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How Ministries Age: The Ministry of Sustenance

In its youth, the Ministry of Sustenance was simple, certain, and unexamined. Chocolate or vanilla. Peanut butter or jelly. Boxed mac and cheese so orange it practically glowed. Early bylaws left little room for dissent.

The bureaucracy was blunt. Lunchboxes were declarations of allegiance. A thermos of tomato soup earned a different stamp than a sleeve of Oreos. Clerks in hairnets issued swift rulings: no dessert before dinner, seconds only if you asked politely. Membership in the Clean Plate Club was mandatory; refusal earned you a mark in the Defiance Log. The Division of Plate Geography enforced strict zoning laws — no foods allowed to touch. The Bureau of Culinary Bravery kept permanent files on any child who gagged at peas.

Memo, Circular 19-A: All peas must be swallowed whole. Gagging constitutes dereliction of duty. Liver complaints must be submitted in triplicate.

Health was not yet in the docket. Food allergies, intolerances, eating disorders — none of these had case files. The youthful charter assumed all appetites were the same, and all rules universal. The motto above the cafeteria doors read: Food Is Fuel. Eat What You’re Given.

Amendments Arrive with Age

Meals began carrying not just taste but memory, tradition, and the rules of bodies that filed new demands.

Some departments stayed fixed. The Chocolate Bureau still rations comfort, issuing glossy bars that melt into fingers and nostalgia. The Division of Casseroles convenes endlessly, ladling cream-of-something into dishes labeled potluck. The Office of Nostalgia maintains archives of discontinued cereals and neon candy powders, their artificial sweetness now more intoxicating for being gone.

What was lost: the innocence of believing sugar could fix anything.

What was gained: a tether to childhood you can still taste.

Other wings evolved. Boxed mac and cheese graduated to four-cheese with béchamel, stamped Adulthood: Version 1.0. Brussels sprouts, once sulfurous punishments, reappeared roasted and charred, reclassified under Legitimate Vegetables. Foods once whispered about as exotic — sushi, hummus, pho — were naturalized by the Bureau of Acquired Tastes. Even bitterness earned a license: coffee, kale, IPAs filed under Complex Pleasures.

What was lost: the ease of eating only what was familiar.

What was gained: curiosity, range, and the revelation that your tongue can learn.

New Bureaus for Older Appetites

Department of Dietary Restrictions: issues gluten-free waivers, vegan visas, low-sodium directives.

Bureau of Trend-Based Eating: stamps paleo passports, keto clearances, intermittent fasting permits — filed under Obsolete Before Next Quarter.

Division of App-Based Deliveries: archives 2,431 login attempts for meals never completed, receipts stapled to regret forms.

Emergency Craving Response Unit: on call 24/7, authorized to deploy nachos or pie within 30 minutes of distress.

Intuitive Eating Relations Office: dissolves the adversarial relationship between body and mind, reminding all citizens that hunger is information, not enemy intelligence.

Office of Comfort Protocols: insists comfort food be consumed without paperwork, emotional interrogation, or mandatory justification forms.

Meanwhile, the Office of Food and Feeling swelled. Comfort, grief, shame, celebration — every appetite logged. In the archives: stacks of abandoned diet books, their promises now yellowed with age, filed under Historical Curiosities. Sometimes one collection says enough.

What was lost: the illusion that food is neutral.

What was gained: the knowledge that every bite carries history, power, and the possibility for healing.

Charter Revision

Aging has changed the Ministry’s charter. It no longer measures allegiance by childhood cravings but by how many meanings each meal can hold: family, culture, health, memory, baggage, joy.

The motto on the lintel now reads: One Table, Many Appetites.

Because the older the Ministry gets, the clearer its lesson becomes: food was never just about taste — it was about what you carried with you, and what you finally learned to set down gently.

Final Stamp, Circular 88-F: Appetite Approved. Portion: Whatever Feels Right Today.

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My diabetes coach said she's impressed by my extensive palette and curiosity to try new things

I explained how I've experienced about 10 years of homelessness. The shelters don't care about people having food allergies and such. So I told her that once I got my own place I could experiment with new food and try the recipes I have saved for the last 20 years. I promised myself I'd never get bored with my cooking. It's one of my joys.

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I'm new here!

Hi, my name is Donnasofia. I'm here because I want to connect with others that have fibromyalgia and food allergies and chemical concerns

#MightyTogether

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It's understood that you have bpd. What else do you deal with , rls, disorder, etc?

