#and yknow arfid

[aussie-roadkill]

just remembered that one time I was showing a kid at school a millipede and he was like “woah what happened to your arm” and I just responded “mental illness” 💀

[drop-dead-dropout]

being autistic and eating at a restaurant sucks so bad because the waiter will come by and say "are you enjoying the food?" and you have to look him in the eyes and tell him "yes actually I really like this pho even though it contains literally nothing except plain rice noodles and chicken broth thank you". and you aren't lying

[bitchapalooza]

Haha wow I wonder why it feels like I can feel my bones a little easier recently, haha yeah it’s suuuuuch a mystery *literally only consumes pizza, chips, goldfish, pretzels, and cheezits now*

[radishhqueen]

i know I've talked about it a few times on the internet in passing, but i have an eating disorder called ARFID (Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder). kinda does what it says on the tin. every ARFID-haver has a different experience, with different bad foods and safe foods, and for different reasons, but it mostly boils down to avoiding eating for reasons related to 1) bad textures 2) fear of vomiting/getting sick and/or 3) just a general lack of interest.

buzzfeed just published an article yesterday detailing a bit more about ARFID and some quotes from some individuals who have it. since it wasn't added to the DSM until 2013, it's still not widely known about. i didn't have a name for the thing that framed my whole relationship with food until 2020! it would mean a lot to me if people could take the time to read the article and maybe share it around. :)

a little bit about my experiences with ARFID below the cut:

tl;dr: the more people are aware of ARFID, the more likely people are to get helped. more info on the r/ARFID subreddit. if this sounds like you, you're not the only one going through this!

I'm very lucky in the sense that I've gotten a lot better at eating since i was a kid. most of my problems with food are related to texture, and my bad textures pretty much rule out all meats, fish, poultry, and a lot of mushy things, like mashed potatoes and cooked onions. these textures make up a lot of my region's cultural foods, so growing up i had a solid 10-15 foods that i could reliably eat, and i started showing signs of ARFID as soon as my parents started giving me solid foods.

i was accused as a kid of being a picky eater, and was told I'd grow out of it. the thing is: i desperately wanted to be able to eat normally! i wanted to be able to eat whatever my family cooked, or go over to a friend's house without being scared of what was for dinner! but if i tried to eat anything with a "bad texture", I'd end up gagging and eventually throwing up. this is not pleasant for anyone involved. this quickly turned into an aversion to trying new things, as i was scared of gagging and the annoyance of the people around me.

throughout all of this, i never met anyone who had similar issues to me. adults in my life would compare it to how they didn't like XYZ food as a child, but eventually got over it. i kept waiting for the magic switch in my brain to flip over, and it didn't. i had a lot of mental health issues as a kid unrelated to food, but the shame and loneliness i felt around eating certainly did not help.

the magic switch in my brain never flipped. it still hasn't. what did change was I moved out and suddenly had complete control over my own diet. for the first time, i didn't have to force myself to try to eat food without throwing up. my friends in college didn't even know about my extensive issues with food until i told them. but once I had that judgment free space, i was able to push at those boundaries that had been encroaching, and become more and more comfortable with a wider variety of foods.

nowadays, i don't worry about going to restaurants or eating at other people's houses. i still don't eat meat, poultry, or fish. I still can't eat a lot of mushy foods. what changed was suddenly having the space to accept my eating for what it was, and be okay with failing to eat new things. increased anxiety due to the pandemic and y'know. the world. has definitely made food a lot more difficult for me again, but this time i have the support of a community behind me, and it makes a world of difference.

i have to emphasize, throughout all of this i was incredibly lonely. i didn't have the words to describe what i was going through. food has a huge cultural importance, and it was something that i felt disconnected from. i can't blame my parents, because they thought they were doing the right thing, and there was absolutely no guidance on this sort of thing. again: ARFID wasn't added to the DSM until 2013. it is still not widely known about. i have never had a doctor that has already known about ARFID, and i have bounced between a lot of doctors.

if any of this resonates with you, there's an active community on the r/ARFID subreddit. i personally am a member of the associated discord server, and it's been a really great experience to meet a bunch of people who are also dealing with the issues I'd faced alone for my entire life. you're not alone 💕

[nerice]

im sure ill rant abt this more once im stuck w invisalign for a year but. i am still underweight. i still barely get over a thousand calories in a day. 400 of em (used to) come from the bottle of iced tea i drink daily. i will have to quit that for good and i will lose weight. if i have to brush my teeth after every meal, if i cannot snack real quick without going thru the entire ordeal, i will not eat. i will lose weight. i am terrified of it. i am going to cry

[sunnibits]

y’all I tried modifying some tomato sauce using some inspiration from an arrabbiata recipe and now my house smells like a pizza place or some shit oml it smells SCRUMPTIOUS

[yappathonwinner]

See i got that “emo guy with something going on” rizz but that something is just crippling ocd and arfid (+ probably something else) but its ok bc it like works with my look, yknow?

[pjsk-headcanons]

okay yknow what im giving rui arfid because i need to project it onto SOMEONE and why not the guy who already hates certain foods. also because blorbo

.

