When I was first referred to the ED team I had no idea that I was neurodivergent. Autism was suggested to me by my doctor after being with the ED service for over a year, whilst my health was gradually declining.
It wasn’t until my autism diagnosis that I started to see the world differently, I had an explanation to why I had struggled so much throughout my life. I had never received the right care that was person centred, and because a lot of my behaviours cannot be changed due to them being my autistic traits I found that having CBT didn’t help in any way.
When I was with the ED service I felt like I was always blamed, and when I tried to stick up for myself and tell them I couldn’t do certain things they said I was being ‘hostile’. When I received my autism diagnosis I then had proof that I wasn’t lying and that I did have sensory issues with food, and them trying to push me into eating things that would send me into meltdown made me not want to eat at all.
Being autistic comes with challenges, I really struggle to deal with change, and at the time I didn’t want to recover which made the thought of change even harder to deal with. Because of my autism I sometimes struggle to process things and sometimes I felt like the ED team were pushing me at a rate I felt very uncomfortable with. I just wish that I would have been listened to more, without feeling judged, treated like a child, or made to feel like I wasn’t trying hard enough.
I struggle to communicate with new people, which makes it hard when a new clinician is introduced to me. I also find it very hard to figure out how I am feeling or what I would like to focus on in therapy, and I feel like some therapists don’t understand this and try and push for answers, which makes my anxiety worse.
One of the reasons I developed anorexia was because I needed some sort of control in my life, at the time I was living in Australia, and was severely homesick, and I felt like my life was out of control. I felt like my food intake was the only thing I could control. One of the things I really struggled with in ED recovery was that I felt like my ED team were trying to control everything I did, which made me experience horrific meltdowns.
A couple of months ago I was diagnosed with ADHD, something that I didn’t know whilst I was under the ED service, I think having both autism and ADHD diagnosis would have helped me a lot during the start of my recovery from anorexia, as it has given me more of an insight into my life, which in turn allows me to know what will help me and what won’t.
Having autism I tend to hyper focus on what I want to do, or what I feel I am good at, sometimes this can be a bad thing, as I was hyperfocused on my anorexia, and I didn’t want to give it up, as at the time I thought it was the only thing that I was good at. I also found that my anorexia was giving my brain dopamine, as I was severely bullied throughout childhood for being overweight, and it made me think that if I lost weight I would be more accepted for who I am.
At one point I was told that I was too underweight for therapy and that I wouldn’t be able to concentrate for it to work. At a healthy weight I still struggle to concentrate, but now I know I have ADHD.
The thing that I think would have helped me a lot is for someone to have tried to get to know me better, so they could have created a person centred approach.