Is husband right that I need psychological help? (Won’t eat outside of home)

[Melessah]

When I was 19 I had a very traumatic experience. I found half a mouse in a ready meal I had bought from a supermarket. It was in a curry. I created a post on twitter and a couple of papers actually picked up the story.

if was obviously very upsetting. I was a university student at the time living off ready meals. After that experience I refused to eat from restaurants, takeaways or supermarkets. I won’t even eat crisps. Everything I eat needs to be 100% “safe”.

Everything I eat is home cooked. I would never buy a ready meal again. I don’t even buy bread from a supermarket. I eat potatoes as my main carb. I eat a lot of eggs (from my mum’s chickens).

Husband obviously knew what he was signing up for when he married me. I do not see myself ever letting my guard down.

Anyway, we were on holiday and he really lost his cool with me. I was eating fruit and boiled eggs and he told me I need help. And that he was getting tired by my the restrictions I place on myself and therefore him.

I have spoken to a psychologist but it didn’t help. I don’t want to be like this. Who is the one that is being unreasonable

@MrsLindaBelcher what do you think started it off? My sister had the opposite issue in that she hated eating with anyone else around.

Finding a mouse in your food must have been horrible, but most people get over similar.
I found a claw in a KFC meal years ago, it was actually in my mouth, I will never eat KFC again, but it hasn't put me off chicken.
You can still be healthy even though you do have an eating disorder, but socially it's not ideal, and I sympathise with your husband.

You have tried to overcome it, I can't suggest anything else, but I do symapthise.

After reading this I never want to eat again.

I hope something brings you what you need.

I'm sorry but it really does sound like contamination OCD! why so obtuse and defensive to people suggesting something different, especially when what you've tried hasn't worked? Lol

It's just extra information for you to go and research and try something different. It's great you've seen lots of different people. I wouldn't give up though. You might just need something very specific or targeted or a different psych or counsellor!
Exposure therapy yourself etc. Hypnotherapy

Anti anxiety meds sometimes but takes a few and so tricky with dosages

This piece of research shows that EMDR therapy can be really effective with trauma-based eating disorders. It's a very targeted therapy which can sometimes be completed in just a few sessions. The examples of trauma given in the abstract aren't exactly the same as your own - but they are related to an eating experience rather than, say, general anorexic symptoms as a result of a different kind of trauma. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S092493381730826X

And eggs are a common cause of food poising. I’d never eat those abroad or from any source that’s wasn’t known to me! Bizarre those ar eon your safe list.

OP, I also have an ED, I had it when I was younger and recovered for many, many years, but it came back at a stressful point in my life about a year ago.

What have learnt so far through therapy is that you need to separate yourself from your disordered eating, it’s not part of your identity, it is a separate battle. It doesn’t make you less of a person and I’m sure there are plenty of good qualities that you have as a person and hopefully that your Dh appreciates. You need to try and talk back to your eating disorder and fight with it - tell it it’s irrational and illogical, shout over its voice.

Secondly, in most cases the event that triggers disordered eating is not the thing that maintains it. The mouse event triggered your reaction, but it won’t be the thing maintaining it. It does sound like you have a phobia of uncleanliness/germs that is maintaining your ED more than the original incident.

Thirdly, you may think that your behaviours give you control, but in reality they control you.

An ED is not a choice, it’s not your fault and it’s basically impossible to overcome on your own. A strong support network is so important and as you can see from the mixed messages on this thread, many people don’t understand - as your Dh perhaps doesn’t - you aren’t doing this deliberately.

I wish you strength and happiness, my ED causes me all sorts of issues but isn’t stopping me live a happy life. I am engaging with treatment but I need to learn self-compassion and really work on challenging it. It’s tough work but there is a life out there that is better than we have - we just have to take small steps.

This is not a way to live OP, surely you realise that? I would really struggle if my partner was like that.