I have Tactile Hallucinations, RLS, ADHD, Autistic Traits, Anxiety disorder, OCD, Narcissistic Traits, Bipolar Traits, Food Allergies, IBS, Dyslexia, (Mom had preeclampsia when carrying me at birth) #BPD #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder

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#newhere #Masscellactivationdisorder #FoodAllergies #alergictoeverything

Hello I'm new. My name is Susan. I have many many allergies. Food, medicine, outdoor you name it. What drew me here was a picture of someone that breaks out when they have surgery. I do this sometimes are worse than others. This is the most recent. Is there anything I can do.?

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dog days of air travel #DownSyndrome

I love dogs. Always have.
I hate leaving our dogs when we go on vacation, and this morning is no different as I say goodbye to our sad and sleepy Golden.
Walking through the airport on one of the busiest travel days of the year, I envy people bringing their dogs, ribbons and festive scarves around their harnesses and leashes.
My disabled adult son, however, is totally terrified.
The simplest way to explain his reaction is that when a dog barks, Charlie’s anxiety skyrockets and he physically recoils spiraling quickly into a full blown panic attack.
Will the dog bark?
Will the dog bark again?
Where is it?
Which way is it going?
Am I safe?
It can take Charlie hours to recover emotionally and physically from an attack triggered by a barking dog. And, unfortunately, today we see 6 dogs en route to our gate, only one a service animal. They are all quiet, well-behaved and honestly add to the happy excitement of families gathering for the Christmas holiday.
But then we hear the 7th dog, a shaggy, little pup sticking its head out of a carrier. The AirPod-wearing owner is seemingly oblivious, even as many passengers turn to see what’s happening. My husband and I glance at each other, and then at Charlie who sees the dog but is working hard to maintain calm.
Unfortunately the pup keeps barking non-stop, yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip all the way down the very long echo chamber concourse. There is no escape.
The damage is done, and we frantically search for an airport lounge or quiet zone for Charlie to calm.
But let’s pause here for a moment as I am pretty certain I can hear readers thinking: give him anxiety meds, have him wear headphones, don’t travel with him.
Let me clarify that Charlie has tried all three options and many, many more at different times of his life. What I can share is that medication makes him inconsistently woozy, headphones hurt his ears and head and leaving our son behind on a family vacay is heartbreaking.
Especially because Charlie French loves to travel.
He is an adventurer. He is a 33-year old man who works very hard for primarily three financial rewards: vhs tapes, gifts for the siblings he loves and flying Business Class.
No matter how bad of a trip we have experienced, Charlie eventually wants to try to go out in the world again.
Arriving at our gate we encounter a family with 4 small dogs waiting to board. A 5th pup comes inside from the decking at the end of the concourse where I see an outdoor seating area, and surprisingly, a giant pee pad.
Pretty nice.
I glance at Charlie struggling to find equilibrium staring at all the little dogs and their entourage of humans.
Why isn’t there a space for Charlie? And other individuals with sensory challenges or auditory processing needs? How can public spaces support these humans?
Accessing public areas seems like something everyone in society should be able to achieve fairly easily. Right?
There are children’s areas in airports Lounges have games and spaces for teens. There are notifications about food allergies at restaurants and food courts. There are family restrooms and baby changing rooms. There are smoking areas. There are carts assisting travelers with mobility issues. And, there are pee pads.
I won’t presume to speak for the disability community on how to problem solve this issue (#nothingforuswithoutus), but I can share Charlie’s perspective: I don’t want to hear barking dogs. I want it to be quiet.
Well, we pre-board (hooray for accommodations), take our seats in disappointing First Class (if it isn’t Business, Charlie is always a bit bummed), and wouldn’t you know it: 2 pups and their owners are just behind us.
Not sure how this trip will turn out, but I am proud of my brave son who continues to go out in a challenging society to chase his desires despite the hurdles he faces.
Here’s hoping the air bnb doesn’t have any barking dogs nearby!

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I'm new here!

Hi, my name is Standingtall77. I'm here because I have been diagnosed with Undifferentiated Connective Tissue Disease, Fibomyalgia and a long list of food allergies … I was already living with Asthma, Hypertension, Migraine, Tinnitus and Nasal allergies and now have few more to live with.. I don’t know anyone around me who has or knows about the auto immune disease or fibromyalgia… everything I have to read online … here it will help me understand and deal with my conditions better knowing that I am not alone ..

