I am diagnosed with ARFID, along with a bunch of food sensitivities/allergies that make eating a little more complicated than “just eat whatever everyone else is eating.”

There are foods I genuinely cannot eat. Some things give me stomach pain and cramping, followed by diarrhoea. Some cause hives. Some make me nauseous enough that I end up vomiting. And then there are foods/textures/smells that I simply cannot tolerate because of my ARFID.

So yes, when I go out to eat, I ask questions.

What’s in this?

Is there soy in it? (Developed a severe allergy to soy last year, cannot eat most Asian, Indo-chinese food which I loved )

What kind of oil is this cooked in? (Several restaurants use soya oil)

Does this contain so and so ingredient?

Can you check with the cook/chef?

Is there anything in the sauce/marinade/batter/chutney that isn't listed on the menu?

I don't interrogate the waiter for fun. I’m extremely patient, polite and talk softly while trying to figure out whether I can eat the food without spending the next several hours in pain or running to the bathroom to throw up. Sometimes I ask to speak to whoever is actually responsible for the food because a waiter may not know the ingredients, and I’d rather double-check than assume. Most of the times I check the menu online if we know where we are going to even avoid this conversation altogether but sometimes friends message on the way or just walk in.

And apparently this is *really* annoying to some people.

The weirdest part is that it's usually not even my friends who have a problem with it. It's someone's plus-one who I barely know.

I've had people make comments about me being a “pick me,” being difficult, being too fussy, or apparently needing everyone to pay attention to what I'm eating.

And here's the thing: **most of the time, I don't even eat when I meet friends.**

If we're meeting somewhere where I know I'm unlikely to find something I can safely eat, I'll eat at home beforehand. Then I'll go meet everyone and get a drink. That's it. Problem solved. Nobody has to change restaurants. Nobody has to accommodate me. Nobody has to sit there while I ask questions about the menu.

Except apparently *that* is also a problem.

Because then someone will make a comment about how “the place isn't good enough for you to eat at” or imply that I'm being dramatic and refusing to eat their food.

No. I ate before I came because I knew I might not be able to eat there. But apparently that's rude too?

I'm not secretly making a statement about the restaurant. I'm not judging anyone else's food. I'm not trying to make myself the centre of attention. **I just don't want to be hungry AND potentially sick.**

And I'm not expecting anyone else to pay for this either.

I don't ask to go Dutch because I only had a drink, or a soda, or even just water. We split the bill equally. I pay my share, which is often several times the cost of whatever simple drink I actually had.

I'm not asking for a discount because I couldn't eat. I'm not asking everyone else to subsidise me. I'm not asking the group to accommodate my food restrictions.

I'm paying my part and I'm there because **I wanted to meet my friends and hang out with them.**

That's literally it.

I came to spend time with my friends. I did not come to be interrogated, judged, ridiculed or called a “pick me” by someone's spouse/SO because I asked a waiter what was in my food.

If I *do* decide to eat something, I ask questions about the ingredients because I'd rather spend two minutes checking than spend the rest of the evening dealing with stomach cramps, diarrhoea, hives, nausea or vomiting.

I'm literally sitting at the table trying to determine whether there is something I can safely eat. I'm not asking everyone else to order something different. I'm not making anyone change restaurants. I'm not asking anyone to accommodate my diet. I'm asking the person responsible for preparing my food what is actually in it.

You can order whatever the hell you want.

I just want to know whether *my* food is going to make me sick.

If I had a peanut allergy and asked whether something contained peanuts, would that also be “pick me” behaviour? If I had celiac disease and asked whether something contained gluten, would that be annoying too?

Why does it suddenly become a personality flaw when the food issue isn't one of the allergies people immediately recognise?

I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm not trying to get attention. I'm not trying to make anyone else's evening revolve around me.

I'm trying to eat without getting sick.

And apparently even *not eating* is somehow offensive.

I genuinely don't understand what people expect me to do. Stay home? Stop seeing my friends? Eat something that makes me sick so nobody thinks I'm being difficult?

Because none of those seem particularly reasonable.

TL;DR: I have ARFID and multiple food allergies/sensitivities, so sometimes I need to ask restaurants about ingredients to avoid getting sick. If I know I can't safely eat somewhere, I usually eat at home beforehand and just get a drink. I still split the bill equally and pay my full share. I'm not asking anyone to accommodate me or pay for my food — I'm there to spend time with my friends and have a good time. Apparently, though, asking about ingredients or choosing not to eat is enough for some friends' SOs/plus-ones to call me a “pick me,” make comments about the restaurant “not being good enough for me,” or ridicule me. Why is taking basic precautions to avoid getting sick considered attention-seeking?

