the condition.
The problem is that he's supposed to be very vain and have excessive (and genuine) pride on his looks, saying stuff like "I know I'm gorgeous!", but I don't know if it's possible to make OCD only affecting his career-based thoughts and actions but never affecting how much he thinks he's hot. Do you think it could work to make him worry about if people really like him while he's sure physical appearance is not a problem?
I asked the question about the vain character with OCD but no insecurity about his physical appearance (April 14th 2024), but I realized I sent it as anon from force of habit. I thought it might be useful to send this ask not anonymously in case I feel like I need more information later, so if you think it'd be useful to tag me in the post, it'd be okay for me.
OCD comes in a lot of different types/categories of intrusive thoughts, and each person with OCD will have a different experience.
It is totally reasonable for him to have OCD related thoughts about not “jinxing” his popularity, and that these thoughts never cross into insecurities about his appearance.
Hey, I think that his OCD focusing on a traumatic/very stressful experience is very realistic.
If you want to include his focus on his appearance in his OCD, he could have compulsions around making sure that he still is as attractive as he is in his head. So he could compulsively brush his hair, or wash his hands (I know it's a stereotype but I do it myself, it's very much real), or check his clothes, for example. OCD can make you have intrusive thoughts that go against the things you 100% believe in - in his case his looks - I think that it would make sense if it was included, and it wouldn't undermine his pride. For readers who have some knowledge on OCD, it could even strengthen this trait.
But I also agree with Rock - he can have zero connection between the two, and it would be completely fine. I think that whatever you do here should be alright.
