Drama Ensues After Groom Says ‘No’ To Accommodating Brother’s Extreme Eating Disorder At His Wedding
Eating disorders may not be something you often think of as common, but according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (or ANAD), they affect at least 9% of the population worldwide. They are also extremely dangerous, as they are one of the deadliest mental illnesses, second only to opioid overdose. But eating disorders and the people who have them come in all shapes and sizes. No group of people is immune to developing them, and they should always be taken seriously, regardless of a person’s age, weight or gender.
One soon-to-be groom recently shared on Reddit that he made the decision not to invite his brother to his wedding because he was concerned that his eating disorder, pica, would cause a disturbance. Below, you’ll find the full story explaining why this groom doesn’t want his brother attending, the drama it has caused with his parents and some of the comments that concerned readers have left on his post. Keep reading to also find an interview with Anthony Freire, MA, LMHC, NCC, CCMHC, Clinical Director and Board Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor of The Soho Center for Mental Health Counseling.
We would love to hear your thoughts on this situation in the comments as well, and then if you’re interested in reading another Bored Panda article highlighting how eating disorders can affect anyone and everyone, look no further than right here.
This groom has decided not to invite his brother to his wedding because his eating disorder may cause a disturbance
Image credits: Timur Weber (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Almada Studio (not the actual photo)
Image credits: L’amourART (not the actual photo)
Image credits: thowawaynoawaythrow2
As the groom explained in his post, pica is an eating disorder “that involves eating items that are not typically thought of as food and that do not contain significant nutritional value, such as hair, dirt, and paint chips”. But this particular eating disorder is not very commonly talked about, so we wanted to reach out to an expert on the topic to gain insight into the individuals struggling with pica. We reached out to Anthony Freire, MA, LMHC, NCC, CCMHC, Clinical Director, Board Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor and founder of The Soho Center for Mental Health Counseling in New York.
When it comes to how common pica is, Anthony told Bored Panda that it is extremely rare for people to develop it as adults. “It’s hard to estimate its prevalence since many children put things in their mouths and eat them without us even being aware because they’re unsupervised many times,” he added. “If the child is old enough, they may understand it’s not ‘normal’ and hide their desire to eat inedible objects from their families. But it’s estimated that 10% to as high as 30% of children suffer from pica. Adult onset pica is even more rare. It is, however, associated with developmental delays. And there is increasingly available data that suggests it is a form of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).”
Anthony also explained that it would not necessarily be dangerous for this brother to attend the wedding, with all of the possible decorations he might eat, but it’s never healthy to be consuming inedible objects. “And any object eaten that is not edible can be dangerous to your digestive tract,” he told Bored Panda. But if you or a loved one are struggling with pica, don’t hesitate to seek help. Anthony explained that treatment with a psychotherapist, preferably one that deals with OCD and developmental issues, or with a pica specialist would be extremely helpful. “Constant supervision during an event, or wedding, would limit the possibility of anything being ingested. But that’s obviously a temporary fix for something like attending a wedding,” he added.
“While it can be extremely frustrating and anxiety producing for loved ones to have to deal with someone who has pica, my advice to be to dig deep and tap into their compassion,” Anthony says. “If given the choice, people would not choose to have pica. It is extremely stressful to them as well. Also, getting into their own therapy to deal with their emotions would also be helpful, not only for themselves but their loved one who has pica.”
Anthony also noted that in this particular situation on Reddit, the groom might be upset about more than just the pica. “Pica may just be a good reason for him to use not to invite his brother to the wedding or make his parents feel some sort of way. Plenty of people with pica have attended weddings. I would say rather than not invite his brother to the wedding, he should spend some time in family therapy trying to resolve some of these issues. If his parents want their other son to be at the wedding, rather than suggest changes to the wedding décor, they could offer to provide round the clock supervision during the wedding so that he doesn’t eat the bride’s bouquet!”
At the end of the day, this groom and his bride deserve to have the wedding of their dreams and be free of any worries that someone may be eating the decorations or the soil in the plant pots. Weddings are joyous occasions, and it is unfortunate that the entire family cannot be there to celebrate. Hopefully, the brother will agree to seek treatment, or the entire family will agree to begin therapy, and they can all attend the next family event without any issues.
Let us know what you think about this situation in the comments below. Do you have any experience with pica yourself or helping a loved one handle it? Feel free to share your thoughts with your fellow pandas, and then if you’re interested in reading another Bored Panda article about eating disorder awareness, you can find that right here. And if you would like to learn more about Anthony Freire or The Soho Center for Mental Health Counseling, be sure to visit their website right here.
