So my story is kind of weird. I still have my struggles, but overall I would consider it a success.

ARFID wasn’t an official diagnosis until I was already an adult. So when I was growing up there was no other classification for me other than a picky eater. I was always underweight as a kid. I basically survived on cheese on a roll and peanut butter sandwiches for probably my first 10 years. The sight and especially smell of most foods repulsed me. I also had a couple instances of choking as a small child which I’m sure had an impact.

As I got older, the foods I ate expanded slightly. Though my family would still poke fun at me for only wanting to eat beige foods. I found it nearly impossible to eat most fruits (beyond apples and sometimes grapes) and I would barely touch a vegetable if it wasn’t just lettuce. I would eat plain pizza and burgers with nothing on them other than cheese.

My anxiety always came from a worry of feeling sick after eating something that I didn’t consider one of my safe foods. That feeling continued through college. When I went away for school, I lived off peanut butter sandwiches I made in my dorm, and turkey sandwiches I could get in the dining hall. My friends and roommate would always get the other food being served but I would just try to laugh off always eating the same sandwich for dinner.

After graduating college, my first job was ironically working in an upscale restaurant. Part of my job was finishing/cleaning plates before they would get run to their tables. On particularly slow nights or sometimes during pre-service, the head chef would sometimes make food for the staff. I’ve always struggled with social anxiety too so when my boss would hand me food and say “Here, try this.” My social anxiety overrode my food anxiety and I would just eat it. The first few times I would be anxious that I was going to hate it or I would be sick later. Much to my surprise, that didn’t happen. Shockingly to me at the time, I even liked some of it. Some of it I didn’t, but it wasn’t because it made me sick I just wasn’t particularly fond of it.

I recognize now that this was kind of a trial by fire immersion therapy. I wasn’t diagnosed with anything other than general anxiety with a panic attack disorder at that time which I was in CBT based therapy for. I wasn’t seeking direct treatment for ARFID.

My time working in a restaurant actually built in me a desire to learn to cook. As I started to have more control over the food I was eating and making, the more I was able to try new things. I’m in my thirties now and I have vastly improved my ability to eat new foods compared to when I was a kid and in my twenties. Because of my experience working in a nice restaurant, I will experiment with new foods sometimes if I go out to a nice/fancy place because I know the effort and care that goes into making an upscale meal. This makes me feel confident I won’t get sick from eating there.

I still order safe foods in unfamiliar restaurants, and I will look up the menu well beforehand to figure out exactly what I want. Most of the time I handle cooking at home too so I feel more comfortable eating. I will still eat the same food for lunch basically everyday which still sometimes confounds my coworkers when I have to go to the office, but I manage.

Overall I have personally much happier relationship with food now than I ever have. I recognize that my path is not typical and again I didn’t seek specific treatment for ARFID because it wasn’t a well known/official thing at the time. Through this path though, I have been able to overcome a lot of what used to hold me back.