I hate all of my food aversions. It’s embarrassing to be an adult and to be a picky eater. I also would really like to be a vegan for ethical reasons, but when I tried I realized that I don’t eat vegetables regularly enough for that be healthy.
It’s something I’ve worked really hard on and made some gains. Raw greens are okay, some cooked ones. But still, most cooked veggies are impossible for me. I really offended an ex boyfriend once because I gagged when I tried his soup. Sometimes when I’m stressed I regress. Sometimes even my complete last ditch safe foods (shit like Lunchables) don’t work either and I’ll go to sleep hungry.
Recently Facebook decided to feed me a bunch of content on ARFID, where it’s fucking boomers in the comments with the “they’ll eat it if they get hungry enough.” The classic “it’s your breakfast tomorrow.” I can’t really eat leftovers because of that shit - getting the same bowl of canned spinach three days in a row, that combination of being really fucking hungry while smelling the foulest thing imaginable.
It makes me want to punch someone in the face. There’s no fucking reason to do that to kids. So much of boomer parenting is wrapped up in this fucked up need for dictatorial control.
I’m a grown adult who will sometimes not eat for two days because my stomach decides everything is unsafe. I have lots of coping strategies from a lifetime of dealing with this, and I still couldn’t eat a tomato. Ketchup upsets and disturbs me more than human shit does - I’ve had a panic attack from a packet squirting on me.
I actively don’t want this to be the case. I would love to be able to get really into things like heirloom tomatoes, or try all kinds of fun soups. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a good kid and eat my dinner, but I just fucking couldn’t.
It’s a thing that is wrapped up endlessly in shame and embarrassment, and then on top of it all, people tell you it’s a choice to be this way. People are so shitty about something that has absolutely no impact on them.
I've seen a fair few people go through a similar problem, having trouble with food and hating that fact. Unfortunately it is a fact that you are having that issue now and will in all likelihood have that issue in the future. That said, the suffering here is coming not from the "picky eating" itself, it is the judgement and pressure which is causing most of the suffering.
Obviously it sucks for you to be unable to grab some random food from any random food stall or restaurant, not being able to eat at a food court can be annoying and not having a safe food available can lead to hungry times. That is all shitty and it sucks a lot. The problem here is that if you just had that and everyone accepted it then you would have a fairly normal experience of food with a small tweak of sometimes not being able to have something or sometimes going hungry until you can get home.
Anyone who has Celiac's disease is in the same boat, but their experience is really different. Why? Because their needs are recognised as a medical need, therefore acceptable. Other people recognise that if they eat gluten they will have medical issues including very serious and obvious physical problems. In other words, people can't deny their problems are real.
Neurotypicals often deny the experiences of people that they cannot relate to. They do this with autism, they do this with ADHD, they do this with PTSD, they do this with poverty. If they haven't experienced it then it isn't real, but once they experience it they are happy to shout from the rooftops that it is real and horrible and everyone should be kind about it.
You have a real, measurable, replicable difficulty around food. It isn't just you. It is you, me, my partner, several of my clients, tonnes of the people in this community, and so many people around the world besides. It is normal to find that kind of sensory issue difficult to manage, but you have also been taught that it either isn't real or you are choosing it in some way. It is real, you wouldn't choose it if you could, and you have to live with it.
I would recommend learning about what works for you and then defending that set of strategies vigorously. If you need to have a known safe bag of jerky or a protein bar in your bag then you need that. If you need to abstain from food at an event and eat before or after, do it. You are the one who has to live your life, not them, so you should get to decide how to do it.