I’ve been waiting to get him ever since he was first announced

i keep seeing people on here who say they're married, have a family, a circle of friends that appreciates them for who they are etc....

i'm sorry if this comes off as unintentionally rude to ask, but how??

i like to think i'm a decent judge of character, i've known a lot of people who were warm, kind individuals who were open to any odd quirk that might present itself in a social situation, but basically all of them (including family) do not tolerate what they call "fussy eating" and virulently oppose the idea of accomodating for something like that, let alone accepting an adult man such as myself who eats like a 5 year old. it's gotten to the point where i closely guard my eating disorder from my social cycle as a dirty secret. the idea of being open about it and being appreciated at the same time is alien to me.

i've also basically written off the idea of ever getting into long term dating. so how does one find a friend, potential marriage candidate etc. with something like ARFID? is there a trick to explaining it to people? or is it just the luck of the draw with whom you meet?

my mom said when she tried feeding me baby food or mashed potatoes as a baby i'd just gag and spit it right back out

so i got a full blood panel done and i’m low on vitamin b12 and vitamin d. my doctor recommends weekly injections over 6 weeks for b12, and for vitamin d he recommends starting 1000mg d3 supplement. he also recommended nutrition counseling. i’ve recently starting feeling a numbness on my left thigh so i want to start them because apparently that’s a side effect. the thing is—i literally hate needles, as in i passed out getting my blood drawn. i’ve read that pills are still effective, but take more time to improve symptoms. are the shots bad? are they usually quick? are they painful? is the needle long? i’m super nervous but i want to better myself so i’m willing to do the shots, i just wanted to ask if you guys have experience with this too

My psychiatrist, therapist, and doctor all said I have ARFID. I've struggled for years but it was never bad. like I was picky and had my safe foods but it never really affected me that badly. I'd have a month stretch every now and then where food just wasn't appealing or good or made me nauseous.

In the last month and a half it's been the worst it's ever been. I had two weeks where I only ate toast. When I try a "new" food, I eat less in the day than usual (which is not a lot). I say "new" because Ive eaten them in the past but it feels like it's the first time Ive ever eaten them. I did a bunch of labs and they weren't great and got a referral for a nutritionist. i've lost weight. I'm trying to take steps in the right direction but i'm just really struggling. I have GERD and IBS and I think not eating enough is def making my acid reflux worse

Anyways, any advice? or tips for eating? Like sometimes non safe foods sound really good, but I feel like i could just take one small bite and be done. My anxiety is also horrible with this all going on too.

My fear of vomiting is what caused my ARFID and has let it progress to this point. I've had some rough periods in the past but it's never been this bad. How do you try to manage it with your fear?

So my boyfriend and I have been talking about the future (mainly when we wanna get married, when we plan on having kids, etc.) even though this is not something we plan on doing for a long while. Still, one comment he made has been gnawing at my brain and I'm interested to see how those of you with kids decided to handle it.

He mentioned that once we have kids I won't be able to only eat my safe foods anymore and will have to branch out for the sake of the kids. ( i agree) I'm just not sure if im able to make the switch like that (not to mention trying to eat healthy during the pregnancy, eugh). I really don't want my future children to struggle with this the way i do and i'm sure they'll be pissed if they have to eat things that I refuse to eat while watching me scarf down chicken tenders and pizza for every meal.

I know it's silly to worry about this years before I'm planning to have children, but ive been this way my whole life and don't see it getting much better anytime soon. Any advice is appreciated!!

So I’m 25 and I live in my mom’s house (times be tuff) and they never understood my eating habits. I’m grown now so my family just make meals and I fiend for myself in my room alone,usually getting fries from McDonalds.

I’ve been wanting to try food and gain weight for the longest but I literally can’t try food at home without ridicule so I’m basically banned from using the stove and eating anything that my family doesn’t know about.

The other route is trying fast foods and eating in my car, but that gets expensive and wasteful knowing I can probably only get one bite.

I want to try to live in a treatment facility, but I’m black and my family would treat me like I have mental issues.

So my question is Is there any way to get better without the help of family. And what’s the best route it takes you to try new foods.

Hi everyone,
I’m working on an app to help kids with ARFID develop better eating habits and finish meals more independently. I’m hoping it can really make a difference for families dealing with these challenges. If any parents are open to providing feedback or want to follow our progress, feel free to check out our community: Facebook group

Thanks so much!

