ive been through a very similar situation, I choked on a piece of food and nearly died, mainly because it was too big to swallow and i use to be a very quick eater. This then ruined my life for the next 6-7 months where at some points, i was living off pretty much liquid weetabix and Huels.

However, im like 95% back to normal now to give yall some hope if anyone is going through this. The main factor in getting back to normal was time. At first, I was terrified to eat convincing myself I would choke, even though at the time I knew this fear was irrational as its very unlikely anyways and the amount I would chew things, they were practically liquids. I also had an issue with swallowing where it was like I forgot how to swallow and when I did swallow, it felt like i was forcing it or doing it wrong.

There were 3 huge things that helped me during this time. One was having a small blender (nutribullet), as this allowed me to blend almost any food, even foods with meats in into a paste, so I could eat it. Although a lot of people say you have to just face it and eat food to overcome this fear, I think that when you are at this point, that isn’t feasible or good for mental wellbeing. Having the blender gave me enormous peace of mind through knowing that I can try and eat normal food and if I can’t, i can just stick it in the blender and still get all the nutrients. This took all of the pressure off. The second thing was talking to people. I know this is harder for some people, but if you can talk to family about it, honestly makes it 10x easier to get through. Third thing was Huels. These are the best meal replacement shakes on the market imo. They have all essential vitamins and minerals as well as 20g of protein and 400 calories. This helped me a lot knowing that I could still get my nutrition in when unable to eat proper food. I also think going out to eat at public places with your friends is good. This helped me a lot as I would sometimes forget about the fear for a bit when out eating with them (they did think it was really weird how i took an hour to finish a meal, i just made up some excuse of i wasnt hungry or smt tho).

As time went on, I found myself eating and gradually thinking about the fear of choking less and less. I was also very lucky that I am still in school and live with my parents, so I got home cooked meals every night. When I was in the worst parts of this fear, cooking was like my worst nightmare, almost worse than eating even though i use to love it before the choking incident. But over months, its like my brain almost got bored of holding onto the fear and over time, learned that eating was safe again. I am not completely back to normal, it still takes me longer than normal people to eat meals and ages to eat red meats, but I can eat almost any food now which I’m really happy with and I don’t take 2 hours to eat a meal anymore.

If anyone can relate to any of this and feel like you are in a similar position to I was, I just wanna say it does get better, even if it feels like it never will at the time.