Hello,
My name is Edward, I’m 21 and have been a picky eater for as long as I can remember. I wasn’t always a picky eater, when I was a baby I apparently loved all food, my favourite being liver, something I cannot even fathom eating now. I have a very selected diet, where I will eat pizza for lunch and dinner (cheese or pepperoni, that’s it) and have had that as those two meals almost every day since about grade nine. I will also eat bacon, bread (White or Rye bread only), ham (if made by my family only), hot dogs (only if BBQ, made by my family, and is a certain brand), almost all fruit (the only things I actually enjoy eating, citrus is my favourite due to its sourness, but I won’t eat the fruit if its soft or bruised). With those foods I also eat fries or chips with lunch or dinner, every time, but they have to be plain. It’s funny, people who love food ask how I can eat the same thing every day for years and not hate it, but when you have so little things to eat kind of hard to throw away something you can eat. Even the things I like still make me gag sometimes though, so there is that anyways.
Now being this way has led to many things in my life, first of all trying to explain to your parents why you don’t want to eat is just ridiculous as a child and even now, my parents and everyone before them weren’t picky so they just assumed as a child I was fussy and can be taught out of it. It bugged them and tried many tricks to get me to eat, but as you can see, it didn’t work. I am the youngest of four, and my oldest sister was picky as a child (when she was a teen went into a coma, awoke one day and began to eat, I think it’s because she was fed without knowing her surroundings and it got built into her that food was okay, interesting way to lose being a picky eater but jealous that she isn’t anymore), but my youngest sister is also a very picky eater and then there’s me. Now everyone I know becomes a doctor when they learn this about me and tries to tell me why I’m this way, whether I’m a coward for not eating “how do you know you don’t like it if you don’t try it?”… Maybe because I don’t like gagging and throwing up…. Maybe it’s because you saw your sisters as picky eater and that built it into your brain, maybe it’s a mental disorder and I should get help, pretty well everything you can try to explain why I am this way I have heard. And I tell them all, I would love to not be picky eater, I hate this, food is the worst thing, everything revolves around it and you become an outsider. I would love for a pill to swallow to make sure I’m healthy (actually am pretty healthy all things considered about my diet, and am very active, but doctors don’t believe me when I say my diet because of this, almost like you need to show problems for it to become a problem to them). Really if I could remove food though, I would in a heartbeat. Or better yet to be able to eat and join in when people eat.
it is the most difficult thing going to someone’s house because they always insist you have food, and it’s hard to avoid eating but not have to go home because ‘I’m sick’ or some other stupid excuse so they don’t force me to eat with them because then automatically you become judged and have to answer a million questions. My friends caught on fast though, so I lost invites to anything that will have food when I was young (it’s better now for that). Then as I grew up I went into programs where you would go away, it is the most difficult thing being a picky eater on a trip where you don’t decide where you go to eat, thank god everywhere has bread or id be dead. Or when I go on a field training exercise for cadets, living on juice for a weekend with some candy I snuck in. The hardest thing is avoiding the people running the trip from seeing you not eat, or an officer for cadets, because they will try everything in their power to get you to eat, to the extent of force feeding.
The biggest problem I’m finding now is a relationship, everything always comes back to food. As I’ve read some of your stories I realize it’s a support group, but it actually discouraged me to realize how many relationships have crumbled over something we can’t really control. Now right now I have a girlfriend who is trying to be supportive of this, but I can see that she hates it and doesn’t understand, and I’d hate to lose her just because of food. I would love to be able to eat, and if anyone has a solution for fixing this I’d love to hear it, I would love to eat dinner with her and her family, with my own family, go to a wedding and not have to just sit there while everyone eats and laughs and you’re just trying not to make things awkward, it’s almost like we’re missing out on a whole experience of life.
Sorry that the post is very long, and choppy, it’s a whole lifetime of it, and with food being the evil thing that so many people love you get a lot of stories from it that flash up as I write this. Hope you all find a way to be okay with your eating habits, or if you’re not, and if you’re like me and trying to find a way to get over this I hope you find it, I’ll be sure to write back if I find that unicorn so it can help others in the same boat. Thanks everyone!