YES-YES-YES. This is exactly our experience. EVERY social activity involves food. I hate that this is one of the first things that people learn about us IRL. But this is because of how ubiquitous food is with cultural and social experience. Food, at least to a lot of people = social currency/experience. If you can't participate in the food aspects of an activity, you are second class and "weird" or even worse, "rude." Period. If you can't participate at all because of barriers which are about safety, then you're the bad guys for "changing it all" for "just one person." It is truly amazing how ANGRY people get when you ask them if it might be possible to just, you know, not have cookies until the END of {activity}.
It's really crazy-making. My DD also seems "excessively anxious" to some people... but frankly, I think that those people just don't get it sufficiently well. The courage that she has and the grace with which she manages the load are frankly humbling to my DH and I.
OMG - I so hear you! My son has fatal allergies to lentils and peanuts and it looks to some fruits too - he reacts to peaches and nectarines - he used to just react to those fruits with just a stomach ache but the reaction has increased to swelling face and lips, which means the swelling throat is not far behind. People are sooooooo mean about the food allergy. People literally get violent over their right to have peanut butter regardless of the fact that it could kill my child within 15 minutes flat. My son is so anxious around peanut butter (due to literally coming to death's door within 15 minutes of exposure) that he can not eat or swallow when it is around him. The rude things people have said and done to me and him about it are unbelievable everything rom blaming me ("did you keep him in a bubble? "It's because you keep him in a bubble, he is so allergic"... I swear more than one person has actually said that to me meanwhile I ate peanut butter the entire time I was pregnant and for two of the three years that I breastfed him) to taunting him and acting like he's crazy for avoiding being near it.
Then he had a reaction to some cross contamination of fruit at school (swelling lips and hives) and the nurse had misplaced his medicine and epi-pen....He never feels safe. One of his anxiety symptoms is an inability to swallow (like at all) .... geee I wonder why???!!!
It is indeed a nightmare.
