Hi,

I'm Rachel, a 32 year old picky eater. I've been living with a selective eating disorder since I was about two years old. I have no memories of when I first began eating this way, but my mom told me that I ate all kinds of baby food and had a healthy diet until I walked into the kitchen one night when she was making chicken spaghetti, took one smell of it, and threw up all over the floor. She said that after that, my diet became pretty choosey.

Over the years, my diet has consisted of a pretty limited list of foods, consisting mostly of fried foods like french fries and chicken nuggets. I like a lot of breakfast foods, for some reason, so I'm wondering if I have more happy memories tied to breakfast. My parents divorced when I was five, so I wonder if perhaps negative things happened at the dinner table or in the evenings.

For lunch and dinner, I mainly stick to fries, chicken nuggets, grilled cheese, and mac & cheese. I eat breakfast A LOT for dinner, and oftentimes I eat snack foods, like popcorn or peanut butter crackers and chips.

Over the years, I have tried a few things, like mac & cheese (I did not eat this until I was about 28) and chicken alfredo (this has been a savior to me at a lot of restaurants). If I'm out with someone and they have something on their plate that has ingredients I normally eat, but is maybe cooked in a way I've never tried, I have been open to trying it. I would have NEVER eaten baked or grilled chicken growing up, and I have learned to eat it prepared this way.

For me, a lot of the issue with food revolves around smell and texture. I have a very heightened sense of smell, so if it smells offensive, I won't try it, and if the texture looks like something I wouldn't like, I won't try it. Fruits for example. I can consume fruits in a smoothie, but to eat them in their normal state is hard for me. Strawberries have the weird seedy feeling, and bananas are very mushy.

As imagined, this has taken a toll on my social life over the years. I have completely avoided a lot of social situations, or made up lies to get out of being involved in a lot of social situations. Dating has been very hard, as a lot of people are turned off by my eating habits, or think that I am too difficult. Family has generally been accepting in more recent years, but early on, a lot voiced their concerns, naturally.

I stumbled upon this group when I began doing research on adult picky eaters. I recently began my own blog about trying to overcome my eating disorder. I'm making very hard efforts to try to incorporate more healthy foods and more vegetables into my diet. I write about it at tacklingmytastebuds.com

I want to help educate people who think that picky eating is just a phase in children, and think that it is just being rude or bratty in adults. I want to help support adults who are going through their own struggles, whether they have accepted their food issues, or are trying to overcome them like I am.

I would love to interact with all of you on here and read all your stories about picky eating. Being a picky eater has felt so isolating over the years, so it is so nice to come across a group of people who know how I feel.