“This is not a film about hand washing,” says Bud Clayman at the start of “OC87,” adding, “It’s a film about the fear of acting on thoughts.” Mr. Clayman has obsessive-compulsive disorder — specifically “harm O.C.D.,” which involves intense anger and violent imaginings — and Asperger’s syndrome, which inhibits the grasp of social cues. This moving, penetrating documentary records his attempt to describe his conditions, confront them and learn to manage them.

Soon after college, mental illness interrupted Bud Clayman’s dreams of a filmmaking career. Thirty years later, he’s made the movie of his life.

Clayman, who has a winning sense of humor, reconnects with people he knew in college, before his problems resulted in a raft of diagnoses, and even gives speed-dating a whirl. Through it all, Clayman struggles to keep himself, and “OC87,’’ on track — and it’s easy to cheer his ultimate triumph.

You could say that a documentary with the title OC87: The Obsessive Compulsive Major Depression Bipolar Asperger’s Movie is maybe biting off more than it could chew, but no more so than the filmmaker who found himself coping, not voluntarily, with all those afflictions.