Many readers expressed their sympathy for the groom, with some even sharing their personal experiences with pica
I have pica: it's a serious compulsion. BUT GUESS WHAT? I SEE A F*****G DOCTOR FOR IT. Tell your brother to grow up and get an evaluation. Your wedding, your choice. I chew gum when going to formal events. He can too.
I know this isn't a funny situation and a serious topic but I laughed out loud when I read the title of this post.
Hmmm i don’t understand why the parents are working so hard to have one son change his whole wedding instead of putting that effort into encouraging the other son to get serious help for a dangerous eating disorder. Also I know this sounds very silly but maybe the man can bring his own rocks or chalk or something in the meantime and use the restroom if he needs to to consume them. But seriously he needs to get help, I don’t know much about pica but I know theres treatment for it.
How about a compromise: You will not make major changes to the wedding. However, you will allow Brother to attend IF, a) he brings a doctors note saying that he has seen a doctor, and is fully cooperating with treatment, and b) your parents agree to monitor him throughout, and remove him if becomes disruptive or tries to eat anything inappropriate. Delegate two groomsmen/ushers to assist in case of disruption.
Very unfair to the groomsmen. Make parents hire 2 people, guys incase he gets testy about it, to hang with him. Perhaps if he has a couple guys keeping him mentally engaged, on the parents dime of course, he'll behave & maybe even have a nice time himself. Mom & dad aren't paying for the wedding, they can pay for that. Just a thought.
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The fact that brother's pica presents so.... aggressively, is suspicious. Pica sufferers do feel the urge to eat non-food items, but *can* restrain themselves with outside support. He's not hiding his condition - the family knows. Why can't his parents just keep an eye on him and call his attention to his actions, so he can restrain himself? (Many people with pica hardly know they're doing it, in the moment.) Why are they *indulging* his pica? It's dangerous and stupid. So is his refusal to see a doctor after ending up in the hospital for eating a tablecloth. This sounds to me less like true pica and more like a bid for attention by adopting pica behavior. Which is also a disorder - a psychological one. And it seems he's convinced his parents it's something to be tolerated instead of alarmed by.
NTA! Honestly it'd be one thing if the brother was going to the doctor to try and get treatment, but that fact that he won't and just refuses makes him the AH. And the parents are the same for enabling the brother. They need to push him to get help with his pica before it can get dangerous!
By-pass your parents. Have a heart-to-heart talk with you brother, and explain the problem. Appeal to his sense of fairness, if his condition allows him to still have one. And your theme should be "If you feel you don't have to deal with the consequences of your condition, then of course neither do we."
This is the most compassionate response I've seen. It's easy to judge the situation from the outside but very different when you're in it yourself and actually love the person involved. I'm sure OP truly wants his brother at his wedding, this is his brother!! It's a sad situation but I agree that taking the parents out as the third party and appealing to the brother's sense of fairness is likely the best route.
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If the brother refuses to get help, then he shouldn't be surprised that everyone around him is refusing to accommodate his condition. It sounds like to me that he just wants to be disruptive and use pica as an excuse. If he can't sit through his brother's wedding without wanting to eat the flowers, he doesn't need to be there.
How would he even gets his hands on the veil? Surely he wouldn't chase her down the aisle? I feel for you, this is such a weird problem. Hope you have a beautiful wedding with or without him.
It's just an example. Obviously, he only ate Nana's lace tablecloth because no one was paying attention to him & his behavior. He was bored & needed something to nibble on. Mom & dad's denial is as much a problem as his disorder. Treat both. Could you make your "edit" window any smaller?
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This is very odd. The brother needs a whole bunch of accommodations but has not had professional help. OP should tell his brother that he will make some accommodations (like no flowers on the table the brother sits at) provided he gets professional help.
It sounds like not being able to attend the wedding is the least of this man's problems. He's going to kill himself one day without treatment. Anyway, NTA. It's similar to not inviting an active alcoholic to a wedding because you know full well they won't be sober and will create chaos. No one has to accommodate a treatable illness when they refuse to get help.
Sorry, but the brother had to have surgery to remove the blockage from nana's lace tablecloth and still won't get treatment for the pica?!?
I'm surprised that he wasn't evaluated and diagnosed while in hospital; actually, that's probably what did occur. *sigh*
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Does anyone know how exactly Pica works? I mean, I understand the part that people with this illness will try to eat things that aren't made for that purpose. But why are they not able to restrain themselves from eating other people's things? I mean, I don't feel forced to eat every food I see either.
