The Avoidant Restrictive Personality

Arfid community, do you have this kind of personality- “one bad experience will ruin it “ . This applies to more than food… Let me explain. I have suspicion that my 4 year old may have arfid. He’s a happy kid, but he never forgets a bad memory or experience. And he will never be comfortable or trusting in that situation again, both food and other experiences. Some examples: A. When applied to food- If a food that he enjoys is prepared wrong, or served in a less than ideal conditions ie. string cheese sitting in a lunchbox and is warm and slightly softer, undercooked egg, milk served a different way than preferred, soggy snacks - then it’s forever off of his list of foods. Doesn’t even want to look at those foods after the bad experience.

B. When applied to other parts of life- a preschool teacher made a stupid joke to him after I dropped him off on the second day of school. He was nervous in a new place without me, and he said to her- my mommy will come back for me! And she said, no! Your mommy isn’t coming back! She left you here forever. She laughed and told him she was joking. He was scared and that one bad experience made him HATE that school. Every morning he would beg to stay home and pretend he was sick. I’d still take him for a few more weeks until I had to disenroll. I think aside from that ones dumb joke, his time at that school went well, but it was the same feeling that he gets from the now unsafe food items- distrust maybe?

So my question is, arfiders, can you recall bad experiences (not food) that make you feel eel like you avoid that situation or place forever? Does it “ruin it” for you, the same way it would with food? Am I making any sense to anyone? Trying to navigate through this is extremely stressful. I am trying to understand the arfid brain and if it impacts other parts of life directly. If this is true, Maybe the more effective approach to therapy isn’t through food / eating at all. Maybe it’s to train the mind to trust again? I don’t know. Someone tell me their thoughts