I am autistic and I have some sensory issues around food, especially texture and temperature. And that’s when I even remember to eat.

So for cold drinks, especially water, they have to be cold. Straight out of the fridge, and preferably with ice in it.
Hot drinks have to start at a temperature that resembles lava, before cooling down to a drinkable temperature. They can’t be re-heated if they get too cold because that’s kind of weird.
Food also has to be really hot, and cool down.
I don’t like any food that tastes slimy. I also don’t like my hands being slimy or sticky.

Tonight, my betrothed cooked us steak. She knew that I liked it well done, because of my sensory issues. I find it wet and slimy and it makes me feel sick. It’s the whole issue where the taste and feel don’t match and it makes me feel really uncomfortable. But it ended up being a thicker steak than normal and took longer to cook, and I got more and more distressed when we kept cutting into it and it still wasn’t right and I ended up having a bit of a meltdown because I was stressed.

It… was not a whole lot of fun, if I’m being completely honest.

The steak however, once we got it to the right text, was absolutely fucking delicious. It was melty in the mouth and amazingly charred outside. She’d mixed up butter, olive oil, salt and pepper and marinated the steaks before cooking (which also made a LOT of smoke, which also stressed me out *sigh*)
It was perfectly cooked all the way through and the texture matched the taste

The best thing though was how patient Li was with me. She kept calm, repeated she understood, that I wasn’t being a problem, that it was ok and that she wanted to make it just right for me. And she did ♥

Tags: autism, sensory issues, steak