[jewfrogs]

its fascinating seeing how other people talk about arfid because yknow i have arfid and it is sometimes so miserable. but none of my misery really comes from feeling meaningfully restricted or missing out on anything. i have no sense of wishing that i could eat things but being unable to. to me its like if someone was eating dirt & mud and said Dont you wish you could also eat dirt & mud like me. And actually i dont i dont want to eat dirt & mud because thats simply not what my soul wishes. ive never seen “recovery” or eating “normally” as a goal because Well i would rather not 🩶 so i wont

[eroticcannibal]

Hi my family is gonna starve by the end of the month lmao

Id do the little screenshot of my negative bank account but my banking app doesn't let me so take my word for it so have a picture of my sweet child cuddling our bitchiest cat

Anyway now I've finally been made aware of the truth of my financial situation I can say we are actually fucked. We ran out of money on like. The 9th. The fuel bills are unmanageable. We didn't even get a proper food shop done before we ran out of money. Things aren't adding up. I dont know how the fuck im meant to feed us (2 adults, child with ARFID, 4 pets) on fucking food vouchers. Its not enough. I still need to attend appointments but im disabled so I need taxis! The housemate needs to go to uni 4 times a week which is several villages, a town and a city away. It aint cheap. And its dissertation season. I still have to fucking do things with the child that I cant afford but education comes before finances yknow? I no longer have means to get into debt, my housemate cant, apparently there's no help left so now I have to beg

Anyway please help us not starve. My PayPal is risukadekei@outlook.com PLEASE double check youre doing friends and family payment cus its a business account and PayPal will harass the shit out of me to give you a shipping label otherwise AND they will charge me a fee.

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

shit dude your post a while ago ab favorite foods made me look arfid up and ive been like 90% sure i have it too :v ive been having trouble with food for so long but i thought it was just stress or smth, but that describes it perfectly LMAO

idk just wanted to thank you, having an actual definition for it helps a LOT with managing it, even tho its just been like two weeks, i can do stuff like research the disorder itself instead of "what to eat for dinner when you have no appetite" lmaoo 

 aa anyway u dont gotta answer this if you dont want to because idk silly egg blog or whatever, just wanted to let you know you helped me haha, it does really suck at times but its cool that a definition can help :) also glad to hear youve been doin better, from what you said in that post :D sorry if that sounds parasocial or smth haha im just idk as someone who has been thru other shit with food n survived it, it always makes me so happy to see others recover from or get better from or whatever the same thing yknow? its cool

anyway thats all, best of luck dealing with food shit, and have a good day king<3

This is so good to hear, I'm glad I got to help someone with the same problems that I have. Thank you for the good wishes, and I hope for you the same ❤️❤️❤️ we're all in this together

[maykrisms]

reminder that i have an eating disorder (arfid) that i have a tendency to push onto my muses. basically, appetite machine doesn't work, try again never. /hj

i have genuinely NO interest in food, and it makes writing muses that need to. y'know. do food stuff a little hard, since i've.. genuinely only ever cooked when it comes to baking. and even then that's.. hard.

kinda iffy on if sam had the same issue as a human, considering maykrs never needed to. yknow. eat outside of "because i want to". but i'm leaning towards he just sees food as something that (mostly) mortal beings Need, and he just needs to deal with.

[narcissisticpdcultureis]

2, 8 and 9 for the system asks? :^)

2. What is your favorite place in the headspace?

im not sure honestly? headspace is kind of weird for us but the front room and the hotel are the more well known places that i like personally

8. Is there any kind of food that no one in the system likes?

we have ARFID so there's a lot of foods we don't like or otherwise can't tolerate. we don't actually have that many different strong food preferences so yknow shrug

9. Have you ever felt as if you were temporarily fused with another system member? If so, what caused it?

we actually did have an experience like that once?? one time 🧋 and 💙 seemed to like temporarily partially fuse and it scared the shit out of everyone because we weren't expecting it. we still haven't exactly figured out what caused it but they're seperated now and it's been like a year since it happened so we don't think about it too much

[nerves-nebula]

Do you have any sensory icks? Be it food, texture, fabric, smells, anything really? (I can't stand velvet, other people humming, chewing, or the scent of lavender, not to mention a billion other things) Just curious cause I love matching icks with people ⊂⁠(・⁠▽⁠・⁠)⊃

i hate anything slimy or goopy, looking at it can be fine (or not) but i hate touching it. one of the worst textures. dont put that shit in my mouth either!!! i cant leave the house without my earbuds or i'll DIE i cant explain it, I just know it will be AWFUL. probably something about controlling my environment and over stimulation. brushes or brooms against hard surfaces like plastic tables or cement are so bad that i will usually immediately go to cover my ears and/or leave the room.

hard to say how i feel about humming or chewing because i usually have earbuds in so i havent heard them in a long time.

I have a lot of food restriction sensory stuff. like if the texture or flavor is too complex i will not eat the thing. i would rather STARVE. bland & processed food for me if i have the choice, sorry... (I was diagnosed with ARFID a while back lol)

im sure there are more but those are the ones i know off the top of my head. I have trouble recalling fabric ones cause the only fabric in my life is sheets and clothing and if i dont like the fabric i wouldnt buy the clothing, yknow?

oh but here's a fun thing: I used to hate wearing socks as a kid but now if I dont wear socks for too long I will DIE. im wearing socks 24/7 out here, sleeping in them shits too. its comforting. the pressure on my feet is NEEDED for some reason.

[sillypilled-friendcel]

HATE when ppl tell me shit like "try something new" or "dont be picky". i have arfid. most foods make me physically ill. even foods i usually enjoy, prepared the exact way that i like them, can make me throw up. and i DO try new things! all the time! i go out of my way to try foods, even ones i usually know that i dint like! and, yknow what? sometimes it makes it where im too busy trying not to throw up to eat anything else. GAH.

[sunnibits]

ok yknow what. as someone who was recently diagnosed with arfid I really wanna have a moment for all the picky eaters out there,, if ur a picky eater or just have really strong food opinions for any reason can you please tell me what’s a food that you absolutely fucking despise that will make everyone around you get weirdly offended and gasp in shock. like any really popular foods that you just cannot stand. I’ll go first I hate melty cheese and too much of it will literally make me gag!!!