Growing up with a severe nut allergy was never easy. As I’ve grown older, I’ve gained a deeper understanding of why precautions surrounding allergies were put in place. But how do you explain to a five-year-old that they can’t go to their friend’s birthday party because of a food allergy? How do you make an allergy kid feel okay about having to label their lunch box and all of their containers “NUT FREE” in all caps?
Food allergies are such a normalized thing in our society. In my experience, people don’t see them as a major issue or a life-changing diagnosis, when in reality, they can be. 18% of children in the United States suffer from some form of allergy. Food allergies are common, but barely any changes have been made to keep kids safe.
Various things were done to protect me from foods I’m allergic to, such as sitting at a table all alone during lunchtime while my friends sit together and chow down on Uncrustables for lunch, or being forced to eat my snack in the time-out corner at four years old in daycare. But was my emotional wellbeing ever considered? I hope so, but it doesn’t feel that way.
Isolated and confused, I wondered what I could have done to deserve feeling abandoned. What did I do to live a life in fear of something my classmates ate for lunch?
As I grew up with this life-threatening nut-allergy, things spiraled. I began fearing lunchtime, birthday parties, and even food in general. I understand that these fears are not my fault, but it was hard for me not to blame myself when the camp counselor, the lunch lady, and even my own parents made me feel so isolated.
I never had a space to talk about how this isolation affected me. Whenever I brought it up, people always dismissed my feelings, saying that they did it for my safety and wellbeing. Although this may be true, it never felt that way. It felt isolating. It made me feel different from my peers and my friends.
I know that watching your kid almost die from anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction in which your throat swells until you can’t breathe, alongside other life threatening symptoms, is terrifying, and I can’t even begin to imagine it. However, when keeping kids with food allergies physically safe, their mental well-being should also be taken into account. These children need space to talk about it and release the fear they are holding.
My hope for the future is that maybe people will start noticing how isolating a kid hurts them. I hope someday I will not be scared to eat lunch next to someone eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I hope I will not be scared to go to a new restaurant. I hope my younger self heals from these wrongdoings.
My view on what the right thing to do with an allergy kid is mixed. Although going through the lengths my caretakers did when I was a kid put my safety first, there are other ways to keep a kid safe. Like making entire classrooms nut-free, or having all kids with nuts in their food label that on their lunch boxes instead of assuming that there are nuts in everyone’s food and forcing kids who are allergic to sit at the nut-free table forever.
I hope that for the sake of future allergy kids, adults, and teens, something changes.