sharing my story: do i have arfid?
TW: mentions of dry heaving / gagging, and vomiting (not physically vomiting, but the fear of it happening)
a little introduction: i am currently 18 years old, F, and i am still struggling with food. i feel stuck in the loop of asking myself “am i just picky?” or “is it more than that?” my family members have always made comments about my eating habits, and it has made me feel bad about myself many times.
so, here is a little list of my symptoms!
- i have struggled with this fear of food since i was five. i would have panic attacks over school lunch, thinking that i would starve since there wasn’t anything on the menu that i would eat. when we wouldn’t get the lunch menus in advance, my mom would have to go to the school and ask for one, and explain that her daughter (me) would cry if she didn’t know what she would be eating. most days, my mom packed my lunch.
- when i was younger, my mom tried to make me try a singular green bean. just the thought of it made me start crying, so i sobbed at the kitchen table and was dry heaving over a green bean. i don’t even think i took a bite, i don’t remember.
- i don’t like trying new foods because i don’t want to gag or throw up. i don’t have a FEAR of vomiting, i just absolutely hate the feeling.
- i don’t like going to new restaurants without looking at the menu first, and i feel embarrassed when i modify my food when talking to a waiter. i feel like they’re judging me, when they probably don’t care since they’re just taking my order. new restaurants with unfamiliar menus give me anxiety because i don’t know what is safe or what anything looks like, typically. i usually order the same thing over and over when i go to a restaurant i know, because i know that food is safe and i like it.
- speaking of eating foods over and over, i eat a lot of the same snacks / meals over and over because i know that i can eat them comfortably.
- i don’t like foods with certain textures (ex. i will not eat mushrooms or anything of that sort. i will not eat mashed potatoes if it has any lumps. i REFUSE to eat chicken if it even looks off to me, i think it has salmonella if it’s a certain color or something and i don’t want to get sick. fat in steak makes me gag. i will not try fish because it smells fishy, and shrimp looks too rubbery.)
- i do not eat any vegetables, besides potatoes and green onions IF they are in a specific soup from a restaurant. the smell and (what i think) the texture will be like are what stop me from trying them. even just touching a mushroom or onion in my food will make me gag. i can tolerate garlic if it is veeeery small. most of the times, not.
- for example, even if my mom claims that the onions she put in my meal are “very finely chopped” and i “won’t be able to taste it”, i still find them. i hyper focus on the idea of there being an ingredient that i do not like and i will not eat it. i can try and pick it out, but i ultimately give up. (also, i am extremely thankful to have a mom that tries her absolute best to work around my issues with food.)
- i have had panic attacks over food that other people have made, and thought that i would be judged for not eating it or only eating one thing.
- i would rather go hungry than try new foods most of the time. i think of what my reaction could be to eating them and that stops me from trying something new.
- the only fruit i like are apples. nothing else, i just really like apples.
i apologize for the really long list, but those are just a few of my experiences / symptoms. i have been called picky all of my life, but i wonder if other people will think it’s more than that or relate to what i have said.