ARFID and Christmas

[iloveeverykindofcat]

Does anybody else have ARFID? How do you cope with it? I was misdiagnosed with anorexia when I was young (before my extremely obvious autism was recognised) and that was a whole other shitshow, but nowadays I just eat pretty much the same thing every day and people mostly leave me alone about it. I've always been "underweight" on the BMI scale but not enough to attract shock or anything. I'm small anyway so look fine. In fact I have a bit of muscle because I lift.

I pretty much have protein shake/fruit for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, dark chocolate snack, and potatoes and vegan sausage with mushrooms for dinner. I'm better than I used to be in that there are some restaurants etc
I will go to, if I know what to get. But Christmas stresses me so much. A lot of texture are a hard no for me, especially anything 'sloppy'. I have actual trauma memories from school dinners. It would be 100% easier if people would just keep their comments to themselves. No, I don't want to try that. Yes, I'm perfectly fine thanks. No, I'm not 'denying myself a treat', I don't want it. No, I'm not on a diet. What is neurotypicals obsession when someone won't eat what they do? This is the time of year I get nervous about.

Some people just LOVE to comment on other peoples eating, regardless of if they are Autistic or not, my FIL is a relentless food shamer, to my girls, to me, in general, and had to have several discussions about how it's not acceptable. He called something on a menu "piggy" (something the restaurant is known for) so I called him out saying "that's what I'm having and I'm not a piggy"
His fluster afterwards was brilliant!
It was the first time I was brave enough to call it there and then. Felt good.

Some people are horrible nosy idiots with zero concept of how harmful their unsolicited opinions are.

If you use instagram, thenutritiontea , is brilliant, she's a proper nutritionist with zero time for people who shame others for choices, how to cope with people doing the food commenting, offering responses ranging from comedy, to serious, to real FU's.

Good on you! I bet his face was a picture. I will look at her instragram. I tend to just keep repeating 'no thanks, I'm fine, yes, I'm happy with what I've got thanks, no I really don't need to try that one thing', but people don't listen. When you have ARFID, you get an awful lot of 'just try this', 'just try that', then when they see you eating something higher calorie (because....hello? Not anorexic?) it becomes "Ooooh, fancy a little thing like you putting that away!' 'Aren't you lucky, that would go straight to my thighs'. 'Gosh are you going to finish that?'
Well...I was...now I'm too uncomfortable.

Food can be a massive source of stress for me. Some days I live on biscuits just cos I really like them
when it comes to xmas I not have my own family so just do what I will eat which is getting increasingly limited the more stressed I get
This weekend I supposed to go to my uncle house for Sunday lunch, luckily they 100% understand and are happy for me to take a sandwich in case I cannot eat anything