Eating disorder and ASD

tbh though id advise anyone drastically under weight to lift weights lol
it builds healthy muscle mass and can really help you cut any eating disorder habbits. especially if your weight based classes are perhaps martial arts, then you get competitive with others and feel shame of being in such a noncompetitive state. it sorta fixs the problems with competition with others and working out to better oneself compared alongside others. martial arts fixed alot of my bad habbits and mindsets. and now i sound like a jehovas witness lol

edit: i guess it changed my mindset of rather valuing less of what i think i look like, and valuing more of what my body is capable of and what it can do...or what it can do to others lol... and in that i sorta ended up visually looking miles better anyway and thus achieved a good look anyway by discarding the going for looks/appearance/feel and going instead for function and ability. with the pursuit of bodily function and ability you passively attain the optimal looks. if you go just after looks then you fall to your perception and feeling that will always be negative and tell you that your too fat all the time. i guess you ignore the negative that comes from only thinking on appearance by focusing instead on the desire of functionality.

Well, whatever works for you.

i guess for me it was always a perception disorder i guess rather than a eating disorder for me personally. then again i always wanted to look cool, look ideal. i didnt like much food at first anyway because the texture always put me off and made me imagine what other horrible things would taste like that on the tongue. started eating more foods later on when i started planning to become homeless. which made me force myself to like more food anyway. and ofcourse my perception of myself changed when i saw a horrible photo of how thin i actually was. 

in the end i feel it paid off though, as i took up weights and so on and the low weight made my muscles show through easier and pretty much put me in a position of low body fat % that most people who wanna lift weights want to achieve. still i skip meals here and there and still feel fat, which just drives me to lift more weights and excercise more now mainly. i skip meals though still as i dunno, i feel the amount of meals we have is fabricated and westernised and all to be capitalised off and to make money for production industry.... i feel i can do with 2 meals a day, just breakfast upon waking up and a main meal later. i feel thats pretty much all thats needed. the third meal, and supper and snacks, i feel they are all capitalist creations to make us consume more and spend more cash personally. history kinda shows so. but then again historically we did have lower lifespans lol so perhaps our increased diet might make us live longer i guess on the flip side.

It's an unhealthy form of control related to trauma in my case, as well as obsessive, black and white Autistic thinking. I may have succeeded in not becoming fat but I've also 'succeeded' in making myself most likely infertile, in making my bones brittle and in giving myself a slow heart rhythm which is less than ideal, as well as giving myself problems with my bladder and bowels but I'll spare you the details of those. I'm probably more unhealthy than a lot of obese people. My partner is obese according to her BMI but eats well, exercises and is pretty happy with herself.

With me, it hasn't really been about fat or thin since I was a lot younger. But yes, I grant you it has been about control. It's how I react to stress, and it's put me in hospital before. Seeing my debilitating chronic mental illness talked about as a 'normal' way of controlling the body is triggering. I appreciate we all suffer differently, but I'm sure the OP would have found your post difficult to read.

Just want to send you love. I've had an eating disorder since I was 12 (for over 20 years!) and whilst it seems impossible it can be something you live with and you can experience happiness alongside it. I just see it as a chronic condition; I've given up hope on ever getting rid of it completely but whilst that sounds depressing and scary, it doesn't mean I have a miserable or 'abnormal' life. I'm happily married and work as a primary school teacher. My ED is acting up at the moment - being a teacher through this whole Covid saga has been really tough and continues to be and of course we have no idea when things are going to get back to 'normal'. Our SEDS is actually pretty good; I've been very lucky and they've looked after me quite well for a long time now. The psychiatrist is fab and is actually the one who referred me for Autism diagnosis. I don't like the sound of how your SEDS are treating you - of course your ASD should be taken into account, but they should still keep an eye on you, if only for medical reasons, and also support you through the Autism diagnostic process. Do you have a good relationship with your GP? They could help advocate for you with the service? As a bit of an old hand at this, I feel like it's important you're being monitored, both physically and psychologically.

I really do wish you all the best. My mantra is, 'Some days are good, some days are s**t, I don't have the answers, just please don't quit.' I have it written in Sharpie on my mirror. Keep going. A great thing for the management of EDs is keeping distracted in a healthy way - I'm a big fan of adult colouring books and word searches.

but yet this way you do control your body right? and you do succeed in not becoming fat right? but despite that you always still feel fat dont you, which makes you continue doing that until you get dangerously underweight. in which case you need to be made aware at that point and see it from other peoples view by camera shot or something which i said.