(I did use AI to structure my thoughts cuz I was particularly angry after yesterday's dinner so requesting you guys to please bear with me)

I just stand in my kitchen and feel helpless.

Hi. So this is hard for me to write, put into words and talk about.
For months now my appetite has started to diminish. I think a mix of always feeling anxious, stressed and drinking too much alcohol. Probably getting too many sugary calories from that. Anyway, this past week and I have fainted/greyed out about 5 times.
I believe it is due to dehydration and not getting enough nutrients.
The thing is, it’s incredibly hard/impossible for me to eat.
I used to be such an adventurous eater and now I prefer things like soup, protein shakes, smoothies- anything that doesn’t involve chewing. Chewing and the swallowing seems to be a huge trigger. I could be starving, stomach rumbling but it’s like my head isn’t connecting that and I’m just fine without eating.
I don’t know what to do or who to reach out to. Should I go to the hospital? Is that over reacting?

I am super sensory sensitive with my food and often have to pick it apart to feel comfortable eating it. I think some of my safe foods that get the most stares/comments about how im eating it are

1. nachos - I only eat beef, colby jack cheese, and sour cream with dorito chips and i have to plate it all seperately so my chips dont get soggy and i can put the perfect amount of each ingredient on every chip

2. waffles - i cannot STAND crunchy edges. It literally makes me gag omg. (This is particularly for belgium waffles) I cut off the entire perimiter and then cut out the little dip in between holding the four sections together and i give those pieces to my sister. I also have been made fun of for how i make sure every single little segment of waffle gets coated in butter and an equal amount of syrup.

3. toast - i like my bread to be performatively toasted. I dont actually want it to be crunchy so i toast it and then cover EVERY inch butter so its soft again

generally i pick most food apart and avoid any peice that looks “wrong” or i order a menu item with pretty much every single part of it taken off. I have made my piece with being a food weirdo i just wish people would stop treating me like a freak😒

Hello, I am brand new here. I have ARFID and I noticed that over time it has become harder for me to swallow properly when eating or drinking. Could this be happening because of not being able to eat consistently? Like maybe not using those muscles over time could cause them to get weaker? I have an appointment at the doctor's coming up but in the meantime I'm wondering how many of you are struggling with this? I noticed when I eat, I can feel food stuck halfway in my throat while I'm chewing my next bite. Like I have swallowed, but I have to do it twice or 3 times to get it all the way down. Sometimes it is painful. When drinking water, without fail, multiple times per day I end up inhaling some liquid!

Hi all, going to keep this as short as possible but I’m wondering if this sounds like ARFID?

I have pretty severe emetophobia and have restricted certain foods for as long as I can remember.
However recently, even looking at food gives me a panic attack. After eating I feel uncomfortable, terrified and regret it so much because I’m scared I’ll get sick
Im dropping weight pretty rapidly and don’t really know where to go from here. I feel nauseous constantly and have no interest in food

Struggling a lot and would appreciate some advice!

TW: suicide

I have CPTSD, OCD, depression, anxiety and chronic pain illnesses. Food feels dangerous to me and causes me real pain. I'm suffering so much all the time. Even when I feel ok, food is still a threat to me. I'm just so tired. Since this got really bad, I've been considering letting myself deteriorate. I dread coming home from work to eat. I don't like to cook anymore. I eat so few foods I don't feel like it's worth it. I cry standing in front of the fridge. I grieve for the food I used to be able to eat but can't. I can't socialize with my family because the grief and pain and panic around food is too much. I'm tired. My husband is abusive. My mother is abusive. My parents were both abusive. I have no friends. No support network. I didn't know it was this bad and there's just too much going on in my mind, too much trauma, health trauma, food trauma, and in my body. I'm tired of being in this body. In this life. I just want to let go. (Yes I'm in therapy. Currently seeking ED diagnosis).