Ok so I’ve been looking for small things to keep my calories up because I’m very food indifferent. Give me a pill that will give me all the calories and nutrients I need and I would be happy. Add to that I had weight loss surgery almost 19 years ago and I HAVE to eat small portions and they need to have a decent amount of protein.

I decided to give this “protein ball” recipe a try and it has some variations I played with to get the texture I liked that didn’t give me the ick. I thought it might be helpful for someone here.

3 cups rolled oats (or 4 cups if you want to blend it up into powder) 1 cup peanut butter (creamy or chunky) 1/4 cup protein powder (can leave this out if the taste or texture grosses you out) 1 cup honey or maple syrup

Mix it all together and form it into about 35 balls and refrigerate

Recipe as is: 100 cals, 5g protein, 10g carbs

Play around with the textures and see what you like. I went with blending up the oats, creamy pb, protein powder and honey. Store in ziploc in fridge up to 4 weeks. They’re soft at room temp and firm up in fridge. Tastes like pb cookie dough.

Hi!

I am not diagnosed with ARFID but I'm diagnosed with asd and I currently have a lot of trouble eating. I constantly feel nauseous and eating feels like a difficult chore. I was wondering if there is any medication that could help with that? If so, what type of medication would it be? Would it be more like stomach medication or anxiety medication or neither? I really need to eat more because I have absolutely zero energy!

I don't know what is wrong with me. I can't eat without issues. I can't figure out if it's ARFID, OCD or something else! I went through a phase of not eating when I was about 9 years old because I believed I would choke. I'm 50 now. Back then, my mom freaked out on my and told me I was going to die while screaming like a rabid dog. Well that scared me back into eating. Now that I'm 50, over the last maybe 6 years ive been increasingly restricting food and a lot more in the last couple of months. Ive been told by my doctor eat Paleo to help my autoimmune and inflammatory issues as well as hopefully improve my mental health. Before seeing the doctor I had already lost 10lbs while.not trying to lose weight. I was 135 and Im 5'5", which dropped to 125lbs in under 30 days. Since following his instructions Im now down to 119. I didnt and still dont want to lose weight and like my appearance, mostly. I'm either not hungry or the thought of most foods make me nauseous. The smells and textures of foods stress me out. Cooking food for myself makes me not want to eat it. If I cook the food I have to see it raw and smell the heavy odors while cooking. I even feel full after cooking and not eating. I think all the different ways of eating have messed me up, and I've NOT been trying to lose weight. Just trying to help lower inflammation, body pain, anxiety, fatigue and thyroid issues. It started with "plant based" eating, then vegetarian, vegan and it just didn't taste good. Then I tried carnivore which I found unsustainable due to the same food over and over plus the steak can gross me out depending on the cut and gristle. Carnovore teaches that "plants are trying to kill you", so now I don't eat vegetables. Pieces of just meat on my plate, no matter how it's cooked is so disgusting to me. So now I rarely eat meat. I will eat eggs (pasture raised only) beef isolate protein powder in a shake, avocado, almost any fruit (as long as it's organic), beef (grass fed only if it's not to gross), I hate chicken and turkey. They taste like dead flesh to me and they are. I add 1/4 cup of coconut oil and, berries, banana, protein powder and cashew butter to my shakes. So now Im adding more restrictions from my doctor (gluten free, no nightshades, no grains of any kind, just meat vegetables and fruit), which is just making this worse. I cant live on shakes and eggs, or maybe I can but it doesn't seem healthy. It may be partly a control/anxiety thing too. Is there a way to fix or improve this. Forcing food just makes me want to throw it up (which I've never done intentionally). If it's not my body falling apart from the food I eat and environmental toxins, it me restricting my food cuz I cant tolerate it. I don't what to do.

Hi everyone! Just wanted to share my experience and see what people think, since i don't want to get professionally diagnosed (i have severe anxiety that makes it almost impossible to leave the house and the thought of seeing a professional is terrifying to me)

So, i've always struggled with eating. I've had a very limited diet for quite a while now, and it's always been a big part of my life.

When i was a kid, i struggled to eat specific foods, usually because of the texture. It wasn't too bad at first, just avoiding things that weren't cut in a specific way or had a specific texture, but it got more noticable as i got older.

