Why this exists
"I came out of the womb with ARFID. And for most of my life, I had no word for it."
I have had ARFID since I was a baby. I rejected food from the very beginning — not out of stubbornness, not as a phase, but because my body and brain were wired that way from birth. My mom was loving and patient, but she was also scared. She feared for my nutrition, my wellbeing, my future. She did everything she could, but there was no roadmap. There was no name for what I had.
Growing up, I became an expert at hiding it. I told people I was sick. I told them I wasn't hungry. At sleepovers, I quietly moved food around my plate and hoped no one noticed. Kids would try to pay me to eat things I couldn't eat. I went to nutritionists and doctors constantly — but this was before ARFID existed as a diagnosis, so I was handed explanations that didn't fit: acid reflux, anxiety, pickiness. None of them were right, and none of them helped.
The hardest part wasn't the food itself. It was the absence of language. I couldn't explain what was happening to me. I couldn't own it, couldn't name it, couldn't make other people understand. I just felt broken — and for a long time, I quietly concluded that I would never be normal.
I tried. I went to a behaviorist. I did exposure therapy. Star charts. Reward systems. Mental preparation rituals just to put something new in my mouth. Progress came slowly, then not at all, then slowly again. I gave up. I tried again. That cycle repeated for years.
Then something shifted — not just for me, but in the world around me. The DSM officially recognized ARFID as a diagnosed disorder. At the same time, the American food landscape was changing: dietary restrictions became mainstream, restaurants started accommodating preferences, and people stopped assuming that everyone ate the same things. For the first time in my life, I had language. I had a framework. And the people around me had the capacity to actually listen.
I remember standing in front of a 200-person class in college and speaking openly about ARFID for the first time. I felt liberated — briefly, imperfectly, but genuinely liberated.
That moment planted a seed. And this platform is what grew from it.
Why now
I built The ARFID Circle because no one else was going to, and it should already exist.
We live in a moment where the tools to build something like this are finally within reach — and I want to use them to help people who are living what I lived. People who feel alone at the dinner table. People whose parents are scared and don't know how to help. People who have given up and concluded, like I did, that this is just how it will always be.
This community is for all of them. For the person who wants to connect with others who truly get it. For the parent who needs a way to explain their child's needs to a grandparent or a teacher. For the person who doesn't want a community at all — who just wants the tools to navigate their own life, quietly, on their own terms.
You don't have to explain yourself here. You don't have to justify your safe foods or apologize for what you can't eat. You just get to exist, and be understood.
The Founder
Living with ARFID since birth