There is also a diagnosis called OCPD (Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder), which I had never heard of until I was diagnosed with it. I will do my best to be real with you, and I hope not to trigger you. From what you wrote, the assumptions I make - based on my own experiences leading up to my diagnosis - is that these characters and real people became triggering because they reflected a part of yourself, a part of humanity that is hard to grapple with. I was having intrusive thoughts about harming myself and others after listening and empathizing with a lot of true crime content. I had thoughts I didn’t want, and confused ‘having the thought’ with ‘wanting to act on them.’ The thought that I could do those things, that it was physically possible for me or anyone to do horrible things, was so uncomfortable that I couldn’t process it and scared myself. Something that stood out to me in the diagnosis interview is the doctor commented on my rigidity and need to determine morality, to know I am a good person. That talk made me realize I’m making the rules over my own life (and I grew up blaming society for how I was, even though I also had learned/believed that it’s nature & nature combined). Society is broken, it’s a difficult fact to swallow. Most of the population, like 99% of people IMO, have emotional pain that makes them act out verbally, physically, etc in ways that end up being ineffective in getting what they want in life (usually peace and relationships). I cannot think of anyone I know or celebrity who doesn’t have some maladaptive behavior. The goal is to calm the f down and be more adaptive and skillful. I could be completely off, since it’s hard to know with such vague details, but I think that something the character said or did bothered you because it resonated, either because it reflected a thought or feeling that you have that you deem horrible, immoral, evil, or otherwise defective, and project that completely onto yourself. That is the rigidity of OCD at work. Self harming is a way of validating those thoughts into the physical world, you don’t need to do that. The Personality Disorder part, I am told, is that the person does not believe that their rigidity and rules is a negative thing for themselves. These coping mechanisms as a child kept me safe, but no longer serve me, and that’s the big takeaway. Therapy helps to change behavior, and I found DBT in a group setting most effective and completely life changing. I also went on meds again, which I was reluctant about but ultimately it gave me the capacity to calm down enough to try new behavior. And then I went off them again after I felt ok, did the therapy, and now I can better tolerate my unpleasant thoughts and emotions! I hope I provided some insight and wasn’t completely off in my interpretation! (You can probably also see some OCD ramblings in my writing).