OK...this is rather triggering. Eating disorders are psychiatric illnesses, not a natural, normal way of controlling the body. They are two totally different things. It's the blurring of the two that society perpetuates that, at least to an extent, causes eating disorders to be so normalised.

could be normal? .... i mean if you feel your getting fat then the logical conclusion is perhaps to cut back on eating to cut the calorie intake to make a difference that way, otherwise all your left with is the hard work of exercise and thats much harder to do than just cutting a meal here and there isnt it? lol so cutting meals generally is the smart logical easy way that comes to mind for weight loss for anyone really. and yes its a control thing as ofcourse the goal is to control your body weight right? which is reasonable as no one wants to become overweight. when someone else controls what you eat they dont have your body so they dont know and thus they make you fatter with their choice of what you should eat and how much. therefore i dont really see eating disorders as much but rather self maintainance of your own body. ofcourse it becomes problematic when you think your fat but your actually drastically under weight, then i suppose it becomes a disorder. but that is rather one of perception, if you saw yourself in a picture in that situation youd agree that you need more burgers instead lol such as when i was 6 stone myself and feeling fat then saw a picture of my body and saw my back bones sticking out of my shirt which kinda made me feel ok to eat more as i saw that i was clearly underweight.

This is a major problem that people with eating disorders face in society. Always being told that 'this isn't the place to discuss it'. Why shouldn't we talk about eating disorders, particularly on an Autism forum? They affect so many Autistic people! OP hasn't said anything triggering or distressing or believe me, as a long time anorexia sufferer, I wouldn't be reading this post or commenting! I'd have been out of here without another look!

Another damaging view is that people are only 'of concern' when 'dangerously underweight'. Eating disorders are of the mind first and foremost, and they are serious well before the sufferer reaches a clinically dangerous weight, if they ever do reach a clinically dangerous weight.

Eating disorders are about a reluctance to give up control. They're masquerade as discipline and will power.

Our Brains would be obsessed with control, so they would juxtapose.

aidie said:

this is not the place to ask advice on such a concerning situation. 

*looks up at name of forum, back down at OP post* I think it is. Why have a mental health and wellbeing forum if you don't expect people do discuss things that are negatively effecting their mental health and wellbeing.

Ultimately, if you aren't sure yourself, then I would be surprised if professionals would know for sure if your ED was related to ASD or something else. It is quite possible for it to relate to both. Humans don't have completely separate brain regions - there's tonnes of interconnectivity - so it's quite possible there's some mix. Maybe it started from one type of trigger, but maybe it has evolved beyond that, too.

The most important thing is that you are getting adequate support. Perhaps it is worth exploring both avenues to see how they work for you. Regardless of the source of the ED, it's whether the support type helps you or not that's most important.

If SEDS have been struggling to treat you as you put it, then maybe it's worth trying something else. Unless, you think SEDS were helping and you could see a benefit in continuing. I can imagine things like this take plenty of time and positive outcomes may take a while to appear. If you haven't yet tried an ASD-led approach, then you may not know yet if this will be a good match for you.

I was going to share my experience, but it doesn't really relate to yours because I never got professional support for my ED. It was at its worst more than 2 decades ago, too. I think it was a mix of ASD (probably most strongly triggered by this, I'd guess at least 90%) and maybe some classical influences from peers. But it's really hard to tell and categorise what caused it. I may never know where it all began. All I know is that if it returns today, It's most likely to be ASD related, because today is all I can go on.

It is very common for autistic people to have eating disorders but you still need support for the eating disorder. Sounds like they are just overstretched and trying to discharge as many patients as possible back to the GP or fob off on other departments. 

this is not the place to ask advice on such a concerning situation. 

There have been people in this forum with eating disorders as well as Autism. sometimes it considered to be part of autism sometimes its not. I am no expert in this area of eating disorders.  I think at all depends on how serious your condition is, and it can be very dangerous,  and what places are available. 

If you are of concern ( dangerously underweight )  please approach your GP immediately for professional help / review of your health status.

give this a go,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, there is online chat available

www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/.../helplines

here is an article found in "Spectrum" on anorexia and asd

www.spectrumnews.org/.../

Most stuff that's good for me makes me vomit.

However, in spite of that, I've evolved from my KFC loving youth.

Apparently, it's a common one. The obsessive and sensory aspects of ASC can create eating disorders that may not or may not have a body dysmorphic components.

I am sorry that they seem to be treating you this way. It sounds like one department passing the buck to the other when they should be working together as both issues are in play. For any therapy to be successful it's going to have to account for the ASC, but do autism services know much about eating disorders? Let's hope so and that they don't keep you waiting long.

I mean there is no rule that says it can't be both. Being a picky eater can synergise with eating disorders to make them worse. A sensible response would have been adopt a multi disaplinory approach and for them to coordinate your treatment together ... but that would blur the lines over who's paying for what and the NHS is paranoid about some other part of the NHS coming and taking its money away.

The fastest way is probably to go the autism service and explain the situation. If they agree with you they'll refer you right back to SEDS.