I've heard of it in conjunction with pregnancy. People describe it as a compulsion. It is something they **must** do. With pregnancy, it is almost always due to the person being short of certain minerals, and their body is forcing them to acquire them for the sake of the baby.
Load More Replies... OP is being completely reasonable. He accepts that his brother has a dangerous condition that he is refusing treatment for, and is therefore not inviting him to the wedding. The parents are in denial about their son's condition. Being excluded from events is a natural consequence of his decision to not get treatment. If he doesn't like it, he knows what he needs to do.
If he truly cannot control himself and has to eat what he sees, then keep him away. As a poster said, tell him to bring a box of chalk and eat it in the background to keep him away from others. If he won't do that, then he has to stay away. And I cannot believe that your parents are agreeing to this behaviour! You may have to uninvite them from the wedding as well. That would be tough, but it may be necessary for the sake of your bride.
Is anyone else getting vibes of weaponized incompetence from the brother and the parents? All of them are aware of the brother's pica to such an extent that they can name all his preferred non-food items yet the brother adamantly refuses any professional help while also demanding that others make absurd accommodations for him anyway? That's not how anything works. Let's frame this in a different way. Say the brother is diabetic and could keep his condition partially controlled by his diet. Yet he refuses to restrict his sugar intake and then demands that OP eliminate all sugar content from his wedding so as to not be tempted for six hours of his life. LUDICROUS. And weaponized incompetence at its worst. Bring a small piece of sheetrock to the wedding and munch on it discreetly.
I don’t know what is wrong with me today but I read the headline as ‘…extreme farting disorder’.
I'm not sure which one is more absurd for the parents to be begging OP to be putting up with. "Oh Darling, your brother is just being harmless! He's jot hurting anyone! Your new bride will never wear that veil again any way!" " Well Mom! How could she with bite marks in it!" Vs "Well Mom! How could she with wet fart goo all over it?" Yeaahh.. pretty interchangeable outrage going on there. Tough choice ob which would be worse
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The brother knowing he has this problem should be volunteering not to attend so he won't ruin the wedding. Of course if he won't see a doctor because of this disorder, even after it has resulted in him needing surgery, then he probably leans towards being an entitled a-hole.
I wouldn't invite him either. This is a little beyond "my sister is vegan". Pica is a serious mental disorder and if he chooses to not seek treatment for it then he has to face the consequences. And no to all you people suggesting he bring his own "edibles". Are you f*cking serious? I would be completely humiliated if all people remembered about my wedding was some grown a$$ man eating paper (or dirt or the flowers or - God forbid, the brides veil!)
So does he also have no impulse control? I love sunchips but I don't just start cramming them in my mouth if I lay eyes on some. I don't know where people get the idea that you MUST tolerate insufferable behavior as long as it's also weird.
The folks aren't doing your brother *any* favors by enabling him. If your parents decide to *really* be douches, you can ask your mom when she screwed a Billy Goat*, because that will be what people think when he starts tucking into the centerpieces. Do not accommodate him at all~~it's time that 'kid' learned to control himself. Stay strong and have a beautiful wedding!😊 *My apologies to those with PICA whom DO seek treatment for this embarrassing issue. I suggest this cruelty only to get the family to freaking WAKE UP and stop letting the brother control the family.
My first thought when I saw the article title was “What the helll happened to empathy?” But after reading everything I totally get it. Pregnant women sometimes develop pica during pregnancy and it always comes down to their body is “needing” something. Treating this deficiency with medication or vitamins usually takes care of the problem. Brother needs to put on his big girl panties and see a doctor. Mommy and Daddy can hold his hand. You are not the a*****e
If my brother threatened to eat my brides veil He would finally get the medical help he needs, as I would be sending him straight to the hospital after that confrontation, and we'll see how much lace he can eat through a feeding tube.
Pica is directly tied low iron levels. All he has to do is get his iron levels up. This may not be easy and may need one treatment or another, but that's all it is.
SOME pica is tied to iron levels, but not all of it, as was covered in the article.
