I am going through an Autism assessment. I was surprised to discover the amount of Autistic people having eating disorders. I have had a serious eating disorder. It is not anorexia but I did not know of any other word to use years ago.
I have fears and phobias about eating. This is more than say textures it is how I imagine food will affect my mind. There do seem to be memories of problems with food textures however.
It is hard to explain but I will try to explain. Growing up it became clear that substances entering our body can affect our mind. Anaesthetic makes the mind blank so it takes the mind away. Also alcohol affects the mind. Words were used that say you lose contact with reality and feelings while drinking. People can lose memory of things if they drink too much. However there are degrees of this except if unconscious by anaesthetic. The concept and experience is mind taken away. However if someone says a herb can have an effect on the mind this might be mild. I started to be afraid of anything I ate or entered my body which I assumed could have any of this kind of effect.
It was as if foods could make me not awake so not conscious so not alive. I could not conceptualise degrees of awareness as in say the difference between a pint of beer and several bottles of whisky or dozens of tranquillisers that would make one unconscious. To me just touching a molecule of something could make me not awake. This extended to food, herbs and I would not take aspirin for years. As well if during the day I felt a little bit less aware of my environment or touch or I imagined so I would put it down to a food I had recently eaten. I would focus on seeing things and touching stuff to see if I was real. A mild effect was not mild and was no mind so no life so death. The worst panic attack I had was in the same range as being run over by a car as a child and screaming on the door. It became serious, I lost weight. Once I did not eat at all for 8 days. It has been hard to describe. It was about object and self existence and fear. I could not distinguish between haze, fog dead or alive or white and black. White represents consciousness and black is nothingness therefore death. A few pints or tranquillisers would be haze so still alive so no fear but can’t see it or realise that.
I would like to know if anyone has ever had an eating disorder similar to this or know of anything similar. As well could it be related to Autism. Is it black and white thinking and object existence.