11 Dec Woman With Food Phobia Has Panic Attacks At The Sight Of Food Not On Her ‘Safe List’

Food is one of the few basic necessities we need in order to survive. While we all have foods that don’t agree with our particular taste buds, we are usually left with plenty of other options. Options that allow us to maintain a reasonably balanced and healthy diet.

However, believe it or not, some people are so fearful of certain foods that they can even trigger nausea and, in some cases, panic attacks.

Thirty-six-year-old Jill Hayman from Montrose, Scotland, is one such sufferer of food-related panic attacks. Hayman has an intense phobia of the majority of foods – in fact, there are only 17 foods which she can bring herself to eat without going into a total panic mode.

She has little choice but to limit herself to a diet consisting mainly of soda, candy, chocolate, and bread. And that’s because these foods happen to be on her ‘safe list’, meaning that they do not induce any panic attacks or nausea when she consumes them.

While people may scoff at Hayman’s odd diet, it’s actually a lot more serious than it sounds. In fact, it stems from a rare yet serious psychological condition by the name of avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder which makes the sufferer fear certain foods to an exceptional degree.

Even experts are not aware of how many adults suffer from the disorder, as it’s most common in toddlers who grow out of it when they are older.

“My throat will close and then I have panic attacks,” Hayman explains. “I can’t control it. I’ve been physically sick just speaking about food.”

Despite being well into her 30s, Hayman has confessed to never having used cutlery before. With her unconventional predominantly bread-based diet, she simply has no need for it.

“I’ve never been able to sit and have a hot meal or use a knife and fork,” she explains. “To me, toast is dinner.”

While it is not uncommon for infant children to have a complicated relationship with food, it is very rare for a grown woman to be so dead set against the foods that form the staple diet of most adults.

“I’m not a vegetarian because I don’t eat vegetables,” the 36-year-old admitted. “I don’t eat meat either.”

Aside from bread, Hayman tends not to include many carbohydrate-based foods into her diet.

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