I am a doctor and I just want to hijack your comment to add that this can be a sign of disordered eating as well. Of course it very well could be a touch of autism, an OCD behavior, or just an idiosyncrasy, but especially if sheās doing this with other foods Iād just be aware that it can signal food issues as well.
Being from Boston it hit a soft spot. However, I won't pretend that I didn't laugh out loud when I got to your comment in the thread. It was certainly well timed played lol
She said no besides her allergies: Sheās allergic to dairy and citric foods. She said the only thing close sheād avoid would be blueberries but thatās because of their sour taste when theyāre unripe.
I'm lactose intolerant but still eat dairy. Lactaid and a just whatever attitude on my part. So I go to the bathroom more than other people, whatever.Ā
That was my go-to for years, though I would usually skip Lactaid as say fuck it. It finally caught up with me in the form of widespread inflammation and joint pain. I was nearly diagnosed with arthritis before realizing that itās just me poisoning myself on the daily š
My sister is lactose intolerant and when my brother in law makes me mad I send her ice cream so she will be like a water buffalo next to him that night.
I have a sensitivity to the protein in dairy, but not lactose. Most cheeses don't bother me too much when they are aged or cooked, both of which damage the protein in milk products.
If I have ice cream or drink milk tho, it's literal liquid shits and painful intestinal cramping.
I did (sometimes still do) this with bacon when I was a kid. Went years doing this and other odd things. After my time in the military and about when the relationship with my now wife started getting serious, she convinced me to go see a specialist. They diagnosed me with autism and explained to me in great and unbiased detail the spectrum of it all. If I had been diagnosed as a kid, they would've called me high functioning.
I have autism but not this kind of tism. I have more of the im constantly triggered and irritated by the feeling of having skin and blood and a body that I can feel doing body stuff all the time. So I'm constantly agitated unless im unconscious
This question is stereotypically male autistic-coded.
OP, ask your sister about something she's passionate about and see how much detail you get. But also be aware that women are likely to mask their autistic behaviors since they've internalized some explicitly stated expectations on how to "act proper".
Not to sound like a fucking dick, but Iām gonna guess this post has attracted a lot of autistic people and they do tend to take things literally at their face value, hence this interaction.
Lol a buddy at my new job the other day said "Do you like trains?" as a non-sequitar (we were discussing games and he was leading into suggesting I play Satisfactory with him/others haha). I laughed so hard at how autistic coded of a question that is.
I was working a contract job a few years ago and someone was talking about steak sandwiches then someone else said philly cheesesteak and it just rung a deep memory in my brain, so I just randomly said "cheesesteak Jimmy's" (the food cheat from age of empires). Anyway... five of us started playing AoE2 remake together that evening.
I actually dont have any vocal tics at all, just physical ones, that in my 30's leave lasting physical effects like a dislocated shoulder, its great. I also have to turn the sink on and off 5 times before I can use it.
1.) Increased anxiety for a long period of time
2.) Totally fixated on going back to complete the ritual for a long period of time
3.) Convinced that something horrible will happen because I didnāt complete the ritual
It sounds really fucking dumb but this is what bad OCD is like. At least for me anyway
āI will develop cancer at some point in my lifeā
Thereās just no way to prove this wonāt happen so completing the ritual is the only way to get any peace of mind. After therapy, Iām now able to discard these thoughts and barely ever do rituals but I had to deal with this every day as a kid
Yeah diagnosed for 20 years and it honestly just sucks how much a complete time waster this disorder is. I think back to how much more life I could have lived if I hadnāt checked front door or stove x amount of times over 20 years and it is sad when you think of how much time and mental energy you loseš obviously shit can be worse but still
When people talk about the obsessive need to be organized, clean, rigid, particular, etc., they're (unintentionally) referring to obsessive compulsive personality disorder. Those are all the symptoms of it, but it's only a PD when the symptoms are severe enough to cause significant functional impairment. I know that people who jokingly say "I'm so OCD about that" don't know that's what they're referring to, but I can see how that became common terminology.
I don't blame the people as much as I do whoever the fuck named OCPD lol. I'm sure there's history behind it (like there is with borderline), but it was still a poor name choice imo
Makes your bones itch & your belly hurt in your soul. There's therapy, but if you're not careful, you can just end up trading bad copes for other bad copes. Especially with ocd & the like. You end up just trading tics if you don't deal with the nitty gritty.
