This might look very silly, but one rather peculiar aspect of me: a lifelong VERY STRONG aversion to fruits. Any kind of fruit, tomatoes and lemons being the only exceptions (though my friends would say that it proves that tomato is a vegetable and not a fruit! 
)
Right from childhood days. It seems my mom would feed me some fruits when I was an infant and I’d spit it all out.
As I grew older, this remained. Leave alone anyone sitting next to me, anyone even in the room eating a fruit, I’d walk out with great derision. As much as a peel of an orange skin touching my plate, and I’d leave the meal. I couldn’t stand the touch, I’d wash my hands immediately.
Over time during schooldays I used to get emotionally blackmailed by my cousins, who, presumably for my well-being 😉 would tell me to eat or they would stop talking to me forever… And that was a major disaster for me if anyone I loved would stop talking to me. I would sweat and shudder and feel terrible about it… apologise endlessly… until they’d give up and maybe wonder how weird I was and forget about it My Thatha would kid me saying it was probably because I’d denied fruits to somebody in some previous birth 😀 Here are a couple of more fruity exploits.
As I grew older, apart from weird looks from others, I’d also get more space. People would be more accepting of this, they’d try cajoling me or else just leave me alone. I often tried to understand this myself, I learnt that fruits were good, I learnt about their invaluable nutritional value. I managed to drink fruit juice – only limited fruits like apple or orange juice. At the most I could sit next to people eating fruits, occasionally touch the bag that contained them. Some friends would talk about it, ask me and I’d say I can stand the flavor but maybe I couldn’t stand the texture… or I don’t know… but there’s something I cannot understand, but I simply cannot accept it. I never got down to eating them until recently.
I’ve made several attempts so far, some succesful and some not, but finally it looks more consistent than ever before over the past few weeks. After bananas, apples, pineapple and papaya, I recently ate my first sapota and orange for the first time ever in my life 8)
Even now, whenever I try a fruit, the strong fears and memories that “you hate it” come up strongly, but they’re becoming weaker and weaker as I avoid reinforcing them.
Effortlessly, without forcing, without psychological tricks, on my own initiative without anyone trying to force me, changed over three decades of a very deep habit pattern 🙂
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