Change can be very intimidating, @Melessah. I should know, I'm afraid of stopping smoking 😬 It's understandable. And it's incompatible with your wish to enjoy a more relaxed life with your husband, friends and people in general.

Looking at this rationally, which I'm sure you did with all your therapists too, how is the problem defined?

• Fear of finding mouse in food? - Was the trigger, but surprise animal parts are easily avoided by sticking with clearly defined, recognisable foods such as steaks, roasts, fillets, sliceable whole veg, etc.
• Fear of foreign bodies in food? - Could be a reasonable expansion of the above, except that all foods are 'foreign bodies' unless we explain what we mean. 'Non-food' items in/on foods can be straightforwardly eliminated as above, or simply removed as we remove seeds, bone or gristle while eating.
• Fear of germs on foods? - A further expansion which would match with your intensive veg sterilisation routines. It's incongruent with refusing to eat factory-made crisps and chip shop chips, however. The potatoes have been fried at 170°C, hot enough to inactivate any germ. They are not touched by hand after cooking.
• Fear of any contaminant? - The only logical next step, but you'd have to describe the other potential contaminants and why you don't believe they are in your mum's eggs or the veg you wash with vinegar.

This tends to lead us towards an irrational fear of unspecified food contaminants. Given your strong rules on what's edible and exhaustive safety routines, it's starting to look exactly like contaminant OCD.

This debilitating condition isn't very unusual, and it's not 100% unreasonable to wonder if you aren't somehow attached to it - much as I'm attached to my fags. Neither of us is sensible; both our lives would be vastly improved by weakening our emotional attachments to our dysfunctions.

Think you can bear the thought of getting closer to normal? There is help.

You are not being unreasonable, but if you do want to change this restriction in your life then you could really benefit from some therapy. I would recommend either graded exposure therapy (a form of CBT) or hypnotherapy. Good luck!

Have you had treatment for orthorexia?
That's what I hear OP describing.
The thing about mental illness is that it tells you that you are being perfectly reasonable to do and believe utterly bonkers things.

Well yes. Why can’t you for example, buy a bag of crisps, empty them first out to check no mice? So does it mean you and DH can’t eat a meal at a family member’s house? If you have kids they can’t eat out? Wouldn’t it make life better to just try?

If you're planning on DC you really need to work on this in advance. It would be extremely unfair to pass this anxiety on to them, which you probably will. Yes it was an unpleasant event (I wouldn't use the word 'traumatic' to be honest) but it's insanely unlikely to ever be repeated.

I mean,
This might be a disorder but you are very healthy and eat everything fresh.
If we all did this there would be less chronic conditions.
I don't get what your husband's issue is?
Can't he eat what he wants and enjoy it?
Anyway, I honestly can't see a problem in what you eat.
Its exactly how I want to eat, I do sometimes but then I slip up a lot.
I have an autoimmune condition and was basically told to eat like this!

I don’t know why I’m getting such a hard time.

im stepping away from this thread. It’s doing me no favours.

Thanks to the posters who shared their support

I forgot to add another thing that helped with my years of food contamination phobia.

I did a degree in biology! Parasites, bacteria, human organs, the lot. Learning about the gross things in the world meant that they weren't a mystery to me any more. I also learned about our incredible immune system and how it was doing all the work for me already. We evolved to deal with so much!

Now when something makes me sick (doesn't happen often) I know exactly what's happening to my body and I feel very chill about it.

No need for a degree, but I recommend doing some leisurely reading about that kind of thing.

OK, I'm not going to talk about your problem with food (because what do I know?) but about your problem with your husband, because that's the thread you started - the title of your thread is "Is husband right that I need psychological help?", and you finish with "Who is the one that is being unreasonable"?

Let's start with who is being unreasonable, your husband or yourself?

Nobody is being unreasonable here. You had a traumatic experience, and since your OP you have detailed extensive treatments you have tried to get past this trauma. Your husband did not appreciate the extent to which your disordered eating would impact on your joint life so he's not being unreasonable either.

