The church I attend is doing a week-long fast and church-wide prayer this week. I told myself the next time they decided to do that, that I would discuss the reason I do not fast from food, so it looks like this is the week for that.

I have nothing against fasting, personally. In fact, I am extremely good at it. That is part of the problem.

I have an eating disorder that until relatively recently, would have fallen into the category of “Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified” (EDNOS), which is sort of a catch-all for any eating disorder that doesn’t fall under binge, anorexia, or bulimia.

However, I recently learned that it now has a name. It is called A/RFID, which stands for Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. That’s a really long name, but there’s a really short explanation. It’s basically anorexia, but without the focus on weight and body image.

I do have body dysmorphia, but never an issue with my weight. At least not enough of one that it affected my eating. In fact, it’s unlikely that many people even know about my eating disorder because, as far as they can tell, I have no issues with consuming food. And I suppose that, depending on how you think about it, for the most part, that’s true.

A/RFID has some subtypes. One is being food avoidant or restrictive about the type of food you eat. This is one of the reasons it is so highly associated with Autism. Autistic people tend to be a lot more restrictive about what they can eat because certain foods may cause a number of issues for them. I don’t have many food restrictions. Of course, there are tomatoes, the one food that never ceases to make me gag; there are a few other things that I am not a huge fan of, whether due to taste or texture; and then there are walnuts, which I am allergic to. I definitely do restrict the types of food I eat, a fact that I never really noticed until I had to change my diet and realized I couldn’t find things I enjoyed eating anymore because all of the food I regularly consumed was on the “do not eat” list. However, that being said, I will eat whatever is available to me if I am required to eat, even if it is something I do not enjoy (yes, even tomatoes).

I more likely fall into avoidant/restrictive of another category. The part where I have to decide WHEN to eat. For me, that time is almost exclusively “not right now.”

When I was in college, I would go an entire day without eating on most days. I would skip breakfast, go to school from 9:00 in the morning until 3:00 in the afternoon. Drive over to my job, and then work there from 3:30 until 11:00. At which point I would realize that I had to feed myself SOMETHING. Sometimes, that meant I would have a bag of chips and a soda, sometimes that meant I would go to the Taco Bell Drive-Thru. Regardless, I often ate only once a day, and that was between 11:00 PM and Midnight.

So why, then, did that go unnoticed by most people? Don’t get me wrong. There were some people who knew. Especially my coworkers, who had to come to my rescue one night when I nearly passed out at work. But most people had no idea– HAVE no idea because I have no problems with eating in front of other people. In fact, most of the time, if I am eating, it’s BECAUSE someone else was eating– to keep up the context that I do, in fact, eat. On top of that, food was easily accessible and I didn’t have to do anything to prepare it myself.

In fact, I still struggle to eat, and the only thing I’ve learned to combat this is to eat when my children eat, and eat what they eat (kid food is often more palatable, anyway) which serves a double purpose because I never want them to see my disordered eating in a positive light. I really don’t want them to see it at all. It’s not something I want them to have to struggle with the way I struggle.

That being said, food is not the only thing that one can fast from, and I have a whole host of things that I am not so good at going without for any length of time. My phone, for one. That’s the big one. I think if I had to stay away from anything for a week, my phone would probably be the top contender.

So I will not fast from food for my own physical and mental health, and I’d like to believe that God is okay with that. But I still have plenty of options, food just cannot be one of them.