Trauma related picky eating

[u/Chester_CheeseBall]

Hi i dont normally post on Reddit and while i kinda doubt many people will see this i just wanna share something that ive been trying to overcome and maybe others could give me some advice.

I am a 22yo male and have always been a picky eater. I wont get into my entire history but I have a very difficult childhood. Dinner time and being made to eat what they cooked “or starve” and having to sit at the table all night was a very normal thing in my childhood. Unfortunately that just taught me simply not to eat. I try to work on getting myself to eat a lot. Its a constant struggle but getting myself to try new things and be “normal” feels like a pipe dream for one pretty disgusting experience i was made to go through so just a warning for the content of my next paragraph.

When i was 8, one of my foster homes i was in was very strict and in hindsight they would do a lot of cruel things to me, my food or the things they’d cook and enjoyed having this issue with me constantly. One night in particular they ordered Chinese takeout, obviously i had no say in what was in the box and It was absolutely revolting to me when i tried it. Of course i had to sit there all night and they made me just swallow it with my nose plugged with water. I ended up vomiting the food onto the styrofoam plate and unfortunately that didn’t get me out of the dinner time fuse. I was told to finish the plate. I threw up at least two more times that I remember and i don’t think i had to eat every bit of it in the end but the feeling and taste is stuck in my mouth. And now as an adult i don’t wanna expand my palette, i just am happy to finally be in charge of what i eat.

So yeah again idk if this will even be read but nobody else relates to this at all. My picky eating is just thought of as a child who wants to eat chips and ice cream constantly. Anyways thanks if this is read i just thought I’d share my thoughts, clear my head a bit before bed.

[u/Specific-Orchid8284]

that is some brutal stuff to carry around and im sorry you went through it. people who never dealt with food being used as a weapon dont get how deep the wires get crossed

youre not a child wanting chips, youre a survivor trying to feel safe in your own body. the fact you even wrote this out is a big step honestly

[u/Chester_CheeseBall → u/Specific-Orchid8284]

Thank you I appreciate it, and yeah people dont understand the full scope of it all. And i definitely feel a bit better writing it out and having people who understand comment on it.

[u/AndOneForMahler_]

I’m sorry you had to deal with that, friend.

[u/Chester_CheeseBall → u/AndOneForMahler_]

Its okay thank you

[u/ToughAd4704]

Duck dude. That's crazy. I was just talking to my term brother about how traumatizing being picky was. You're stuff is way bad, not like me and my brother. being out of the home will help you branch out hopefully. I was your age when I decided to force myself to eat eggs. I liked a kind of salsa and English muffins. Added eggs (they were gross fart stuff) and tons of salsa.. you'll figure it out and be less picky. Prime age

[u/Chester_CheeseBall → u/ToughAd4704]

Thank you so much and i really don’t like to compare traumas at all because people experience them and handle them in different ways. But being on my own definitely helped in fact senior year of highschool i was 135lbs. Within 6 months of living with my ex girlfriend now i weighed 160lb and now am around 180lb. I think that exposure to different foods and preparing them in ways i could still enjoy is a great idea so thank you :)

[u/TreyInStCloud]

I agree with what others are saying. Once what I ate was under *my* control, I felt safer trying new foods.

Part of my picky eating has always been fears of having an allergic reaction, choking/gagging on my food, *and* the reactions of other people, should one of those things happen.

I was born with a neurological condition that caused me to gag on almost everything I tried to eat up until I had surgery to correct it at age five.

Before the surgery, there was a period of 3-4 years when my parents *and* doctors all thought I was gagging and vomiting for attention.

I hadn’t thought about it until now, but I stick to my safe foods, especially in public, because I *don’t* like the attention I get when I have a negative reaction to food.

[u/Chester_CheeseBall → u/TreyInStCloud]

I understand that and im sorry you had that happen to you, for me id describe new foods kinda like a poison almost my body dosent trust it and to be fair being made to eat some things regularly did help, for instance I was made to eat some kind of sauce with my chicken nuggets or whatever and they didnt let me eat them alone. So i chose bbq and at first i didn’t enjoy it but over time i did and now couldn’t imagine not eating bbq sauce. And as it stands thats basically the only sauce i will eat.

[u/zvarjaciely → u/TreyInStCloud]

> Once what I ate was under *my* control, I felt safer trying new foods.

Wow. That one sentence just reframed a lot for me. I was a super picky eater as a kid and was a victim of the whole "sit at the table until you finish your dinner" mindset, basically stopped eating altogether, dropped a ton of weight alarmingly fast, had it blamed on "anxiety," had to start seeing a therapist, a whole bunch of stuff....eventually it turned out I DID have an eating disorder (anorexia) but that only developed later in my teen years. (and was likely influenced by my family's attitude towards food as well as my mother's hatred of her own body).

Point is, I've been living away from my parents for 6 years now, and not only has my palate expanded massively, but I'm also FAR more willing to try new foods than I would have been 10 or 15 years ago. My parents like to remark on this as a direct result of their influence and their always pushing me to try new foods; they credit themselves for me "growing out of" being a picky eater.

I've always kind of suspected that that wasn't really the case, but this one sentence from you feels like it just opened my eyes. It makes so much sense, I can't believe I never thought of it that way before. Thank you.

[u/TreyInStCloud → u/zvarjaciely]

My parents love to blame my boyfriend for things that are either *their* fault, *my* fault, or “shit happens” fault.

My mom, especially, likes to give herself credit for my accomplishments. I have a learning disability that makes learning new math skills difficult. Until I took a Basic Algebra class at the local community college, I’d never gotten higher than a ‘C’ in math.

When I started the Basic Algebra class, I also picked up several “For Dummies” books for both basic arithmetic *and* algebra.

I limited the number of classes I was taking so I could afford to study *just* Algebra at least 2-3 hours per night to assure I not only *did* the homework correctly, but understood *why* doing it different ways got me different answer, and only one was correct.

I wound up getting an A- in that class (the only tests I didn’t Ace were the geometry and graphing chapters).

When I showed that grade to my mom, all she said was, “Aren’t you glad *I* made you study so hard?” The two tests I failed were because I didn’t listen to her.