Next up "Is husband right that I need psychological help?". Well you already know the answer to that and it is 'yes', because this is not something you can do alone and since it's a psychological problem you need psychological help. Yes you have already had lots of psychological help but it hasn't resolved the issue, has it? So why are you balking at him pointing out the obvious?

The way he put it and the scenario in which he put it is what has got to you, I think. Let's have a look at that:
"Anyway, we were on holiday and he really lost his cool with me. I was eating fruit and boiled eggs and he told me I need help. And that he was getting tired by my the restrictions I place on myself and therefore him."

So (again, in my opinion) him stating that he was getting tired of it gave you a fright. You considered the possibility that he could choose to end the marriage over this, and since it's not something you feel you can change you felt a loss of control. And let's face it, all your restrictions are about control, your desire to control everything that you eat to ensure you never face contaminated food ever again. I'd imagine that the feeling of not being in control hit you harder than it would hit me. And there's also the small matter that at heart, you know he is right. ("I don’t want to be like this.") I wonder if you've subconsciously been waiting for him to voice his frustration?

When you said "Husband obviously knew what he was signing up for when he married me. I do not see myself ever letting my guard down" that sounded a bit defensive to me. Did he really know the extent of what he was 'signing up for'? You've detailed a few of the precautions you take, such as all fruit and veg being "washed heavily with vinegar". I consider it unlikely that you started doing that from Day 1. Have your precautions become more intrusive over time? You took precautions, maybe you felt that should ease your mind but it didn't so you piled on more? Meaning that husband definitely didn't know what he was signing up for, because you've got a lot stricter since he signed up? Even if that is not the case, really, he couldn't possibly know what he was signing up for. And watching the person you love going to extremes cannot be easy. The drip-drip-drip effect and the increasing certainty that this is never going to change and this is the rest of their life - well, yes, I think I would break at some point; and maybe that is where your husband has reached.

So, set aside YOUR issues, and look at his. Are there any changes possible that would take the pressure off of him? Could you, for example, go together to a cafe and he has coffee and cake and you have a bottle of water? Could you consider black tea, on the basis that boiling water takes care of the hygiene? Even if it maybe sits in front of you untouched? Somehow go through the motions so tht he feels your restrictions less?

This^^

I think this is the problem - you aren’t willing to face the fact you need to get help of some different sort so you are climbing back in the safe box

pps have made some helpful suggestions. Focus on those

Why have you started this thread OP?

You know you have an eating disorder (and I 100% agree with the contamination OCD for what it’s worth!).

You ask whether your DH was unreasonable to get frustrated and say you need help - you do.

BUT you don’t seem to really WANT to get better IMO. It’s like you’re too scared of your identity beyond the eating disorder.

No, you definitely can't have children till you've resolved your disordered eating. Maybe that's your DH's issue? Maybe he's ready to have kids and he knows it's not going to be with you, at least not for a while.

I expect every1 just comes here for an arguement, or maybe just to beat up the OP?
How can so many folk think OP is being unreasonable, she’s NOT forcing ‘D’H to eat like her, so, what’s his goddamned problem???

Can I ask why this upsets you so much? Some of your thoughts and behaviours could suggest ocd. The fear that you recognise as irrational, the avoidance behaviours, your thought processes etc could be part of OCD. It’s an illness which can be treated.

I wouldn’t diagnose anyone based on such little info (I am a consultant psychiatrist) but it is worth seeing someone to rule it out. I do find your intense denial notable though, and wonder where that comes from.

The OP asked if her husband is right that she needs psychological help. She has sought several types of psychological help but nothing has worked. She has been rude to people who have made reasonable suggestions.

Form of AFRID/phobia

Get CBT - you need exposure therapy to begin eating where you choose to rather than the self imposed rigid rule you are currently governed by - which is irrational, the mouse was found in a ready meal so what is the criteria for not eating outside of the house?

That needs unpicking and updating