for as long as i can remember, i have been extremely picky. i remember when i was going to many friends' houses as a kid, they'd have to go grocery shopping to buy things specifically for me to eat in preparation for me to come over. it was very embarrassing but i was so scared of trying basic things. i'm 17 now and i have not made much progress in trying things, besides in these past few months i have tried many fruits and i like them a lot. fruit seems to be the only thing i can try without severe anxiety. i still get scared but i can make myself try it and i can actually focus on the taste and come to a conclusion of whether it's good or not. with everything else, i spend like 30 minutes trying to put it in my mouth but the longer i wait, the scarier it gets. i've never even tried plain bread by itself until about two months ago; i had to make my girlfriend leave the room so i could be less anxious but when i tried it, i really thought i was going to throw up. i was so terrified that my vision started going out and i nearly gagged about 5 times. when i try things i'm scared of i can't register any taste at all, my body doesn't register it to be food, but more like a threat i guess. i try so hard to eat it quickly and get it over with that i can't actually begin to like anything. i skipped a big dinner for my graduating class on the day before my high school graduation that i had previously paid over $100 for because i was so terrified that i had to sit with students i wasn't friends with and i'd be exposed for not liking anything there. i hated lunch time at school because i didn't want people to see that i brought the same things every single day. i've been taking the same lunch to school since i started kindergarten. i basically have the diet of a child and it's so so embarrassing. i always get made fun of and even the people i love the most get so impatient and angry with me for not trying or liking things. i'm always a burden in social settings because the other people involved want to go somewhere to eat that has nothing for me on the menu, so we always end up going to some place they didn't want to go to. i'm a burden on everyone and i'm so so scared that i'm going to die from this. i basically live off of pizza, macaroni, spaghetti, chicken, fries, cheerios, a few fruits, and a billion types of junk food. i get no nutrition at all and i consume so much harmful food that i am terrified i will develop severe problems in my body that i have to deal with later in my life. up until i started dating my current girlfriend, i was comfortable with the way i was but she's so concerned about me that it's been a sort of wake up call for me that i need to change. i'm trying to seek out a psychologist that specializes in treatment for eating disorders in hopes that they will treat someone with ARFID because i don't want to live like this anymore. i want to be normal. it's definitely a comfort to read all these stories because it shows i'm not alone but i really do want to change. i have been trying for months but no progress has been made other than in trying fruit. i hope that i can get better. i hope all of you can get better too or at least find a way to cope. thank you for showing me i'm not alone and not the freak i thought i was.