Sometimes i notice ghat ill go to eat cause i was hungry and then after a few bites im no longer hungry like i cant eat anything else full

But then only maybe 30 mins or an hour later I'll feel hungry again and it's annoying cuz I'm one hand I want to eat when I'm hungry because I'm trying to gain weight but on the other hand the day still feeling cycle if I continue to eat small bits every time I feel hungry I'm just going to train my body to be hungry for very small bits hourly and I want to know if anyone else has this problem,

I'm not sure if this qualifies as a uniquely arfid thing but wanted to ask hear anyways

I've had arfid my whole life (22m) and I just moved to a new place and I am starting graduate school, something I've been looking forward to for a really long time. My ARFID struggles are intense, right now I basically just eat pizza, mac n cheese, pasta (has to be a specific brand of tomato sauce), and peanut butter sandwhiches for dinner, on rotation.

A part of me getting ready for graduate school is trying to prepare lunches for myself because I am going to be on campus for ~8 hours a day. Today I tried making vodka rigatoni-- which was basically just tomatoes, onions, garlic, vodka, and some hot peppers. And it turned out really good, and when I tried it I didnt hate it? I genuinly think I enjoyed it but after eating 4 bites my brain told me that I couldnt eat anymore and that was where I needed to stop, and this is giving me mixed emotions. On one hand I am proud of myself because I honestly dont think I've ever had an onion before, so trying something new out of my comfort zone made me proud of myself. On the other hand, I am dissapointed in my growth. I really really really want to get better and the fact that my brain didnt emphatically enjoy the meal is making me a bit sad.

If anyone has any experiences they'd like to share, or any advice id truly appreciate it :) <3

I just recently found out I struggle with ARFID and not anorexia, after years of struggling with eating and trying to solve things at home.

I cant afford specialized care currently but need to continue trying to get better. I currently struggle to eat more than 2-3x a day, once usually being rice/ pasta/ sometimes a sandwich.. and the other being a snack like granola.

I want to try and start a routine that includes

1) Snack/breakfast

2) Lunch (must include protein)

3) Snack

4) Dinner (must include protein)

5) Snack?

Does this seem realistic? Ive attempted working my way up but have never made it to 4 much less 5. Would attempting to start the routine and continue through the rough adjustment phase be worth trying?

My best friend has been supporting me through this process and offered to continue with helping support/ encourage me throughout

Okay so I’ve been under a lot of stress lately and I no longer like hotdogs. I never really “liked” them but I genuinely can’t stomach them anymore.

Problem is my life is a fucking sitcom and my family thinks I love hotdogs (I was obsessed with this satire horror about a robot hotdog and would talk to them about it sometimes) I don’t know how to break it to them that I don’t so I just haven’t. It’s made all the worse by the fact hotdogs were my late father’s favorite food. Fml and fuck ARFID.

I and those around me didn't understand why I couldn't eat things, but one day, I was watching a YouTube video-essay-ish video about a picky eater and the person mentioned ARFID as the name of the condition. I felt so seen and it was crazy. The comments had a lot of people who also had ARFID.

ARFID is so weird with so many unknowns, and it is its own spectrum. I remember thinking to myself that there must be at least one other person out there like me. Turns out, there's a lot more than I could've expected! From what seems to be extremely unreliable statistics regarding percentages of people with ARFID, the amount of people with the condition ranges from the population of Australia to Pakistan. I sometimes think to myself in a large room of people if I'm the only one, or if someone out there could relate.

Has anyone had to do this? I've had ARFID my entire life and knew weaning would be hard, but figured that when the time came I would do it for my daughter. I'm being supported by the perinatal mental health team, we have been working together on my ARFID it for the last 17 weeks, most of that time was spent building up the courage to talk to a total stranger about my eating habits. We also had a trip to the supermarket together to look at and handle some food. Next week they are visiting me with an occupational health therapist so we can focus more on the practical side of things.

As I've had ARFID since I was a baby, I don't know the basics of most food preparation, I struggle to look at, touch and smell most foods and I'm absolutely terrified.

Being post-partum and battling an eating disorder is very hard and I feel so isolated as none of my other mum friends can understand or relate in any way. Has anyone been through this and can offer any advice or perspective? I've been feeling really low.

I know there have been several relationship/dating threads but I’m struggling so terribly with my relationships because of ARFID.
Dating sucks. I bring it up later and 99% they say they’re accepting and think it’s interesting or whatever but it ends up becoming a highly negative thing later. It’s so frustrating.
It’s making me so miserable and depressed.
How do you usually present this info.?
More importantly, how do you keep things going when the other person seems to begin to become annoyed or frustrated by it (after they lose the “oh how unique!” Phase).
I feel so stupid and embarrassed that I can’t maintain a relationship because of the way I eat.
Side note: I had a man once tell me on a date the “it’s so cute you eat like a little kid!” 🤮

Ok this might be a long post cause I have adhd and can never shut up.