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I have mild pica, most of the time i dont even realize im doing it. I sometimes eat eraser, ice almost all the time, plastic, and paper, but even though mine is mild and his is severe, i still say that he should bring a pack of gum or even a small piece of his choice substance (i bring a waterbottle of ice cubes). I was in a f*****g wedding party!!! you can go to weddings with pica!!!! I literally just had my peronal waterbottle w/ice cubes to control the compulsion. i chew gum at my school and have a doctor's note. pica is hard to live with, but it is kind of susicious that he cant even control himself at all. it is hard to do so sometimes especially around your trigger item, but the fact that his is supposedly so severe that he would get up and munch on his sister in laws veil is kind of suspicious. severe pica can still sometimes be controlled.
I don't think his brother would reach into a vase and eat the flowers, dig into a flower pot and grab soil from it or snatch the bride's veil off her head and eat the lace. There's no way an adult would act like an animal, grabbing these things from there. This isn't just pica, it's either a mental illness or an extreme bid for attention.
Can he not control himself. I love cake but I don't just attack every cake I see.
He needs to take iron. Pica is a very common indication of anemia. OTC iron will most likely fix his issue as it causes many other health problems. Someone with pica is eating "non food" items and aren't getting the proper nutrients from actual food. I know. I've been anemic for years. Thankfully, I chew ice so as soon as I start craving ice, I add my iron pills back in.
I don't have pica, but I do go through times when all I want to ...or just think to eat is the powder cake mix. It is a texture thing that comforts too. Maybe the brother has a thing about texture and coping mechanism? Hope he finds a way to get that under control.
Makes it sound like people with pica are constantly eating...something.
Could he (or your parents, or you, if he's not capable) not just prepare some flowers and lace especially for him to eat so he can leave your displays alone?
I don't think having the distraction of a grown man eating flowers and lace during a wedding will be any more helpful. A wedding is usually one very special day for the bride and groom. They should be able to enjoy it without embarrassment and awkward wedding photos. How do you explain that to all your guests?
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Oooh, wow Richard. What an insightful comment. Please tell us more about what you don't care about. But have an up-vote because I don't actually want you banned.
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As a person with ADHD, autism and Scheuermann’s disease, I will not let people use disability as an excuse to behave like absolute, utter asśholes in a way not covered by said disability in any way, shape or form. Pica doesn’t include incapacity to seek help from professionals or any unstoppable urges to specifically eat the brides veil at a wedding. That is not what pica is. And not being invited to a wedding that you make forcefully clear you intend to destroy to the maximum of your capacity is not what “being shunned” is. That’s called “consequences of your own decisions”.
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I have pica: it's a serious compulsion. BUT GUESS WHAT? I SEE A F*****G DOCTOR FOR IT. Tell your brother to grow up and get an evaluation. Your wedding, your choice. I chew gum when going to formal events. He can too.
I know this isn't a funny situation and a serious topic but I laughed out loud when I read the title of this post.
Hmmm i don’t understand why the parents are working so hard to have one son change his whole wedding instead of putting that effort into encouraging the other son to get serious help for a dangerous eating disorder. Also I know this sounds very silly but maybe the man can bring his own rocks or chalk or something in the meantime and use the restroom if he needs to to consume them. But seriously he needs to get help, I don’t know much about pica but I know theres treatment for it.
How about a compromise: You will not make major changes to the wedding. However, you will allow Brother to attend IF, a) he brings a doctors note saying that he has seen a doctor, and is fully cooperating with treatment, and b) your parents agree to monitor him throughout, and remove him if becomes disruptive or tries to eat anything inappropriate. Delegate two groomsmen/ushers to assist in case of disruption.
Very unfair to the groomsmen. Make parents hire 2 people, guys incase he gets testy about it, to hang with him. Perhaps if he has a couple guys keeping him mentally engaged, on the parents dime of course, he'll behave & maybe even have a nice time himself. Mom & dad aren't paying for the wedding, they can pay for that. Just a thought.
Load More Replies... The fact that brother's pica presents so.... aggressively, is suspicious. Pica sufferers do feel the urge to eat non-food items, but *can* restrain themselves with outside support. He's not hiding his condition - the family knows. Why can't his parents just keep an eye on him and call his attention to his actions, so he can restrain himself? (Many people with pica hardly know they're doing it, in the moment.) Why are they *indulging* his pica? It's dangerous and stupid. So is his refusal to see a doctor after ending up in the hospital for eating a tablecloth. This sounds to me less like true pica and more like a bid for attention by adopting pica behavior. Which is also a disorder - a psychological one. And it seems he's convinced his parents it's something to be tolerated instead of alarmed by.
NTA! Honestly it'd be one thing if the brother was going to the doctor to try and get treatment, but that fact that he won't and just refuses makes him the AH. And the parents are the same for enabling the brother. They need to push him to get help with his pica before it can get dangerous!
