#but since i finished the sisters i'm trying to adjust the entries a little in both better aesthetics and formatting

[paigemathews]

The Warren Witches | Patty Halliwell

Patricia 'Patty' Halliwell was the only daughter of Penelope and Allen Halliwell. Raised alone by her mother after her father's death, Patty was a formidable witch but known as being considerably more agreeable than her mother. She possessed the power of molecular immobilization. While she had her share of torrid love affairs, she's most known for being the mother of the Charmed Ones, the most powerful witches of the Warren line (see Prue Halliwell, Piper Halliwell, Phoebe Halliwell, and Paige Matthews). Despite her skill and allies, Patty was killed in a fight with the Water Demon, who was permanently vanquished by her daughters over twenty years later.

[evilphrog]

A diary entry from a definitely Not Autistic fourth grader

Since I'm now apparently the ARFID advice person, I wanted to share this diary entry I recently found from my childhood. Those of you who are desperate for insight into your kids and their struggles, this might help. Names have been changed to protect privacy, and spelling has been adjusted to improve readability. The original paper had no date, but based on the legibility of my handwriting and the word choices, I would guess it was actually written a few years later, when I was going through my Douglas Adams phase.

It is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. Who in their right mind makes a grapefruit flavored jelly bean? But we don't have lunch for another twenty minutes, and Mrs. Thomas picked me up early today (Before I could even finish all the Blue Moons in my cereal) so I pop it in my mouth. It is the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted.

My stomach instantly churns, and I wish I hadn't already used up all my nurse visits this week, because I would really like to go home now. Instead, I turn to my math paper, but due to the tyrannical uprising in my stomach, am unable to concentrate. The rest of the class is turning their papers in, and I'm still on problem four. Mrs. Johnson notices, and makes her way over to me. Oh good, maybe now she’ll see how sick I am, and let me lie down for a little. Nope, she’s dragging me by the arm to the principal. I try to tell her that I’m in the wrong office, but she’s already gone.

Now I am stuck here alone with Sister Mary, who’s telling me I’ve been a problem since I first came here, wearing pants under my uniform, and slacking off, and missing two days a week, and I really wish she’d stop yelling at me, because now my head is pounding. I start to cry from the pain, and she thinks she’s won. I hate that, and I wish I could set her straight, but the end bell rings and it’s time to go home. I stumble outside, and get sick on the steps. I end up having to stay home for a week.

Kid me was SO clear. I started the day with an unexpected interruption to my eating routine. Every morning, I had a bowl of Lucky Charms, and I ate the gross regular cereal part first to make it disappear, then rewarded myself by separating the marshmallows by type and eating them in order of the song in the commercial. The Blue Moons are only about halfway down the list. Half the marshmallow reward was still in my bowl. I was already primed for a meltdown. (Mrs. Thomas probably wasn’t actually early. It frequently took me over an hour to eat my cereal and i was frequently late because of it.)

Math was my favorite subject, so to be the last one done and unable to complete the work was a huge deal. I assumed the teacher would notice I was struggling with my favorite subject and get worried about the clear emergency, but instead she saw a troublemaker refusing to do work. I frequently asked to go to the nurse and lie down in the dark, to the point my parents had started bribing me for every day I stayed in class, hence “maximum nurse visits.”

Then you get to the nonverbal episode. The principal was yelling, and took my silence for rebellion instead of a genuine inability to form words. The things that stood out to me were physical pain and embarrassment. I threw up shortly after. Again, this was over a jelly bean.

Something parents of kids with ARFID get furious about is when other parents say "If they're hungry enough, they'll eat." I was hungry enough, I did eat. I then proceeded to have the rest of my entire WEEK ruined from a SINGLE jelly bean. Next time I was hungry enough, I learned to ignore it better. As a fully grown adult, I still have vivid memories of this incident. It has stuck with me for decades. I have outgrown a lot of my sensory issues, in part by learning coping skills, in part because taste buds and nerve endings tend to lose sensitivity as we age. I still can’t look at a jelly bean without gagging. People with ARFID would generally rather deal with hunger than deal with the horror of eating a gross food.