I don't have an eating disorder cause I'm autistic

Hi, I am so sorry this happened to you.I also had a very bad experience with the eating disorder services- they are very ill equipped with any issue that doesn't fit into their neat categories... At the time I didn't know I was autistic. I have had digestive issues my whole life, and have always been a picky eater but I started having more issues with eating and food about 8 years ago. Now I understand that my issues are very much related to stress and anxiety which worsen the digestive issues and I also have ARFID traits as I can easily get stuck eating only the same food or meals over and over in same pattern, plus lots of anxiety that foods will trigger nausea/IBS attacks... But the eating disorder service didn't believe me when I said I wasn't loosing weight intentionally- And I wasn't and never have, in fact I was distraught and so frustrated about loosing weight ... Their 'help' was very counterproductive. I got discharged over the vacation as I moved home abroad and when I was referred again, they agreed they were not the right service to help me and that I should seek counselling elsewhere which I didn't receive. But the eating disorder team wreaked enough havock- I kept trying to convince myself they must be right and it resulted in a lot of unkind behaviours towards myself and I never got to the root of the issue which is stress and anxiety and my autistic love for routine, sensory sensitivities and struggles with change... 

Luckily  I have had an amazing dietitian who has been much more than just a dietitian- She takes a very individualised and very holistic approach- in fact we now sometimes barely mention food. She has provided so much support and has helped me see that stress and anxiety play a huge huge part- it took a few years for me to really start acknowledging it. I was very lucky that my university initially helped fund session with her whilst I was waiting for help from the NHS- home | dalia weinreb (dalianutrition.com) . She is actually the person that realised I might be autistic upon which I ended up asking for an assessment.  

And yes I agree it is so frustrating that they make such a hard separation between eating disorder service and other mental health services- only recently my GP and I were desperately trying to get me some kind of support  for mental health and mainly anxiety and stress. So we thought that we were being particularly smart by doing referrals for everything we could think of- CBT, but also eating disorder service as the GP and I reasoned that maybe they would be able to give some kind of counselling too and that I might be seen more quickly there given my low weight at the time.... It was a bad idea as the eating disorder service were slower than the other services and I have now had to fight to not be discharged by the other services as when they see 'eating disorder service' their immediate reaction is we don't deal with that and will not provide any support and will discharge you. Luckily, the counsellor ended up agreeing with me that the mental health service is right from me as in fact I really need stress/anxiety management help. But yes, I can relate to your frustration about this.... 

I really hope you do manage to get support because it isn't right that you are just left on your own, simply because their categorisation doesn't work.  

Also if you want to share some more details on your struggles with eating, I might be able to see if I can relate to any of it. Not that I have figured my own eating issues out yet, though I am learning more and more with time (and the help of my dietitian) 

Also if you want to share some more details on your struggles with eating, I might be able to see if I can relate to any of it. Not that I have figured my own eating issues out yet, though I am learning more and more with time (and the help of my dietitian) 

I don't like to gain weight, I want to be physically smaller and worry about eating more and gaining more weight.