In an earlier post, I touched on how people with OCD often recognize that their thoughts or actions are irrational but they can't change them none the less...
Well my peanut butter spreading obsession is definitely near the top on my irrational obsessions. When spreading peanut butter, it must be evenly spread, to all the edges, with no distinct grooves.
My husband loves a good PB&J sandwich, so when I make his lunch and there's no leftovers, I resort to a PB&J sandwich since I always have the ingredients. Having made 100's of PB&J sandwiches over the last 4 years of co-habitation, I have tried to overcome it, to just not go right to the edge, or to add a little bit more and not completely smooth it over with the knife, leaving large grooves, but despite recognizing that it is ridiculous, I physically cannot leave a piece of bread without evenly spread PB. My anxiety level completely rises and I know it would consume my mind if I were to take that Jam piece of bread and lay it on my PB slice. Hubby would never notice if that PB wasn't spread right to the edge, since I somehow am married to someone with virtually no obsessions, especially when it comes to food, but regardless of that, I still can't bring myself to give him an unevenly spread piece of PB bread.
One of the reasons I started with PB as my first reveal was to really be able to touch on the fact that I recognize and realize it is totally ridiculous. In reality, it really does not matter if there is peanut butter to the edge of the bread, or if the middle has a significantly higher ratio of peanut butter then the next bite will have, but the mind has other thoughts and plans.
My heart rate rises, and the mind races with ways to 'fix it'. It will not shut off, or stop thinking about that uneven PB until I have fixed it. I can tell myself to move on, think of something else, but it's a fascinating thing that no matter what, my mind will only think about that piece of bread. That is one of the parts of mental illness that people usually cannot grasp. They think 'just let it go', but the mind is not wired to do that on some people. It really is a 'mental illness'.
While working one of my previous jobs, I used to go for breakfast with the girls in my department every morning. There was a woman I worked with who would eat 1 slice of toast every morning and her topping of choice was PB. To my luck, she was the most uneven PB spreader that ever lived. ever. She would take her tiny packet of PB and a small white plastic knife and proceed to cause me daily anxiety attacks with her giant ridges, but worst of all, the stupid amount of areas left without any bit of PB. As irrational as I know it is, I still cannot comprehend how people can eat a bite of their "peanut butter toast" without getting any peanut butter because they were too lazy to spread the peanut butter over the entire piece. I hate to admit it but after a few months of falling into this morning routine, trying to overcome watching her do the same half ass spreading job without saying anything, I had to stop going to breakfast. I could not handle it any longer & was on the verge of showing my crazy by saying something about her spreading...or lack of.
The worst part of this behaviour is that it is not even my worst one, but re-reading this post, I felt totally crazy..and secretly anxious having to picture uneven PB on bread multiple times.
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