I have coeliac disease.

[afewbugs@social.coop]

I have coeliac disease. I don't talk about it much on here or indeed anywhere, probably because I was diagnosed at 18 which was the age and approximate time period when going gluten free was a trendy diet for young women and everyone assumed I was doing it for attention. I went to university and after a few weeks discovered that no one on my corridor knew my name, they just referred to me as "the girl who doesn't eat bread", and that was apparently the extent of my personality.

[robpumphrey@mastodonapp.uk]

@afewbugs
I am sure this is no consolation, but I found out I was known at university as the man with tight trousers.

[afewbugs@social.coop]

So I kind of started hiding it as much as I could, kind of wanting it to be the last thing people learned about me not the first. But obviously eventually people close to me did find out. And my actual friends were lovely and started baking things specially for me. But this weird waffling thread that should probably be shared with my counselor rather than with Mastodon was brought on by someone asking for gluten free cake recipes for their kid's friend, who had asked what flavour they wanted and said carrot cake. And no one ever asked me what flavour I wanted, they just baked me chocolate cake.

I hate chocolate cake.

[afewbugs@social.coop]

I hate chocolate flavour in most things (I will sometimes actually eat a bit of chocolate, but when I fancy it on its own as a specific flavour in small amounts, I find it really sickly in most other sweet things).

And I could never actually bring myself to say I didn't like chocolate cake, probably because as an autistic child who got a lot of presents I didn't want as a kid every Christmas and birthday then got told of for doing an insufficient job of faking enthusiasm I had it thoroughly drilled into me that being insufficiently grateful for something someone had gone out of their way to do for you was incredibly rude and harmful to them.

[afewbugs@social.coop]

Anyway I ate a lot of chocolate cake (I also flushed quite a few slices my housemate made down the toilet). And that obviously didn't really serve anyone, my friends put a lot of effort into making something that just made me miserable.

I wish I could say I got better at overcoming this early conditioning, but instead I went vegan. I was also really uncomfortable talking about that at first, feeling it was another thing people would assume I was doing as a special diet for attention, but I think I've managed to convince myself that people with disabilities and conditions are just as entitled to make ethical choices as anyone even if it is more complicated. But a convenient side effect is no one really tries to bake for me anymore, so no more chocolate cake

[seabass@social.seabass.systems]

@afewbugs There's nothing self-indulgent about that; it sounds like you spent many years indulging other peoples' fantasies about what you should and shouldn't like. And, sorry to say, that experience is also familiar to me, too.

I hope you treat yourself to non-chocolate confectionary nowadays :)

[afewbugs@social.coop]

But yeah, not sure where I was going with this and it's probably more something to unpack in therapy than share on the internet honestly, but thank you to the people who ask what people want before cooking for them. And we should probably all be doing that a bit more, and I should probably do more work on feeling I can express what I want without feeling I'm hurting people by doing so. Also it's okay not to like something everyone else loves, whether that's chocolate cake or birthday presents

[normjess@tech.lgbt]

@afewbugs 🫂 any time you do need any chocolate cake eaten, I'm here for it... er, you... here for you

I prefer coffee cake, but I fear that speaks to other addictions of mine 😇

[artemis201@mstdn.social]

@afewbugs *hug*

[oblomov@sociale.network]

@afewbugs ouch. It's one of those situations where any move is going to cause a little bit of pain. There would probably have been a diplomatic way to “guide” future cake baking towards more appreciated flavor, but it's very hard to come forward and say what one prefers unless they are being asked, especially if what's being given is a gift.