#that bit was clearly plucked from an article on anorexia or bulimia since they centre around weight and body image. arfid (mostly) doesn't

[opalsiren]

just spent twenty minutes reading this cognitive behavioural therapy workbook for arfid and. whew. as someone who has been using cbt to manage mental health issues for years. i am about to share a piping hot take that i feel like the arfid community may not vibe with

listen. nutrition is important. being malnourished and thoroughly underweight is not a good thing, being unhealthily overweight is not a good thing, being deficient in certain nutrients is not good

now that we've got that disclaimer out of the way, let's talk about how this workbook spent pages upon pages discussing how arfid impacts weight and nutrition and like. we know. we KNOW. we know that our diets aren't good for us, we know that our diets may lead to long term health complications, we know a balanced diet rich in nutrients is the most healthy. we don't need to be condescended to for twenty odd pages that our diets are killing us, thanks

the thing that i hear most from others with arfid is that eating is stressful. it's hard. it's laborious. it's a chore. at best, it's boring. at worst, it is a massive cause of stress, fear, anxiety, discomfort, and dysfunction. we avoid social events that don't have our safe foods like we avoid backhanded comments and ignorant suggestions to just 'try something new.' we ignore hunger pangs, we go hours and hours without eating because the thought of food makes us want to cry. we have anxiety attacks when we smell fear foods. we hide in bathrooms at restaurants while everyone else gets to eat together. we tune out when people talk about their favourite foods, start to sweat when they ask us about ours. maybe we tell our doctors that we have an eating disorder, or maybe we don't for fear that they'll cite some moral panic excuse for journalism circulating about how the youth eat nothing but junk food that doesn't even mention our disorder by name

what has been most helpful to me in therapy is fixating less on how my diet is harming me and focusing more on trying to find the joy in food. i know my diet isn't healthy. i don't need to be told. what i need is to try and find more foods that i like, and go from there. can i work with the foods that i currently eat and slowly train myself to enjoy something new? can i put in a sustainable effort to make eating seem a little more pleasurable? can i learn to sit with the anxiety, the fear, the discomfort? hell, can i learn to respond to the sensation of hunger, to share my issues around food with people and let myself be seen, to start small and try to find the fun in food? can i use coping tools to try and lean into the anxiety, rather than running from it? can food be about community, sharing, love—even if that is love for just myself—and not about some arbitrary standard of health that isn't attainable for me right now?

nutrition is important, but anxiety around health will only compound anxiety around food. start with the question 'how can i find the joy in food?' and go from there. nutrients can even be derived from multivitamins, meal replacements, smoothies or juices tailored to an individual's needs. joy cannot.

#before anyone makes the call out post this isn't to discourage people from trying to make 'healthy' choices. but starting from a place of #fear will only discourage progress. if you are in treatment for arfid and the scaremongering has worked for you then that's great! but for #many of us it's counterproductive #also there was a whole section on like the importance of putting on weight and eating high calorie foods i.e most of what ppl with arfid #consider safe foods. which i found hilarious since most of us have trouble losing weight due to our limited options. not gaining weight lol #that bit was clearly plucked from an article on anorexia or bulimia since they centre around weight and body image. arfid (mostly) doesn't #also this is coming from someone with a plethora of other health issues which are almost certainly compounded by if not directly caused by #my diet. so there's that #arfid #actually arfid #actuallyarfid #avoidant restrictive food intake disorder #arfid tag #tw ed #ed tw #eating disorder #eating disorder trigger warning #trigger warning eating disorder #ed mention #eating disorder mention #ask to tag ig #also there's research which suggests that trying to force yourself to eat nutrient rich foods that you don't enjoy will actually cause your #body to reject those nutrients? and if your body is accustomed to getting nutrients from high calorific foods then it will continue to do #that. this isn't to be anti-recovery but operating with a preoccupation on nutritional value only may hinder rather than help. anyway #.txt