#MightyTogether #Migraine #Fibromyalgia

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Autism and Borderline Personality Disorder….. the misery experienced by loved ones is immense.

Living with my chronically ill, autistic, BPD, young adult daughter is like living with an abusive spouse ( I would know cause I lived with one for 16 years before divorcing him). I can’t kick her out cause she isn’t totally capable of living on her own and doesn’t have much income and I don’t have any family that she could go live with. She doesn’t drive either so is totally dependent on me to get her to her part time job and frequent doctor appointments. However I am chronically ill too with several difficult conditions and work full time and care for my youngest daughter that is totally disabled from her chronic illnesses and it is just too much to always deal with the continual cycle of ups and downs she goes through due to her mental and developmental diagnoses. She is on medication that is helping some to stabilize her moods and help her severe anxiety, but she still goes into really awful episodes where her thinking is all over the place and she lashes out verbally and accuses me of things that don’t even make sense. She yells and cussed at me, calls me names and says I’m stupid and don’t really love her. She does the same to her sister but on a lesser scale than with me. In those episodes I can’t reason with her and she is determined that I’m causing her problems. When she is clear headed she can be kind and loving, but she always has another episode before long that is horrible for me to deal with. I feel I’m being verbally and emotionally abused just like I was from my ex- husband. I want a peaceful life and I just can’t seem to ever achieve it due to the whole situation. Has anyone else had experience with this kind of thing? I would really appreciate input. #Fibromyalgia #AutismSpectrumDisorder #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #chronicmigraine #ADHD #Anxiety #Depression #ChronicFatigueSyndrome #Dysautonomia #UlcerativeColitis #EoE #OCD #DisorderedEating #InterstitialCystitis #Endometriosis #IBS #FoodAllergies

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Hitting a wall.

How many of you have had to quit school due to chronic health problems?

WARNING ⚠️ the rest of this post is lengthy!!!

I have been working on my bachelors in community health through online courses (one class at a time) for the past seven years. A few months prior to beginning my degree program I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia following a car wreck that required a neck fusion surgery. From there my chronic illness diagnoses have continued to accumulate. I now have chronic migraine, endometriosis, interstitial cystitis, chronic fatigue, degenerative disc disease, tinnitus, IBS, C-PTSD, and a long list of food and environmental allergies. I have 2 sons and 2 daughters. My youngest son (15yr) has serious ADHD. Both of my daughters (21yr & 20yr) have long lists of chronic health conditions. They live with me and probably will for their whole lives due to the impact of the disability that their issues cause. Neither girl can drive either. The oldest has Asperger’s, fibromyalgia, Ehlers Danlos, ADHD, C-PTSD, severe anxiety, depression, Eosinophilic Esophagitis, IBS, mild Ulcerative Colitis, numerous food allergies and possible Borderline Personality Disorder. The youngest has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Dysautonomia, C-PTSD, depression, anxiety, disordered eating, restless legs, Eosinophilic Esophagitis, constant skin picking, and numerous food allergies. All three of us girls and my youngest boy has severe sleeping problems. Me and both my girls have applied for and been turned down for disability. Up until 2022 I had been a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom. At the beginning of 2022 me and my 2 girls and youngest son ( oldest son is in college and pretty much living on his own) loaded up and left my narcissistic abusive husband of 16 yrs. and began to start over in a tiny apartment in a small town with me re-entering the work force and starting a full time job in retail and officially divorcing him at the end of that year. My youngest daughter has since tried to commit suicide twice and my oldest has had several mental breaks that were extremely hard to deal with. Throughout the whole time I have continued with my school classes. Determined to finish what I started. However, my health has continued to decline from all my illnesses and the stress of my life and it is taking a toll on my cognitive abilities. I took a 8 month break from my classes but have started back recently and I’m struggling to keep up with the assignments and not learning as I know I should be. I only have 6 classes left, that will take me the next year to complete due to the schedule I’m following, but my body, mind and finances seem to be making it extremely hard for me to keep going. I’m really considering quitting, but feel like I would be a real failure if I didn’t finish it.
If you read all this……Thank you! 🙂 #ChronicFatigue
#Fibromyalgia
# Migraine
#IBS
#InterstitialCystitis
#ChronicPain
#EhlersDanlos
#c -PTSD
#Autism
#Anxiety
#Depression
##BrainFog

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