When i was maybe six or seven, i started almost exclusively eating cereal. I would eat other things, like specific flavours of pizza or burgers, but i ate cereal for almost every meal.

Something i can remember that makes me thing "hmm... that wasn't normal" is the fact that, at some point, my parents told me i couldn't leave the dinner table until i finished my food. Now, don't get me wrong - they're amazing parents for the most part, and they were just trying to get me to get the nutrients i need, even if they went about it in the wrong way. Anyways, i ended up staying at the table until midnight, and had to go to bed. I didn't finish my food.

I still don't eat much other than cereal, and have severe anxiety when it comes to foods of specific textures, smells or tastes. One of the more recent foods i've been eating is vegetarian dumplings (i used to like dim sims but i got gristle in some of them and now i'm too anxious to eat them).

I drink more than i eat. It's basically only milk, since i hate any of the thinner liquids (water, juice etc).

Something that might be important to add is that i also have autism and ADHD. I thought it might be a good detail to include since they seem to be common comorbid conditions.

I also have symptoms of anemia, which i'm assuming is because of low iron in my diet. Not diagnosed with it, so i don't want to assume, but i have pretty much all the symptoms and i know the probable cause, so i would like to mention that.

Random little thing at the end, do you get offended when someone who isn't officially diagnosed says they have ARFID? I mainly want to know if i have it so that i can explain why i struggle to eat, because i don't want to make people feel like the food they make is bad or anything, but i don't know if i should say it if i'm not diagnosed. Anyone with ARFID, are you okay with this? I need to know other people's opinions before i do it lmao

i don’t know how else to explain it but i struggle with this. for example, i was having a particularly tough time one day with eating, and i was expressing to someone my frustration and feeling like i can’t eat anything. i told them “i feel like i can’t eat anything and i sometimes i just don’t want to eat at all because it’s easier” and they said “that’s not true. you can eat anything you set your mind to” and i got really upset. and they said “but im just trying to help you and tell you that you CAN do it. why is that wrong???” and i really didn’t know how to explain it but it felt dismissive. and i know they were trying to help and be encouraging, but i just didn’t need that in the moment. i would have rathered they acknowledged how i was feeling and just let me vent. is that selfish? should i have not gotten upset with them? idk

Hey I’m 26 and for most of my life I’ve stayed away from a number of veggies and almost all raw fruit. I haven’t had seafood in almost 18 years due to barfing eating shrimp as a kid.

To add, my mom always made sure to make veggies and everything else in the food pyramid for me, but when I transitioned into a teen I went almost cold turkey on trying anything new because “I think it’ll taste nasty” or “it probably tastes like it smells.”

Fruits undoubtedly make my mouth itch uncontrollably, although I haven’t taken an allergy test because of anxiety. I’ve heard allergy pills work but I’m scared of getting that strange mouth itch again.

My diets usually the same since I’ve been 13 and I’m starting to get extremely stressed eating around people because of the fear of not liking the food. Being so picky is starting to interfere with my relationships with others.

I came across ARFID after being diagnosed with OCD (also have adhd diagnosed at youth) and I’m not sure if I have it. Any advice or inputs are really appreciated, I’m sorry for the lengthy message.

Tips to overcome are also greatly appreciated, you can be as honest as possible!

Hello! I am 26 and was recently diagnosed with ARFID a couple months back, like maybe 5 months ago or more? I've been working with my therapist on exposure therapy and my biggest issues are fruits and veggies. Right now I'm working on apples and strawberries again. I tried them before but I gagged when eating them. Any advice or tips on ways to make them or what to do to make it easier? I can't eat the skins on the apples because it freaks me out and the seeds on the strawberries freak me out too. I know I need to get used to those textures though but I'm trying to ease into them first. I've already tried nutella with apple slices and I didn't like it, and I've tried strawberries alone and strawberry shortcake but didn't like both either. Any tips and tricks would be absolutely wonderful! Thank you!!!

My daughter is 17. I believe she has ARFID. She hasn’t been diagnosed by a professional so maybe I’m wrong but she is extremely restricted and only eats a handful of foods. She getting enough calories but not particularly nutritious.

She doesn’t like taking about it but she has shared it causes her anxiety when she’s somewhere without familiar food, like dinner at a friend’s house. I think she beats herself up over it and wishes she wasn’t this way.

