Are you an ARFID Eater? Please note, this blog is a work in progress (trying to get rid of photos!)
Let’s talk about the food choices ARFID people feel safest around, or in our case, what McKaelen mostly ate before she went through therapy. And throughout this blog, we’ll discuss many different topics, and we’ll love to get ideas from you guys too, so drop us an email or let us know if you have specific questions you want to discuss.
McKaelen had always been a ‘picky eater’ and I used to blame myself, thinking that I never gave her enough options when she was a baby. I never chose the ‘gross’ baby jarred food because I didn’t like the sounds of them. I probably didn’t give her the prunes or the beets or the spinach or peas, because ewww. And then when her baby brother came along, I think I just plain old forgot to feed her. I do think back then she ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and I could swear she ate chicken nuggets and bananas, but then again, I was raising three kids under 4 so it was hard to remember.
There was a time though, that she became so picky we remember that she would only eat a hot dog if we peeled the skin off of it. And then soon after, she wouldn’t eat hot dogs anymore. Soon, her whole diet consisted of the following items:
Waffles (minus butter and syrup, but adding chocolate chips), cereal, but only certain kinds, milk (and fortunately she drank chocolate Carnation instant packets), bagels, peanut butter (her only source of protein), vanilla yogurts but the kind with the cookies or candy mix-ins), apples (but the peel had to be off), carrots (but when she had braces those were off the list for two whole years so then she had NO veggies at all, even though carrots are pretty much just a carb, right?), bread – just white, candy, chips, crackers – Goldfish were the favorite, cookies, most any type of chocolate, ice cream, Starbucks vanilla bean fraps, French fries, pizza (but the cheese could not be tolerated. Occasionally, she would place a few pieces of spinach or lettuce in a bowl with croutons and carrots and eat that as a salad with NO dressing and we would be thrilled. And I think that about covers it. Oh, we made her ketchup sandwiches too. Really.
This is ALL our daughter ate for FIFTEEN years.
She would not/COULD NOT, and I stress this, could NOT physically eat, because she feared the food, would gag, would fear vomiting, would get anxiety beyond belief, and I believe this from the bottom of my heart that it was hell on earth for her to try to put items into her mouth to eat. She TRIED. I watched her struggle. It killed our whole family to watch her. She wanted to. She wanted to get well. She didn’t want to be the way she was. She didn’t want to NOT be able to go to birthday parties because she was embarrassed to eat in front of people. She didn’t want to miss sleepovers, or not go to friend’s houses for dinner. She wanted to be a normal girl and do normal things. This wrecked her young social life. It made her depressed and sad and lonely.
So we went to a bunch of therapists and doctors and nutritionists and I’ll get into all of that later, but once we found the right remedy to get McKaelen on to the road to recovery, she learned ways to no longer be afraid of the food. Tonight in fact, I was boiling noodles. I usually have one of the boys test a noodle to see if they’re done. McKaelen said she would try the noodle for me. I said, “You will?” She said, “Sure, it’s just a noodle.” Back before therapy, she would never have eaten a noodle. It would be like asking her to swallow a snake. I’m not even lying.
But today: It’s just a noodle.
Often when I say something about how far she’s come now, her comment is, “It’s just food.” That’s what she’s learned.
It’s just food. It’s not going to kill her. She’s learned. And we’re so proud of her.
Before, when she ate like 10 different things, we worried she didn’t have enough protein in her diet, and we worried because our family felt like it was all out of sync because dinners were just way outta whack and we worried because we wanted McKaelen to be well.
Now, we don’t have to worry as much. She’s doing so much better, and you can get better too. You might think that there’s no way, but there is a way. For a long time, I would tell myself that there were worse things that could be happening to my daughter. Of course there are worse things. But then again, this was pretty bad. If this is happening to you, you might be depressed. You might be feeling anxious all of the time. You might be sad. You might really want to learn to enjoy food. I love it now that McKaelen feels JOY over tasting something she never realized was so good! She loves GRILLED CHEESE! She never imagined that something could taste so good. I absolutely love watching her smile when she eats. She craves things sometimes. Sometimes she craves chicken nuggets from Chick-Fila, and you know what I do? I go out and get them for her! Before, she would not even eat a Kellogg’s Protein bar, and those things have like 10 grams of protein in them. I would wish anything for her to eat one because heck, they taste like a candy bar! She wouldn’t like the texture, or something didn’t feel right about them to her. Now, she loves them, and she gets protein! I wanted my daughter to have the things in her body that she needed. She’s finally getting them. Tonight, she ate a bowl of noodles.
She’s not at the point where she will sit down and eat a steak and a baked potato but that’s not what our goal is. Our goal was for her to be open to trying new things and for her not to be scared, not to fear food. Our goal was for McKaelen to be able to go out to more than just a pizza place or a restaurant that only serves fries, so that as a family we would have more choices. Our goal was for her to have more freedom so when her friends wanted to do something she didn’t feel like she had to say no.
She is at the point where if we ask her to try something, she will either say yes or no, and we’re okay with that. Because she is OPEN to trying things! She has tried shrimp and ribs (doesn’t like either), she has tried fettuccine alfredo and pesto tortellini (likes both of those!), she loves grilled cheese, she eats hot dogs now, she eats turkey and cheese sandwiches, she likes orange chicken, she is exploring new things all the time and that’s all we could have hoped for in this journey to recovery!
So, if you’re feeling lost and alone and thinking that you may never have any success and that you’ll never get out of the food rut that you’re in, please don’t think that way! Go to your doctor, and tell them about ARFID! The thing is, because it is such a new disorder, not many doctors know about it or know the therapies and how to treat it, so you have to find someone passionate about helping you get well!
If you have specific questions on our journey through all of this, or want to talk, or want to share YOUR experience, please head over to the CONTACT page and send either McKaelen or me an email and we’ll get in touch with you!
Be well, and love yourself!
XO Stephanie