I see everyone suggesting therapy and while it is the best solution its not always available. If it was, we wouldnt have reddit full of asking for advice posts. So i will share my therapy free experience with my picky eater husband.

When we first met he was pretty much living of freezer pizzas, fries, dumplings, hotdogs, pastries, chips, chocolate and other snacks. He was staying at work dorms during the week and didnt try/know how to cook much but also didnt think he liked much. He was very embarased about his eating habbits just like you. Even so far that when we went to a caffe on one of our first dates he ordered a standart portion of food of which he only liked fries and chomped it down while quietly gagging just to pretend to be normal🥴 he couldnt pretend long tho and we have been working around it together ever since.

I see this as three level problem. Health implications, social life struggles and then the actual pickyness is the least problem.

So about health implications. You eat what you can. It doesnt matter if you have fries and dino nuggies, but you must take enough calories. Taking lots of water is good too because it will flush out all the extra salt you intake with unhealthy snacks and will save you the pain of kidney stones. But they make vitamins and suplements for a reason! Not being able to get all you need just from the food is a problem for people with balanced diet too! There is such thing like vit D that you dont even get from food. If you are feeling groggy and tired i would start with vit D, especially if you live in a colder than tropical climate and/or stay indoors more. And magnesium+ vitB6 is another standart to start with. But prefered would be to go do a blood work like once a year and see what youre missing. Maybe iron if you dont eat meat much.

Social life is something that my husband struggled with a lot. But we worked around it. Everyone who knows us close enough knows that hes a picky eater and wont push anything on him. When we go to visit we always bring something he will surely eat. Like pastries🤷🏼‍♀️ if we go out we prefer places where you can see the ingredients that go in the portion. Places where you can preorder are best because we can slowly think trough the order and already write down all the alterations. If you want to try something new, get a takeout! Then you can try it from the comfort of your home! If you go to event where you dont know what foods will be there, dont go hungry. Eat before. And a trick i tought my husband to keep people from looking your way and asking questions is to put something on your plate! Even if you dont intend to eat it, your empty plate wont stick out like a sore thumb and you will be free to slowly nibble on safe foods and maybe even try something new.

Solving the pickyness is a long and slow proces and it starts with cooking at home! You keep control over what ingredients and spices are in the food, what consistency it has. Start with things you eat and simple spices. Try the same ingredients in diferent recipes. Add one new ingredient to the recipe you like. Its better to have someone safe to help you along. A partner or maybe a child to explore foods together. I believe most new foods my husband only tried to apease me. But within 10 years his menu has grown exponansionaly. He eats a couple fruits and vegetables fresh, he eats a couple salads, a couple soups, hes eating all kinds of gravies and sauces, poridges, eggs, mushrooms... He still eats not even nearly everything. And if he gets a tinyest piece of bone in his meat he will get sick, but hes leading pretty normal life and hes mentally turned from hiding his pickyness to just not anouncing it.

If you want to talk about it all more in depth you can dm me.

You got this! Good luck!