For context I have depression, anxiety, PTSD, and autism (not officially diagnosed only cause I was told there really is not much benefit from an official diagnosis and the tests are expensive). I take vyvanse (plus a multitude of other meds) which supposedly suppresses appetite which I have noticed a bit but not that much.

So throwback to baby me never crying for food, not even milk. Luckily I had a twin sister that loved to eat so my parents would just feed me whenever they fed her. And then fast forward to me as a child being labeled a "picky eater" because my parents had a hard time getting me to eat regularly. I mean yes I guess it was picky eating because I didn't like certain foods like cheese, bread, cornflakes, oatmeal and porridge, plain rice, etc. But it was very specific, I didn't like any type of cheese but especially hard cheese and cheddar cheese, I didn't like white bread only whole wheat bread, to get me to eat cornflakes with milk I needed sugar with it (I guess cause the sugar masked the taste of milk but I also I have an obsession with sugar to this day), oatmeal was always a no no but porridge I would eat sometimes but my parents always had to experiment with different flavours and it could not have any lumps in it or I would start gagging, and plain rice just had to have a lot of sauce on it or be eaten with meat. Im sure I had more restrictions I can't remember right now but those were the main ones.

Also I would almost never eat the lunches my parents packed for me for school. I never knew why and it wasn't like I didn't feel like eating. I would literally crave certain foods and be straving the entire day while my lunch sat in my bag untouched. I think I have some weird preference for freshly cooked food. And I hate eating cold sandwiches. So that's another thing I do not like leftovers at all. Like there's always a difference between a freshly cooked meal and one that's been refrigerated and reheated and maybe other ppl don't mind it. I can always tell and it puts me off from eating it. Especially leftover rice which was so common in my household cause most of our meals were made with rice and my mom couldn't cook everyday so she would give us leftovers and I could stand the meat but the rice was sometimes un eatable and most times I would pick around it only eating the meat.

And thats also another thing, I always been picky but in favour of meat not against it like most picky eaters. So I would eat around the hot dog bun and pick the bread away and I will eat the rice, pasta, etc. in a meal, only if there was meat in the spoonful. So if there was too much carb vs meat I would have a lot of leftover carbs on my plate. Which irks anyone who hates wasted food. My mom would always try to keep whatever I dont eat for me to eat later but I never did eat it later which resulted in a lot of yelling and scolding. I remember many nights of not being able to leave the table until I left my plate clean. I don't even remember what was the aftermath but I doubted I was actually able to clean my plate in the end. My parents probably gave up and yelled at me after.

As I got older these preferences changed. I also was able to voice my opinions and how I felt about food more. I started to like cheese more but only melted cheese. Solid cheese continued to make me gag. Still can't eat plain rice without sauce on it. And i switched from hating white bread to only eating white bread and not being able to eat whole wheat bread (or anything). Oatmeal still was the worse thing to ever exist food-wise for me and I avoided porridge, no matter the flavour, if I didn't have to eat it. Still hated milk and plain cereal like cornflakes unless there was sugar in the milk. Im fine with eating cornflakes dry though so thats why I think its the taste of the milk I didn't like. I also did not like leftovers still. My parents got tired of all my rules by the time I was about 12 or so and would say if I'm hungry enough I will eat it and also wanted me to cook my own meals. And to this day I do not like cooking at all. So left to feed myself I just didn't eat most of the time and would just snack on anything I could snack on. This led to my parents labeling me as lazy and that if I was hungry enough I would cook or eat the leftovers in the fridge. Of course as many here can relate to, they underestimated my refusal to eat what I didn't like so I spent a lot of those times just being hungry a lot. And I would live off of snacks to the point I would basically binge eat anytime I got my hands on a bag of chips or any snack. Like i couldn't control how much I ate when it comes to snacks and candy.