By-pass your parents. Have a heart-to-heart talk with you brother, and explain the problem. Appeal to his sense of fairness, if his condition allows him to still have one. And your theme should be "If you feel you don't have to deal with the consequences of your condition, then of course neither do we."
This is the most compassionate response I've seen. It's easy to judge the situation from the outside but very different when you're in it yourself and actually love the person involved. I'm sure OP truly wants his brother at his wedding, this is his brother!! It's a sad situation but I agree that taking the parents out as the third party and appealing to the brother's sense of fairness is likely the best route.
Load More Replies... If the brother refuses to get help, then he shouldn't be surprised that everyone around him is refusing to accommodate his condition. It sounds like to me that he just wants to be disruptive and use pica as an excuse. If he can't sit through his brother's wedding without wanting to eat the flowers, he doesn't need to be there.
How would he even gets his hands on the veil? Surely he wouldn't chase her down the aisle? I feel for you, this is such a weird problem. Hope you have a beautiful wedding with or without him.
It's just an example. Obviously, he only ate Nana's lace tablecloth because no one was paying attention to him & his behavior. He was bored & needed something to nibble on. Mom & dad's denial is as much a problem as his disorder. Treat both. Could you make your "edit" window any smaller?
Load More Replies... This is very odd. The brother needs a whole bunch of accommodations but has not had professional help. OP should tell his brother that he will make some accommodations (like no flowers on the table the brother sits at) provided he gets professional help.
It sounds like not being able to attend the wedding is the least of this man's problems. He's going to kill himself one day without treatment. Anyway, NTA. It's similar to not inviting an active alcoholic to a wedding because you know full well they won't be sober and will create chaos. No one has to accommodate a treatable illness when they refuse to get help.
Sorry, but the brother had to have surgery to remove the blockage from nana's lace tablecloth and still won't get treatment for the pica?!?
I'm surprised that he wasn't evaluated and diagnosed while in hospital; actually, that's probably what did occur. *sigh*
Load More Replies... Does anyone know how exactly Pica works? I mean, I understand the part that people with this illness will try to eat things that aren't made for that purpose. But why are they not able to restrain themselves from eating other people's things? I mean, I don't feel forced to eat every food I see either.
I've heard of it in conjunction with pregnancy. People describe it as a compulsion. It is something they **must** do. With pregnancy, it is almost always due to the person being short of certain minerals, and their body is forcing them to acquire them for the sake of the baby.
Load More Replies... OP is being completely reasonable. He accepts that his brother has a dangerous condition that he is refusing treatment for, and is therefore not inviting him to the wedding. The parents are in denial about their son's condition. Being excluded from events is a natural consequence of his decision to not get treatment. If he doesn't like it, he knows what he needs to do.
If he truly cannot control himself and has to eat what he sees, then keep him away. As a poster said, tell him to bring a box of chalk and eat it in the background to keep him away from others. If he won't do that, then he has to stay away. And I cannot believe that your parents are agreeing to this behaviour! You may have to uninvite them from the wedding as well. That would be tough, but it may be necessary for the sake of your bride.
Is anyone else getting vibes of weaponized incompetence from the brother and the parents? All of them are aware of the brother's pica to such an extent that they can name all his preferred non-food items yet the brother adamantly refuses any professional help while also demanding that others make absurd accommodations for him anyway? That's not how anything works. Let's frame this in a different way. Say the brother is diabetic and could keep his condition partially controlled by his diet. Yet he refuses to restrict his sugar intake and then demands that OP eliminate all sugar content from his wedding so as to not be tempted for six hours of his life. LUDICROUS. And weaponized incompetence at its worst. Bring a small piece of sheetrock to the wedding and munch on it discreetly.
I don’t know what is wrong with me today but I read the headline as ‘…extreme farting disorder’.
I'm not sure which one is more absurd for the parents to be begging OP to be putting up with. "Oh Darling, your brother is just being harmless! He's jot hurting anyone! Your new bride will never wear that veil again any way!" " Well Mom! How could she with bite marks in it!" Vs "Well Mom! How could she with wet fart goo all over it?" Yeaahh.. pretty interchangeable outrage going on there. Tough choice ob which would be worse
Load More Replies... The brother knowing he has this problem should be volunteering not to attend so he won't ruin the wedding. Of course if he won't see a doctor because of this disorder, even after it has resulted in him needing surgery, then he probably leans towards being an entitled a-hole.
