My son just sent me the link to your website. It sure sounded familiar.
I used to think that I was the only one that had this problem. But then I had my fifth son. He has it too.
Until he was born I thought I was the only one with the problem. I would think back to as far as I could go and I always had it. But since my son was born I think we are born with it. From the day he was born he didn’t want to eat. Well, suck a bottle. The nurses picked up on it and said that he was little and maybe he wore himself out sucking on the nipples of the bottle so she gave me a handful of nipples for premature babies. That helped some. But he didn’t like baby food from the start. He is an adult now and still has it.
I am now 59 going to be 60 in Sept. I even came up with a name for it. JABED. For Joyce and Bens eating disorder. It feels like we just got jabbed with a curse when we got this.
Back in the spring of 2000 a program called 20-20 did a show about kids who didn’t like to eat but seemed perfectly healthy. It sounded so familiar. But they were resorting to putting feeding tubes in these kids. The parents wanted to know if when the kids grew up if they would be anorexic. Nooooo, this is totally different. The doctors didn’t get then. I wrote them a letter but they never responded to it.
When I was young my parents would tell me that I would never be able to have babies if I didn’t eat better. I have six children.
This disorder never goes away. It is like a curse and it will cause you to loose friends and etc. It will cause you to be talked about and made to feel like there is something terrible wrong with you. You will be made fun of and etc. Every timer there is a function that there is going to be a meal it is like giving me a panic attack. I think, to myself, “Oh no, I wonder what they will be serving, I wonder if there will be anything I like, I wonder how I am going to try to cover the fact that I don’t have much on my plate, I hope nobody notices, I don’t want to draw attention to myself and etc.” But it never fails. Someone will notice and ask me if I am sick, or “Is that all you are having?’ By then everyone is looking at me.
Now my husband knows I have this problem and he lets me slide food onto his plate. But he still don’t get it. He can’t understand how I could be raised and not like food. Yes, even he upsets me when it comes to this because I explain it to him and he puts up with it but don’t understand it.
If we go visit relatives or friends we have to tell them ahead of time that we are bad eaters. We don’t want them to think that they are bad cooks or insult them so we have to swallow our pride and admit to a major fault and nobody likes to admit and tell people that what their faults are. Even after telling them I am still made fun of. This gets to me after awhile. After trying to laugh with them to take some of the hurt away after a while it isn’t funny anymore. When I get hungry I can’t go to just any restaurant because there might not be a thing on the menu I like. I will go to buffets because usually there is at least something I might like. But not Mexican or Chinese or a buffet like that. Usually I get the fries or a grilled cheese sandwich. I do like pizza but only plain cheese pizza. I don’t want tomato chunks on it or green peppers or anything else.
I like milkshakes but only vanilla, chocolate, banana flavored, or strawberry flavored. If they have strawberries or bananas in them then I don’t want them. Same for ice cream. When I was younger and I would go out on a date with a boy or a group of friends I wished that they didn’t suggest we go out to eat. This creates problems when you are at dating age. We ourselves wish that we liked to eat food like everyone else so that we could enjoy the food and also not have to worry about it.. There are so many things in the society today that revolve around food.
Joyce – A Picky Eater
