Intrusive thoughts rooted in disgust around food

I’m looking for support/resources/solidarity around eating issues and wondering if anyone relates.

I have lifelong OCD around eating. I usually can’t eat until I’m extremely hungry. And then after a few bites, once the immediate hunger passes, my brain will generate vivid, intrusive disgust imagery and I suddenly can’t continue eating. I gag and lose my appetite instantly. If I force myself to continue eating, I vomit.

The thing part is that I know the food is safe. I don’t believe it’s contaminated. Because I’ll check it before I eat it, and I can see/trust that it’s safe. But the intrusive thoughts come anyway.

This started after a contamination experience I had as a young child and was recently re-triggered by another real contamination incident at a restaurant (not that it’s ever *not* been a problem). The recent experience made me realize that this isn’t a fear thing for me: I experienced the worst and survived. It’s 100% a physical disgust reaction that I feel no control over.

I also have a severe phobia of vomiting. Additionally, I am autistic and have struggled with exposure therapy due to trauma around asserting boundaries with authority figures. I really feel like exposure therapy made things worse, but I really want to figure out a way past these intrusive thoughts. They are profoundly impacting my health and making life extremely difficult.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Are there resources on disgust-based OCD, ARFID. intrusive imagery, or disgust tolerance? Or does anyone else here deal with this too? Has anything helped you?

Thanks for reading!