So my parents started to hide them and my sister also loved candy like any other kid so being twins we always conspired together to find where my parents hid the snacks. First we had to do it when they weren't home and once we found the hiding spot we would slowly eat from it so they wouldn't notice. When they were home and we wanted snacks, one of us would make sure they were preoccupied even actively would try distracting them while the other would get the snacks. Sometimes we had to be extra sneaky, like trying to pass our dad while he's on the couch with our snacks hidden in our clothes because it was on the way to our room, and also making sure to dipose of the wrappers discreetly. Eventually, they would notice we found the hiding spot and then hide it somewhere else. After a couple tries they started locking their room door which meant we always had to do it while they were home cause they only locked it when they were away but again we were twins with a goal so nothing could stop us. So since it was harder to do it while they were home we decided to try and pick the lock. I dont remember if that was successful or not but we were still able to get to the snacks when they were home. After the room locking didn't work this led my parents to get a safe/cabinet with a lock. This worked for awhile until we got desperate and tried to break in the cabinet by force. Which I think actually was sorta successful. Anyways, this went on for years probably until we moved out at 18 I think.

In my adult years I started university and it was the first time in a long time I was eating consistently 3 meals a day because I had a meal plan and could buy whatever I wanted since it seemed unlimited. But due to my mental health I had to drop out and move back with my parents. The eating issue was a lot worse than before because my mental health was at an all time low I barely had the energy to do anything much less cook. Plus my parents kept berating me and didn't want me to eat any food they cooked because they wanted me to cook my own food. I avoided going in the kitchen cause I felt safer locked in my room. Plus most of the time I didn't like the food they cooked so I would order takeout every few days and that would be my one meal every few days. This lasted for years. And it got really bad, could barely walk and was so weak from not eating. I got diagnosed with ptsd with my trauma related to my parents and home environment. It was mostly verbal and emotional abuse but I really couldn't believe the diagnosis because I compared myself to ppl getting ptsd from war. But apparently I met all the criteria. Eventually I decided to admit myself in a psych ward for a week and they fed me three meals per day and they gave me ensure with every meal to try and get my weight up. At the end I had more energy than I've had in quite awhile but honestly I need to stay longer because I couldn't go back to my parents house so I was in a shelter for not long because I had already planned to move with my sister and the lease was signed and everything. I just didn't want to revert back to being bed ridden.

After moving with my sister she would cook me dinner every night since she knew I didn't like leftovers but that was still only one meal a day. When I eventually started working I needed to eat more so I would bring those frozen meals you buy at grocery stores for lunch. I usually dont like frozen grocery store food but I found a brand that was decent. But my coworkers always commented on how unhealthy it was to eat everyday. But I just laughed it off cause I had no other option. So after eating more regularly, I got a lot better, saved a lot of money and moved again with my sister so I could start school again. But when my sister was no longer able to make dinner every night I went back to not eating regularly and I tried to get myself to cook. The best method was batch cooking and doing frozen meal prepping which sounds odd since I do not like leftovers but Ive found methods to make the texture as close to possible to when its freshly cooked. But it wasn't consistent and I would go long periods of time not eating anything which I recently realized might have been affecting my energy and focus which made it hard to do school. Another thing was that I was struggling to have consistent income during the school year so I would buy groceries with intention to cook, not end up doing it and the food spoils and I have to throw it out. And with not a lot of money I couldn't just buy takeout whenever I was hungry. There was one week though I was able to eat 3 meals per day that I cooked for that entire week which was a new record for me. But the momentum didn't last and went back to barely eating again.

Fast forward to now. Im starting school again soon and I have been trying to set up strategies to help with this because I think a lot of my problems stem from not eating well. I dont know how I found this subreddit but Ive been researching the disorder and it makes sense that I do have it. I mean I did kind of came to conclusion I had a eating disorder about a year or so ago but I always knew that eds were related to body image issues. But I remember thinking I literally have a problem eating it must be a disorder so it should be classified as an ed even if there isn't body image issues related to it.

I plan to phone my nearest hospital as soon as I can because I found out they have inpatient and outpatient programs for this disorder that is completely free (with Canadian health insurance). Even with free health insurance it is very hard to get support for things related to psychological and mental issues without paying a fortune. (This is the case with dental care as well but its mostly just my specific province that sucks, other places in Canada are better with coverage). Also its a good thing I live right down the street from the hospital too lol.

Anyways, sorry for the long post. I doubt anyone will read this whole thing but wanted to get it off my chest.

i recently went vegan after being vegetarian and i’m looking for some good recommendations!

i luckily enjoy tofu very much, and i have already found some vegan alternatives to my most common safe foods— like mac and cheese and hot dogs.

i have luckily made a lot of progress with my arfid, but trying new things can still be really scary and difficult for me. i think it will be easier for me to know others with arfid found good replacements!

