"Are You Coming For Lunch?" - EDAC Blog Post

At EDAC we are committed to highlighting the voices of Autistic people with lived/living experience of an eating disorder. EDAC is delighted to share a blog post written by Emma, titled "Are you coming for lunch?". A huge thanks to Emma for their time in writing this thought-provoking piece.

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"Are you coming for lunch?"

- Emma

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“We’re going over to the canteen for lunch. Are you coming?”

A lovely gesture but also a lot for me to think about. This was not the plan and I have a Fortisip in my bag but maybe I can interrupt what I am doing and go with my colleagues, I will find where I am again in my task afterwards. It’s a nice walk across to the canteen and it is a sunny day and maybe I will enjoy myself when I get there. Also Amy is going and I really want to ask her about Iceland.

We find a table and take a seat but there is not a menu with all the choices on. I reach for my phone to google the café to see if there is information online, but the website is not up-to-date and the menu says it is a sample anyway. They say that you just need to go up to order and join the Café queue. Except there are two queues. One is for hot food and one is for cold food, but no one actually tells you that. I don’t know what I want but I’m trying to follow my colleagues’ conversations and join in. I don’t know what I want and I don’t know what all the options are but I need to decide now if I want a drink because the queue is moving past the fridge with the drinks in at some pace and there are people behind me, so if I change my mind I can’t go back. I need to decide right now. Do you want one? Which one? What do you want? Do you want one? Decide. Decide right now. I don’t even know if I am thirsty. I guess I will get a drink, that is what people do, right?

It feels like there are more people in here now than there were before and the busyness is getting to me. And I’m trying to see what’s in the cabinet but the coffee machine is loud and unpredictable and the lit up board with the hot food items on moves fast and is flickering and still I’m trying to follow the conversation but there are people behind me standing too close and chatting too and if I do want hot food I’m in the wrong queue now anyway and how does that work and do you want to eat in or take way and the salad bar has layers of choice. “Leaves or no leaves?”. I don’t know. I want to ask Amy about Iceland. “Pick four salad items”. But the list of what of the salad bar counts as a ‘salad item’ is only printed in A4 and is on top of the counter and I can’t read it from here. Is houmous a salad item or a topping? And I tried to look this up online before hand but the information is out of date. “Any dressing?” I don’t know. What dressings are there? How much dressing are you going to put on? “Which two toppings?” Is houmous a salad item or a topping? And what did Amy do in Iceland and is it rude to ask that now?

There is so much processing and so much choosing and I’m just so anxious and now I have to eat. And also talk to my colleagues. And potentially somehow enjoy myself. But I can’t sit with my back to the wall because the café isn’t set out like that. And the cutlery feels wrong and it is weighted differently to home. The sun felt nice walking over but it is now bright and awkwardly hot sat in the window. And the salad items are all touching. But everyone else is eating and chatting and they seem fine. And the more I feel like they seem fine, then the greater the contrast because I don’t feel fine and I can’t make this stop. And now I have to manage my feelings about the contrast. I can’t do all of that and do food. I can’t control any of that or take any of that away, except the food. So I don’t eat the food and just hope Amy tells us about her trip because now I’m too tired to try and work out when to ask.

When Boots stopped selling my Tuesday rice bowl, I stopped eating Tuesday lunch. It did not feel like a choice nor a disproportionate reaction. It wasn’t about the food, per se. My Tuesday routine was broken and I did not have it in me to do all the thinking and decision making to form a new plan. Sometimes it seems like it is about the food – and yes, taste, temperature and texture definitely matter - but it is far more about control, choice and predictability, anxiety and consistency, known and uncertain. It was far less about the food and far more about safe and reliable.

The world can be overwhelming. There is so much information and it is so enveloped in so much sensory distraction. Sometimes what looks like inflexibility or restriction or a really narrow lane of options is actually not being able to make a choice, so just removing yourself from choice making. It is hard to make an informed choice without all the information.