Demand avoidance and food

Something my demand avoidance really affects is my relationship to food and eating. There’s also sensory issues involved, I’m very sensitive to taste and texture.

Mostly though, my issues with eating stem from demand avoidance, particularly around preparing food. I swing between eating a lot of low effort junk food, and eating out too much for lunch, and then periods of eating very little of anything.

The latter causes weight loss which always gains me praise, which makes it very appealing to repeat. The former causes weight gain, with the opposite societal effect – disapproval. Particularly from doctors, especially if I dare seek help for my chronic pain (which I tend to avoid and self-medicate for as minimally as possible).

I find deciding what I’ll want to eat for the week ahead very difficult, and demanding. Even more than that, preparing a proper meal is too many demands for me, so I often eat take out or microwave meals.

I’ve recently discovered, via tiktok, the idea of a “snackboard” which sometimes makes lunchtime a little easier – it provides variety in a meal and can get me eating fruit and pickled vegetables. Sometimes though, even preparing on of those feels too demanding.

I really would prefer if, much like sleep, if food just wasn’t needed.