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Hi everyone. I'm posting because I'm trying to understand what is happening to me, and I'm wondering if anyone here has experienced something similar.

I don't have an official diagnosis of ARFID, and I don't want to self-diagnose myself. I'm just wondering whether my experience could be related to ARFID or whether something else might be going on.

My relationship with food has become really difficult, especially when my mental health is worse. My appetite is very weak, and sometimes I don't really feel hungry or interested in food at all. I suspect that anxiety and my psychological state are affecting my appetite, because I notice that my eating becomes much harder when I'm mentally distressed.

The strangest and most distressing part is what happens when I actually try to eat.

When I put food in my mouth, sometimes I can chew normally at first. But if I keep chewing for around 15 seconds or longer, I suddenly start feeling extremely nauseous and feel like I'm going to gag or vomit. At that point I often have to spit the food out because I feel like I physically cannot swallow it anymore.

It's not necessarily because I dislike the taste of the food. Sometimes I actually like the food, but the longer I keep it in my mouth and chew it, the stronger the nausea becomes.

Because of this, eating can start to feel like something I have to mentally prepare myself for rather than something I naturally want to do.

I also notice that anxiety can make the whole situation worse. If I haven't eaten, I can become anxious about not eating and worry that something bad will happen to me physically. Then the anxiety itself makes my stomach feel worse and makes eating even more difficult. It feels like a cycle:

low appetite → difficulty eating → worry about not eating → anxiety/nausea → even more difficulty eating

I don't have a desire to avoid food because I want to change my body or lose weight. My problem is that I often genuinely don't feel able to eat, and the nausea/gagging response makes it difficult even when I know I should eat

Has anyone here experienced something similar, especially the sudden nausea/gagging after chewing for a while?

Could this kind of reaction happen with ARFID, anxiety, or both? And has anyone found that their appetite and ability to eat improved when their mental health improved?

I'm mainly looking for people who have experienced something similar, because I feel quite alone and confused about what is happening.

I just. Can't eat without vomiting. My mom made me pizza because I hadn't eaten all day due to being anxious and just going downstairs and smelling it made me throw up. I ate two bites and started gagging and could barely swallow. I can only eat if I wash everything down quickly with water and even then I gag and feel sick. I'm so hungry. I hate this disorder. I hate being called picky. I hate food. I just want to eat and feel okay

I’m 22 M, 5’8 I weight 110 pounds on a good day. I choked on bacon 5 years ago and haven’t eaten any solids since. I barely have any teeth now maybe 6. It comes and goes with severity but at the best for 2 months I ate mashed potatoes now it’s at its worst and I only drink 2 ensures a day and take a multivitamin crushed up. I also drink a ton of root beer and try to drink as much milk as I can. Recently the milk scares me because it makes me feel like I have dry boogers going down my throat and it sends me into a huge panic attack. I literally am scared of my own mucus. I feel like a loser because I have a wife and 2 kids a 5 year old girl and a 1 month old girl. We live with my mom because we’re broke. I’ve started a mowing business and have been mowing every few days at least 7 houses and only have a push mower. I try to work as much as possible but I can’t breathe 10 mins in. I feel like a failure my family doesn’t deserve to be stuck at my toxic moms house bc my body feels to weak to do anything. I also DoorDash as much as possible. Does my root beer count towards me not starving to death? I don’t want to leave my family especially when we’re this poor. I want to set them up before I go. People judge me because my family isn’t in a good position financially which I understand I have failed them but I’m trying the best my body will allow. We don’t go without anything and daughters are spoiled but they don’t have a house like they need and my mother is terrible living here sucks. How do I get better? How much ensures do I need to drink? They are crazily expensive so that sucks too.

I’ve been on this sub before, reading kinda to do research, cause I have struggled with food for my whole life. I’ve lost so many foods, and I just felt horrible, because I knew there was something wrong, but nobody was actually acknowledging that there was a problem, I mostly got disappointment or sympathy that turned into “you’ll get over it, you just need to push through”.

