Picky Eater or Emotionally Manipulated?

There's a reason it's called 'childhood trauma'.

Manipulation can come in a lot of forms, and we are mostly exposed to it as children and young adults because we are still learning who to trust.

I was reading an article today about a woman who was out shopping with her nephew and she was so irritated that he refused to try this new Pho place she found.

First off, Pho is kind of gross to begin with to be perfectly honest with you. My Ex absolutely loved it and I don't liked having all my food boiled in flavorless water.

Second, a pre-teen is moody to begin with and getting them to experience things outside their comfort zone is tricky because they don't want to be embarrassed.

Third, maybe his parents or other people would give him a hard time about his eating habits.

When I was a kid, my family was always together and cooking. Normally, it would be fairly simple food like spaghetti or tacos or something like that. Sometimes, like during major events or holidays, they'd throw in some other dishes that were a bit more complicated, but other than that when we all cooked it wasn't a difficult meal to digest.

I remember once, my extended family organized a trip to Disneyland and we all went out the night before to an Italian restaurant. I must have been about 7 or 8, I ordered for myself and got ravioli because it was pretty much the only thing I recongized on the menu. But once I got it, I saw it came with meat sauce, and I'm not a big meat eater. So I picked around my plate with what I could stomach.

My aunt, pinched me and told me if I didn't eat it they would leave me there to wash dishes.

Which of course was a ridiculous threat but at that age, I didn't know any better. So, I shoveled it all down and tried not to make a face.

"That cost money so I don't care if you don't like it, you're going to eat it."

That line was pretty much my childhood. It didn't matter what I thought, they would make me eat whatever was in front of me.

So I would order things that I 100% knew I'd like and I got real good at scrutinizing the menu and looking around at what other people ordered.

I got labelled a 'picky eater' because I became really specific about my food.

Then when I hit puberty around 14, I was suddenly 'fat for my age' according to my aunts and that was the first time I developed an eating disorder.

So then the food that I did eat got even more specific.

I wish I could tell you someone stepped in and helped me, but for the next five years I bounced between eating disorders and because my grandmother loved the stories on Entertainment Tonight about eating disorders I knew how to trick people into thinking I didn't have any. I knew what they would look for and I went out of my way to hide what I was doing.

I was stressed out by school, college prep, friends, classes, registrations, driving, relationships, family, that at least food was the one thing I could control in my life.

Because no one knew what I was doing to myself, I was then dubbed as the 'cheap date' because I would order only a side salad and a water for dinner after eating nothing else all day.

When I was 19, I was working with my Grandfather on a summer break from College and I don't know how long I'd gone without eating but I remember standing up to walk somewhere and I blinked, but when I opened my eyes, I was in our car. I was scared but he told me that I had just fainted and terrified him. That's when he asked me when I last ate and I couldn't tell him because I didn't know.

I wasn't skin and bones, I went through periods of eating everything to nothing to some things and was still only labelled as the 'picky eater'.

My grandfather wasn't the type to get emotional with others. He was clearly upset with me with what I'd done to myself but he didn't say anything to anyone.

That was the first time someone actually noticed me. He stopped calling me the 'picky eater' and was just happy with whatever I did eat and he'd distract me by talking about things I liked. Whether it was books or movies or music, most of the time he didn't know what the hell I was talking about but he took the time to ask and listen to me.

About 6 months later, I had stopped paying so much attention to food and what I did or did not eat.

I standard taking charge of my life in a healthy way by consulting with a counselor and moving past why I had these disorders.

So, please, don't call your kids picky eaters. IF they want to try something and end up not liking it, take a breath and tell them it's okay. It's not the end of the world, and life is about trying new things to find out if you like them or not; not liking things is okay.

If you do what my family did, just prepare to have a child in your life that will not trust you, harm themselves, develop life-threatening habits, and they won't tell you anything.