** Click here for Episode 156 **
Calling all psychologists! Can you advise Dave in Bolton? He says:
I’m getting worried about my son Matt.
When eating, he insists on going through his meal in alphabetical order – Fish, Chips and Peas will be eaten as (C)hips, (F)ish and finally (P)eas. Curries and Risottos are divided into their sub component parts before consumption.
Is this normal teenage behaviour or the first signs of OCD?
You can test for OCD by pureeing all his meals to the extent that the various elements are indivisible. Teenage boys tend to be perennially hungry, so he’ll probably glug it down without a fuss; however if he sends it off to a lab to be chromatographically separated into its original constituents and then to the library for realphabeticising, he has a bit of a problem.
From your email, we can’t say for sure that Matt has OCD; It sounds like he might just be taking the fun of Alphabetti* and translating it to his other meals.
*But would that be filed under A for Alphabetti, or P for pasta? Blimey, this OCD business is hard.
Subscribe with iTunes • Book • Question Archive • FAQ • Episodes
• App • Facebook • Twitter • Merch Superstore • YouTube Channel •
Answer Me This! Podcast 
November 18, 2010 at 12:15 am |
I’m not a psychologist, but it depends on how old Matt is.
If he is only quite young then it is possible that he has Aspergers or another form of ASD. If Matt is older, then its more likely that it is purely OCD.