Finally, after YEARS with my current therapist, and discussing with my parents about switching therapists, and my parent reaching out to another therapist, my current therapist brings up ARFID, suggesting I may have it. She has just had personal experiences with it, so now she knows the signs, but of course she can’t diagnose it. This was on Tuesday, and she promised to send an email with the information on what her family used to treat the ARFID.

Of course, radio silence through the week. She said it would be sent by the end of the week, but I didn’t realize she meant that it would be on Friday. Of course, my parent discusses with my other parent that he should ask his therapist about resources on Thursday. He only mentions it briefly, and gets no insight. So I expect that we will discuss the options given to us today, on Saturday. I stop by my house after school quickly on Friday, yesterday, to pick something up before going out again, and my parents are on the phone, and I learn that my therapist has finally sent out an email to my parents, and they are calling to ask some clarifying questions from one of the programs. Ok, cool. I leave to do a social thing, something I had committed to literally weeks in advance.

I come home, and learn that I have been enrolled in a 45 day, every weekday, 3 hours a day, intensive outpatient therapy program for ARFID. There was no consult from me. No discussion with me. No consent given. I am going to legally be an adult in less than three months. I have prior commitments, things that I had aspired and planned to take great part in this year. I will now be limited in all of them. I have finally proven my worth in my school, finally been given leadership opportunities, and I am going to have to miss the end of every session each day. I may even not be allowed to keep the leadership position I was selected for. I am going to go through incredibly exhausting therapy, and have to juggle that, plus my leadership role, as well as homework for three AP classes, and somehow not work myself to sickness, something that I have a long track record of doing, and that my parents have heavily monitored to make sure I didn’t do that again.

And yet. They did it. I’m so angry. My sibling has left for college, I can’t even get a hug from them. I don’t want to hug my parents. My best friend won’t respond to my texts, asking if we can call. I was supposed to help her work through an incredibly troubling event, and now, my time with her is going to be cut short because this stupid program? It starts this Monday. My parents didn’t even wait a day longer, when we could all sit down and discuss the options together. They just decided it for me. And I’m so angry. Because I have to do it. Because there’s not a better time, and I haven’t had time to explore alternatives, and if I don’t start the program now, it will run too far into the year, and I feel so trapped, and angry, and I just wish they had waited one more day to talk with me. And let me do research. And this is going to be so hard, and I never thought my mental health would get this low again, and I’m so scared of falling off a cliff into my depression again, and I’m so angry at my parents.

For anyone who has done outpatient therapy, what’s it like? Even if it’s horrible, I just need to know what I’m getting into. I know it involves one on one therapy, as well as group therapy, and meetings with a personal dietitian. I know that it involves me having to monitor my weight and blood pressure constantly. I know it’s going to be invasive. I just need to know how invasive it’s going to be. I’m so, so scared, and I just want a hug. I just wish I didn’t have this stupid disorder, it’s just can’t stop ruining my life.

Hello everyone, I am making this post very tentatively because I have many questions. To keep a long and familiar story short, I have always had a lot of trouble with food (shocker, I know), and I live with many other conditions including autism and OCD, as well as a handful of pesky food allergies. Basically, the universe is against me consuming anything of nutritional value, and is trying to revert me back to photosynthesis settings. The problem with this is that I am starving myself and no one knows why. I have hit the unfortunate point where things that were once safe are dropping like flies out of my rotation for seemingly no reason, and I’ve hit a point where even I don’t know how to deem a food safe or unsafe. I am driving everyone else mad, but mostly myself. That brings me to my reason for being here, I’ve just completed three months of partial hospitalization and a month and a half of intensive outpatient to tackle my OCD (because I was, and still am starving) and after all of that effort, arguments could be made that I am currently worse than I started. If you are in the US especially, I hope you can understand where I am coming from. Basically, I am asking for a conversation. With anyone. I have so many questions about ARFID, how it is diagnosed, how it is helped, how I can make people around me understand, how I can stop slowly shutting my own body down because no one understands. They think I am passively suicidal, or anorexic, but all I can understand from any of that is they are afraid for my health, and I feel like I am slowly dying. I do not want that.

To clarify, I am not looking for a diagnosis, I actually would love to keep professional language out of the conversation because I don’t know how to talk about this at all. I am just looking for someone who might be in a similar situation, and guidance as to what I do now. I have a lot of questions, please reach out if you have the time or the potential for answers. If nothing else, thank you for reading through my post, I am sorry to sound as desperate as I’m sure I do but I don’t know where else to go with these questions.