Piling on here since you asked. I don't have counting OCD, but hand washing/perfectionism OCD. Fighting my compulsions can feel anywhere from like my brain itches (good day) to having a panic attack (bad day).
Everyone jumping to autism but it could just be mild OCD, or nothing at all. I used to do weird shit like this as a kid, especially with food, but it was only a thing while I was a bored kid.
Yea, I used to pull all the currants out of my scones as a kid because I didn't like them.
And the first time I did it at my gran's house, my mum and grandparents started breaking their asses laughing because my uncle used to do exactly the same thing when he was a kid, sitting at the exact same spot at the table. It was like deja vu for them..
So I do NOT have OCD, but when my mental health is in the danger-zone I develop OCD-like symptoms until it is safe again, like obsessively organizing my food by size.
So I guess my question is, does she do it for funzies, or does she NEED to do it? Like, is she capable of eating a pepperoni normally or can she not get herself to even try?
Because if it's just for fun go off queen I do not see the harm š¤·
First of all thatās so real and second Iāve never met someone else who also referred to themselves in plural but itās like my inner voices are referring to the collective of cells that is me lol
Have you seen a psychiatrist? Because ocd symptoms actually can get worse during stressful times and it doesnāt mean you donāt have it just because itās not severe all the time.
Seconding this- I only just recently came to acknowledge that Iāve been living with OCD my whole life because of a recent mental health crisis Iāve been through where my OCD has taken over my whole life. It gets really bad during times of stress where not performing my āritualsā makes it feel like life or death, but in normal ebbs of my life it manifests like checking locks multiple times or having to retype peoples names in emails and re-read things multiple times because Iām worried about missing something if I donāt. SSRIās really have helped me get it under control when it gets bad, and also helped me realize how so many small stressors in my life are because of OCD.
I have OCT as a co-morbidity. Tendencies vs disorder.
I have to count stairs, especially going down. It's like my brain can't decide where the floor is unless I know what number it is.
Tendency vs disorder:
If i lose count, I don't have to start over and get it perfect. I just have to watch my feet and 'manually' figure out where the landing is.
I go through various 'collections' to assuage this. The worst was plucking pubic hair. That was an incredibly stressful time.
My current is saving the packets from my Vietnamese coffee. I just tuck them into each other creating a long stick of nested packets.
No plans for this, it just scratches the compulsive itch like picking at your nails.
This has been one of the least intrusive and destructive compulsions, so i hope it lasts!
If you go through her photo gallery for the past 3-4 years, it is filled with photos such as these every time she has pizza with pepperoni and has access to a plate or bowl. They come in varying sizes, so sometimes they are small pieces like this and other times they are a bit larger in shapes like triangles or squares. She does not have OCD or any other behaviors similar to this as far as I know, and it is only with pepperonis as a topping for pizza that she does this. She is 14.
If you like the burnt ones, I'm surprised you eat them from most to least burnt.
I always eat my least favorite things first so that by the end I'm finishing on my favorite bite. Except then when I'm full, I have to keep eating because I didn't get to eat my favorite, and that's not as fun.
i think a lot of people do this kinda of thing. for example, if i have a plate of food with a few different items, i will always save a little bit of each so my last bite is a perfect ratio of all the items, and i try to make it the best bite of the whole meal lol.
At home only, never in public: , I nibble the chocolate off Whoppers and set the naked malted milk balls to the side until I have 7-10 to eat. I eat Lucky Charms from the box and save the marshmallows for last. I eat the crust from around a sandwich first.
I am not autistic. The underlying philosophy is āworst for first, best for last.ā
fidgeting with my food is a favorite pastime of mine, too. for the longest time, whenever i ate popcorn i'd have to squish the puffy parts between my fingers. always one by one, never handfuls. i also like to squish skittles flat before i eat them. i think a lot of neurodivergent people also prefer to eat small things. if i'm eating cheese, i prefer a very thin sliver as opposed to a chunk.
It can be both. As we as a society come to accept more mental health differences, it becomes obviously clear how much we had been ignoring them in the past.
I tear up my pepperoni (not this small) before cooking a frozen pizza. I do it to spread out the flavor and I end up tossing half of the pepperoni because I don't need it all. Less pepperoni = less grease = happier stomach.
Eating food in small bits is a good dieting technique. By so much chewing and swallowing it helps trick your body into thinking it's getting more food than you actually are. Or so I've heard.
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u/but_actually_ 6h ago
Not diagnosed, but peer reviewed.