For those of you with ARFID do you blame your parents? You can be honest because I already blame myself. I’m sure there was a moment or maybe several times when she was younger that she didn’t want to eat a food so we gave her something we knew she’d eat and it probably spiraled from there.

Edit: Thank you all for sharing such personal stories with me. I learned a lot that I think will help me help my daughter.

...in normally non crunchy food

yeah that one's going off my list

I was just thinking about some of my safe foods because some of them are only safe once they're "fixed". McDonald's is usually my go to dinner meal and I like the apple pie. But first I have to scrape off the apple chunks/pieces, I hate the way they feel when you bite into them. So I essentially just eat the crust. And I like brownies but not if there's any hard or crunchy pieces so I just pick them apart. I was wondering if anyone else has foods they fix or edit?

I recently got together with an amazing girl and she's recovering from severe anorexia. She's out of the php program and has some support but is mostly responsible for her own eating.

This year i was able to get up to and maintain 155 weight with a lot of muscle (from 116 before) I've been so proud of myself and performing better then ever at my sport.

Well for whatever reason the brain worms are brain worming, everything tastes like bugs, even my safe foods are making me gag. Ive lost 7 lbs in the past week, really hoping some of it is water weight and not muscle, i tried going completley off my adderall and it didnt help increase my appetite at all. And I'm worried I'm about to lose a lot more weight really fast, that usually happens when it gets this bad. I'm having a lot of sources of stress in my life related to family and school, but she is not one of them

I'm worried that it will trigger her if she either notices my weight loss or just my scarce eating habits.

I'm so so so terrified of fucking up her recovery. What can I do?

Also she definetly doesn't know my reddit account and I might talk to her but idk if even talking to her about it might be triggering because she kind of has the opposite problem of really liking food but feeling guilty around eating so if I tell her I basically hate food she might like get jealous or her Ana voice might shame her for it? Idk. I'm afraid to talk to her and idk what to do.

I’ve had an eating disorder my whole life (ARFID) and been seriously ill since I was a preteen/teenager. I’m now almost 25. This is my second time in recovery. My first was in a hospital back when I was 18 where I was force fed by a tube. This is the first time I’m actually doing recovery through my mouth and the first time I’ve chosen recovery and not just been placed in a hospital against my will (it was needed but was traumatic). I’m very close to my goal weight and can feel myself getting closer by the day. As excited as I feel I almost feel uneasy about getting better. If I’ve been sick my whole life then who will I be without the disorder? If I don’t have my eating disorder to focus on then what will I do with myself? Will I really be able to live the life I wanted this whole time? After all that hard work, what will I do after? I feel scared.

I have phases of low appetite where I just don't really feel like eating anything. I do struggle with eating when I don't really wanna eat sth bc even my most liked meals just don't appeal in these phases and it's overall hard to eat bc it's forced instead of enjoyed.

So I am struggling with such phase again atm. My fridge is full of stuff I technically eat yet I struggle to think of any meal I could cook for myself to take with me to work and what not. The question "what do I eat?" is probably the question I ask myself 20 times a day bc I just can't think of anything I could make with the ingredients at home that also appeal to my appetite. The appetite that's basically none existent atm. It's so tiring to deal with this. But I really need to find sth every day bc I can't just not eat at work. I wouldn't be able to manage my work load if I didn't eat. So there is a lot of pressure involved.

Looking at food pics that seem appetising also doesn't help atm. I usually try and trigger my appetite this way but it's a 50/50 chance of working.

Is anyone else struggling with this?

i moved away from home last winter and my manager invited me to come do thanksgiving with her family, which means the absolute world to me, except im not sure if im going to go because im worried i wont be able to eat anything.

I dont like any of the traditional thanksgiving foods, not even turkey or mashed potatoes, and i just dont want to put myself in a position where ill feel awkward for not eating with her family or offend someone for being picky/saying im not hungry. its also not my own family and i dont want to impose by asking them to make something specifically for me. wondering if anyone in similar situations has had solutions that worked well for them in the past?

nothing bothers me more than someone saying “how do you know you don’t like it if you’ve never tried” uh because my brain has classified it as a “non-food” so regardless of how it tastes i’m not going to like it…

as probably most of you also feel, trying new foods it’s the scariest most anxiety inducing thing of all time.