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Quill-Works — Having ARFID/SED is not the same as being picky!!!
Published: 2015-02-09 00:13:27 +0000 UTC; Views: 1130; Favourites: 16; Downloads: 0
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Description
(prepare for a long description)
FEEL FREE TO ASK ANY QUESTIONS YOU HAVE IN THE COMMENTS! I'LL TRY AND ANSWER EACH ONE!
I made this cause I'm putting stamps on my profile as of course there is nothing for ARFID/SED cause I doubt many people know what it is.
So out of the many (diagnosed) disorders I have (including ADHD, OCD, OCPD, anxiety) ARFID/SED is what has affected me the most. What really pisses me off (excuse me for my language) is when people say I'm just picky/stubborn/spoiled and things like that. I see this a lot of times in the comment section on videos discussing it. To be honest, I WISH I was picky! If I was picky I would have a choice!
*sources for information are at the bottom
What is ARFID/SED?
It is a newly discovered eating disorder. It was discovered around 2012. It is known by two names: SED, which stands for selective eating disorder, and ARFID, which stands for avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder. It was mostly known as SED when doctors were just starting to find out about it, but in the past year, it has been given the more official name of ARFID by the people at Duke, and has been labeled as ARFID in the latest version of the DSM. ARFID/SED is different from other eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia because it is not caused be me feeling the need to be skinny ... In fact, the only reason I'm so skinny is probably because people with ARFID/SED just naturally are. Instead of just barely eating anything in hope to get skinny, people with ARFID/SED are scared to try and eat certain foods. They can be limited to less than 10 foods that they can eat. I am limited to only 5 or so foods, excluding some snack foods. If someone with AFRID/SED is presented with a food outside of their "comfort foods" they may just refuse all together to eat it or if they decided to try it because somebody somehow convinces them to, it could take several minutes, sometimes up to 30 minutes, to build up the confidence to try a tiny bite. Many times people with ARFID/SED go into panic attacks when they are forced to eat something different.
How is it different from being picky?
I can see how someone would classify this as just being picky. It must be extremely hard, maybe even impossible to understand if you don't have the disorder yourself. Here are the major differences(i got this information from a site and personal experience)
How many foods?
Picky eaters–usually accept 30 or more foods
ARFID/SED–usually accept 20 or less foods
Why?
Picky eaters–choice/control
ARFID/SED–fear/anxiety
How Picky?
Picky eaters–prefer a specific food for a long period of time
ARFID/SED–usually rejects entire food groups
Medical Issues?
Picky eaters–typically has no medical issues
ARFID/SED–often associated with OCD, ASD, food-trauma and autism
Do they grow out of it?
Picky eaters–usually grow out of it by 6 years old
ARFID/SED–can persist into adult-hood and longer
Eating socially?
Picky eaters–have no problem with eating socially
ARFID/SED–eating socially is extremely stressful and often avoided
What happens when they're hungry?
Picky eaters–will eat in response to hunger
ARFID/SED–refuses unfamiliar foods despite hunger (*side note- when I was sent to a 4-week summer camp, they had none of my comfort foods and snacks weren't allowed so I didn't eat for 2 days until I actually passed out from hunger and the nurses had to give me peanut-butter crackers for the rest of the camp just so I would eat ... I ended up losing nearly 15 pounds by the time I left)
Overall?
Picky eaters–is a normal part of child development
ARFID/SED–is an eating disorder
My personal experience
I didn't actually know I had an eating disorder until about a year and a half ago ... For the next six months I had to go through some major testing, which was probably the worst time of my life. Duke Medical Center called us in many times to keep track of my progress. Before I knew I had it, I just thought I was weird and different, and a screw-up. It's bittersweet to actually have a diagnosis for it ... I'm glad that there's a name for what I have and that there are other people like me but it upsets me that I now know there's no cure. Eating socially is something that really stresses me out and I usually don't go to social events for that sole reason. I don't like people watching me eat, and I hate when people ask why I'm not having anything besides the chips on my plate.(that's an example, chips aren't the only thing I eat) And I feel really guilty about it because I don't want the server to feel like I don't like anything or that I'm not grateful ... I remember once the principal of my school even pulled me into her office and accused me of being stubborn because I didn't eat anything at lunch and wouldn't eat anything she offered. She went on about how lucky we are to have food while other countries don't and we shouldn't waste it. I couldn't find a way to explain to her that if I even attempted to try something i'd either go into a panic attack or gag and vomit.
I'll probably add more later
Anyway I hope you guys learned a bit about it ... glad to have that off my chest
LEARN MORE:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoidant…
mealtimehostage.com/2012/12/13…
Related content
Comments: 10
I have it, though I don't fear eating out unless it's with people I'm completely unfamiliar with. I can eat snack foods, desserts, fruits and chicken, and packet ramen noodles, along with plain hot dogs and corn dogs, but I absolutely, for the life of me, cannot eat vegetables with the exception of corn, and only if it's on the cob or in popcorn form. Or if it's tasty caramel corn stuff. I have autism, which doesn't help, but as a kid, I never really ate vegetables because my parents were apparently afraid of traumatizing me or some shit...And they still kept me in a restrictive harsh environment filled with bullies. Huh. Anyway, most of the experiences I had with vegetables were either shitty lunchroom foods, or canned greens that just looked nasty to five year old me, so I think that's how I developed it.
I never really realized I had it until very recently actually. I, and mostly everyone else, just assumed I was a really picky eater, and that I'd grow out of it by high school or so. But then I realized "Shit, I still haven't eaten a damn vegetable yet. O_o". And then I found a Cracked article about a woman sharing her experiences with the disorder, and, this is the only time I'll ever self-diagnose myself, realized her description of the disorder was eerily similar to what I go to.
Thankfully, I've never had too much trouble with ARFID/SED, as the foods I can eat are fairly cheap and abundant, but it can get really boring eating the same thing over and over again. :I It's also annoying to have to explain it to other people. Explaining disorders and disabilities is already unnecessarily difficult, so having to tell idiots that you aren't just a picky eater gets really old really fast, so I usually just either get my parents to buy my food (since they understand my condition), or I just buy it myself.
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Sounds like something I could possibly have, but I'm not going to risk self-diagnosing and looking like a complete idiot.
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Last night, I wrote a journal about my experience with it. And I can definitely relate to what you're saying. I actually ended up resorting to Googling "help i can't bring myself to eat anything i'm not familiar with" in desperation to find out what was wrong, and my mom told me later that my therapist had diagnosed me with ARFID. That's how I found out that it was an eating disorder.
Thank you so much for this stamp, though. ARFID =/= "stubborn/picky".
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Well thats pretty interesting... I had no idea that existed...
More people need to know about this...
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Being a person who was diagnosed with autism twice when I was a child, I never knew this condition existed even with it's possible links to autism (the Wikipedia article had a section with the header "ARFID and Autism." Then again, from its date of discovery, I wouldn't have thought about it's existence until now. Anyways, best of luck.
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Wow, I've never heard of this before. The fact that people have to have this is just cruel and unfair, though, and in a honesty I probably can't even begin to imagine how bad it must be.
I wish you luck with getting through this disorder, and that you will be someday able to live without the burden of it.
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A large factor that can exaserbate this is when your parent(s) or a friend makes you try a bite of a food you'll almost likely hate. A food you might enjoy the taste of is one of my faves....calamari (octopus/squid meat). This is only meant to be a friendly suggestion
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Never heard of this and I'm a psychology students, must be incredibly rare. I'm sorry you have this curse. Nevertheless thanks for this learning opportunity C=
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Thanks, and yeah it's pretty rare and not very well heard of
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