(dramatic music)
I haven't had a meal in almost four years.
I suffer from ARFID Anorexia:
Avoidant restrictive food intake disorder.
It's basically fear of food.
My wife, Vanessa, has become obsessed
with her ARFID diagnosis.
Mm, I'll try some of this.
I think this one has cinnamon in it, though.
She truly believes she's allergic
to almost any food.
Yes, it does.
And will choke and die.
Damn it, more waste. (clattering)
I'm surviving on protein shakes,
ice cream, water, safe foods.
I eat a lot of candy. I eat a lot of junk food.
These are great; I love these. (snapping)
Chewy. No choking hazard.
Vanessa says she's allergic
to almost anything you can imagine.
This whole plate is a no.
I carry three EpiPens everywhere I go.
But my wife doesn't have any allergies.
She's been to numerous allergy doctors who've
tested her, and she's allergic to almost nothing.
I've seen about six doctors,
but I don't believe them.
At one point, she got so bad
that she felt as though an ice cube
could send her into anaphylactic shock.
This all started in 2009, when I got a Hepatitis B shot.
I immediately started feeling sick.
I had constant panic attacks.
I couldn't leave the house.
I even have a fear of grocery stores.
Walking into a grocery store
just really does make me want to cry.
I look in the mirror, right now,
I just see a skinny skeletony...
I think I look like an alien, a little bit.
I used to have these really beautiful,
thick arms, and thick thighs.
At my lowest, worst weight, I weighed 72 pounds.
You don't like it. Never mind.
Just say you don't like it.
The disorder really has caused my marriage to suffer.
She only comes to the bedroom
when it's time to be intimate.
I refuse to be intimate with my husband
with the lights on.
Otherwise, it's a no-go.
I sleep alone, I eat alone,
I go to the grocery store alone.
I feel as though I'm alone in this marriage.
Michael doesn't understand the disease
and he doesn't understand that I feel
like a prisoner in my own body.
I feel like I'm knocking on death's door.
I'm glad you guys are here
and I'm glad to talk to you.
How are you feeling, right now?
Anxiety ridden. Uh huh.
Tell me what's going on inside your body
and what your internal dialogue is, right now.
You eat, right? Three different meals a day?
At least. I don't. I eat--
Yeah, I'm a food giant, (laughter)
so it's something I do all the time.
And you used to enjoy food, right?
Love it, love it. You used to go out--
I don't know where this came from.
Yeah, you used to go out-- I don't know what happened.
And eat and drink and have fun and--
Oh, I used to drink, oh yeah.
Yeah. (laughter)
And you had a good time
and enjoyed it. Oh yeah.
You want you wife back, right?
Yes. What you had before?
Right. Okay.
Right now, you're living on certain things that you call
safe foods, right? Correct.
And they're not healthy foods, actually, you eat--
Some of them are. Well, you eat Laffy Taffy,
and ice cream and protein shakes.
Those are-- Yeah, muscle milk,
I assume those are healthy. Strawberries, some safe,
most junk food, really. Yeah.
Chips-- M&Ms, soda, squash,
broccoli, strawberries, cheese.
Why are these foods safe?
Those are foods that I know
that I'm not going to choke on
and I know that I'm not going
to have an anaphylactic shock to.
How do you know?
Well, you've tried-- Because I keep eating them
them, obviously. and nothing's happened.
Okay. I'm not dead.
But there are other foods that you could eat
and you wouldn't have that reaction,
but you have it. But in my mind.
Right. When that plate of food is
in front of me, the fear is so real.
I can't eat it.
And can you tell by the texture in your mouth?
It doesn't even make it to my mouth.
Okay. I just look at it and--
So, you don't know this freak out.
empirically, you just decided.
It isn't that you've tested it.
Oh, I've had six allergy, seven allergy tests.
So many that Blue Cross, Blue Shield
won't pay for them anymore.
And they're all negative. And they all come negative.
But in my mind, that peanut is,
it's gonna close my throat and I'm going to die.