Title is pretty self explanatory but for the sake of getting the best advice I'll detail more here.
I am 27F, my sister 18F. We are half siblings with a big age gap so we grew up in different circumstances. At her house, the adults don't have the most healthy or diverse eating habits. I grew up as a bit of a picky eater (nowhere near as restricted as my sister) but eventually pushed myself to try new things (mostly out of shame) in my late teens and early adulthood. Now I will try almost anything and enjoy a wide range of food and feel confident going to restaurants of varying cultures and cuisines.
My sister on the other hand, only eats chicken tenders, french fries, macaroni and cheese, plain cheese pizza, diet coke, bagels, and the rare fruit or uncooked carrot. She has always been like this. She has confided in me that she doesn't like that she's severely picky, and wishes she wasn't, but has anxiety surrounding trying new things. She has also said that she is not bothered by people shaming her for her eating habits, which I'm not sure I believe, but that's neither here nor there.
I believe this is all mental but I'm not a doctor so I can't say for sure. After she confided this in me, we agreed that I could try and coax her out of her comfort zone so she could try some new things. A couple years ago I took her to a chinese buffet and had her try things, (super simple things, mind you, like... a green bean, shrimp, lo mein, chicken that's been prepared in a different way than just a nugget, etc.) she physically gagged at everything and I had to put some pressure on her to try everything on the plate I'd prepared for her before she could go up and get the kiddie menu stuff.
She does not seek out new foods and is actively reluctant to try them, even if it's something very similar to something she already likes and is readily available to her. She is also extremely picky with the few things she actually does like. A great example of this is something that happened yesterday.
She is going off to college shortly so I invited her to my house to hang out before she left. I ordered a pizza from a chain restaurant that she requested and got half of it plain, half with pepperoni (which she does not like). When the pizza arrived, it had clearly slid around in the delivery car quite a bit and looked a little worse for wear. There were about two slices that didn't have pepperoni on them, and the cheese had slid around a considerable amount. I cut the two slices separate for my sister and tried to remove pepperoni as best I could from the others, but those two were totally plain cheese. When she saw it, she balked at it, and made a throwaway comment about how her brain sometimes tries to trick her into thinking something is poison if it doesn't look right, and then laughed.
At the time I tried to tell her it was normal to get a little weirded out by food looking not as you'd expect but I think now that I may have enabled her too much. She only at one slice (after not wanting to, and me being like, "seriously?") and seemed to not want to try anything else that I'd also gotten with her in mind (plain boneless wings, and cheesy bread, which I assumed would be a home run since it's basically pizza anyway??) It was really frustrating for me for her to not want to eat any of it after I'd gone through all the effort to order stuff from the place she specifically requested, that I didn't even want, but am now stuck with a truckload of leftovers in my fridge. Let alone the money I spent on it.
I'm just at my wit's end. She says she wants to get better, but she doesn't follow through with actions. I know this is difficult and scary for her, and I want to be a good and supportive sister, but I also don't want to coddle her. It's frustrating to know that every time I want to grab dinner with my sister or have her over for a meal it will have to be McDonald's or the equivalent.
After doing some light research I also know that this could be ARFID, or something else with sensory issues, and would best be handled by therapy or a psych of some kind. But my family on that side is very therapy avoidant and my sister has expressed disinterest when I've gently suggested it for other reasons, or given testimonials for how much it has helped me in the past.
My partner and I have been talking about getting married in the next few years and I definitely don't want to serve pizza and chicken tenders at my wedding. Does anyone have any experience with this? What is the best way to either help her, or how to deal with it on my end? I find myself getting super annoyed by this, and inconvenienced, and I want to be able to find ways to deal better.
Thank you for reading!
TLDR: My sister is an extremely picky eater and I am fed up with going to lengths to accommodate this. How can I help? If I can't help, how can I deal?
Submitted August 26, 2019 at 11:15AM by chickntndr https://ift.tt/2Zl4usv
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