I wouldn't invite him either. This is a little beyond "my sister is vegan". Pica is a serious mental disorder and if he chooses to not seek treatment for it then he has to face the consequences. And no to all you people suggesting he bring his own "edibles". Are you f*cking serious? I would be completely humiliated if all people remembered about my wedding was some grown a$$ man eating paper (or dirt or the flowers or - God forbid, the brides veil!)
So does he also have no impulse control? I love sunchips but I don't just start cramming them in my mouth if I lay eyes on some. I don't know where people get the idea that you MUST tolerate insufferable behavior as long as it's also weird.
The folks aren't doing your brother *any* favors by enabling him. If your parents decide to *really* be douches, you can ask your mom when she screwed a Billy Goat*, because that will be what people think when he starts tucking into the centerpieces. Do not accommodate him at all~~it's time that 'kid' learned to control himself. Stay strong and have a beautiful wedding!😊 *My apologies to those with PICA whom DO seek treatment for this embarrassing issue. I suggest this cruelty only to get the family to freaking WAKE UP and stop letting the brother control the family.
My first thought when I saw the article title was “What the helll happened to empathy?” But after reading everything I totally get it. Pregnant women sometimes develop pica during pregnancy and it always comes down to their body is “needing” something. Treating this deficiency with medication or vitamins usually takes care of the problem. Brother needs to put on his big girl panties and see a doctor. Mommy and Daddy can hold his hand. You are not the a*****e
If my brother threatened to eat my brides veil He would finally get the medical help he needs, as I would be sending him straight to the hospital after that confrontation, and we'll see how much lace he can eat through a feeding tube.
Pica is directly tied low iron levels. All he has to do is get his iron levels up. This may not be easy and may need one treatment or another, but that's all it is.
SOME pica is tied to iron levels, but not all of it, as was covered in the article.
Load More Replies... I have mild pica, most of the time i dont even realize im doing it. I sometimes eat eraser, ice almost all the time, plastic, and paper, but even though mine is mild and his is severe, i still say that he should bring a pack of gum or even a small piece of his choice substance (i bring a waterbottle of ice cubes). I was in a f*****g wedding party!!! you can go to weddings with pica!!!! I literally just had my peronal waterbottle w/ice cubes to control the compulsion. i chew gum at my school and have a doctor's note. pica is hard to live with, but it is kind of susicious that he cant even control himself at all. it is hard to do so sometimes especially around your trigger item, but the fact that his is supposedly so severe that he would get up and munch on his sister in laws veil is kind of suspicious. severe pica can still sometimes be controlled.
I don't think his brother would reach into a vase and eat the flowers, dig into a flower pot and grab soil from it or snatch the bride's veil off her head and eat the lace. There's no way an adult would act like an animal, grabbing these things from there. This isn't just pica, it's either a mental illness or an extreme bid for attention.
Can he not control himself. I love cake but I don't just attack every cake I see.
He needs to take iron. Pica is a very common indication of anemia. OTC iron will most likely fix his issue as it causes many other health problems. Someone with pica is eating "non food" items and aren't getting the proper nutrients from actual food. I know. I've been anemic for years. Thankfully, I chew ice so as soon as I start craving ice, I add my iron pills back in.
I don't have pica, but I do go through times when all I want to ...or just think to eat is the powder cake mix. It is a texture thing that comforts too. Maybe the brother has a thing about texture and coping mechanism? Hope he finds a way to get that under control.
Makes it sound like people with pica are constantly eating...something.
Could he (or your parents, or you, if he's not capable) not just prepare some flowers and lace especially for him to eat so he can leave your displays alone?
I don't think having the distraction of a grown man eating flowers and lace during a wedding will be any more helpful. A wedding is usually one very special day for the bride and groom. They should be able to enjoy it without embarrassment and awkward wedding photos. How do you explain that to all your guests?
Load More Replies... Oooh, wow Richard. What an insightful comment. Please tell us more about what you don't care about. But have an up-vote because I don't actually want you banned.
Load More Replies... As a person with ADHD, autism and Scheuermann’s disease, I will not let people use disability as an excuse to behave like absolute, utter asśholes in a way not covered by said disability in any way, shape or form. Pica doesn’t include incapacity to seek help from professionals or any unstoppable urges to specifically eat the brides veil at a wedding. That is not what pica is. And not being invited to a wedding that you make forcefully clear you intend to destroy to the maximum of your capacity is not what “being shunned” is. That’s called “consequences of your own decisions”.
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