Strange Eating Disorder, Could it be related to Autism

Hi as there is now more learning bout Autism and eating disorders I am wondering what it is all about. Is it all Anorexia or are there atypical eating disorders. As such I am sending you an attempted overview of my own experience as a male. I do not know if it will be significant. I am also wondering if anyone has had a similar type of eating disorder or anything similar. Or is it just way out!


Below does not fully explain even then and I wish it was shorter.

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 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 floor. 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.


I have more eating disorder symptoms with fog in the winter. Fog is haze so something and something else so not binary. However I try to imagine the fog as particles in light or semi light at night. Particles of whatever are non binary if included in another substance. However to imagine particles is like trying to imagine hundreds of dots in the atmosphere and this is not pictorially representative.
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  • Oh boy. Well, texture and smell seem to feature there early on, so sensory processing could be significant here for sure. And whilst I'm not a clinical psychologist and no way qualified to offer valid opinion on that score, this does also sound more really bizarre phobic disorder than eating disorder. And unusual phobias are common place in Autistic people.

    That said for Autism, as opposed to a sensory issue in tandem with something else, to be your cause, you'd need to meet the other criteria for Autism; social, communication differences and repetitive behaviour etc. You may want to try an online AQ50 to see if it could fit. An AQ50 high score is not a diagnosis, of course, but is a good indicator of whether you should be assessed for Autism.

    That said eating disorders normally have a body dissatisfaction component and an obsessive component with weight or calories or exercise...so, it's not typical here huh?

    That said, of course, your ideas about food making you "not awake" are troublesome. You do know they are without basis in reality and if they stop you eating are a bit dangerous. Whether you are indeed Autistic or not, services need to listen to what this means to you and work with that, not their usual idea of what eating disorder means, for sure. 'Cos this is anything but usual.

  • It has also been referred to as OCD by a therapist also as psychosis by a clinical assessor.  Could it be some of all including eating disorder as it involves food. I believe I called it anorexia in the 80s which of course it isn’t but it was the nearest word I knew of at the time.

    I am undergoing an assessment for Autism. The assessor said there is corroboration since childhood of stuff. It also runs in the family I only recently discovered. I also was diagnosed as dyspraxic in the 90s and sent to Child Guidance as a child. 

    You say that unusual phobias are common with Autistic people. I will look into this. There is research that says psychosis can be more common with Autism but also it can be atypical psychosis. I wonder if it could be this. I do know that the beliefs involved are not true even if the fear involved is as if it is true.

    I read that Autistic people can have troubles with object existence. Object existence seems to involved 

    Of course as I am still learning I want to understand.

  • You need to let that assessment happen with a truely open mind.

    Dyspraxia is a close cousin to Autism for sure. Dyspraxic people have a hight number of Autistic traits and vice versa. And where there is one neurodivergence there is often another. I am dyslexic and autistic and a synesthete. I would meet part but not all of the criteria for dyspraxia I think, but have never been assessed.

    I have no idea about psychosis and autism. I've never heard of any such relationship. However, there is a relationship with some forms of eating disorder - albeit distinct in nature from those experienced by NTs, and there can be a relationship to OCD.

    Whatever your truth you seem to have some form of neurodivergence with the dyspraxia already, and you need a real experts to tease all this apart for you accurately. Just be honest and see what they say. Meanwhile, at least take some vits.

  • Yes, psychosis can indeed be related to Autism, and my daughter has it.

  • Thank you yes it is about teasing stuff apart.

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