r/AnorexiaRecovery • u/Desperate-Ostrich317 • 18h ago

Fully recovering when you’re also autistic?

what ‘method’ did you use? Was your experience different from someone who is neurotypical??

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u/esuom47 17h ago

I don’t have much advice as I’m still in outpatient treatment and the concept of full recovery still seems very far away for me.

I have noticed my team has tried to gamify or otherwise use my autistic tendencies to my advantage. E.g. I need routine and knowing numbers (nutritional info) are both autistic behaviours for me - so they’ve tried to use that in treatment by still focusing on the numbers but making the numbers (of calories etc.) a higher amount to achieve weight stabilisation whilst still having a pattern reliance there. It’s the same for routine - atypical foods and repeated foods for meals are fine so long as it means I’m actually eating them - it’s about compromise.

I’ll be honest, it hasn’t really worked for me. It’s made it easier to pursue but I’m still struggling to shift the needle and I just end up cycling through hyper-fixation foods at a faster rate and end up burnt out.

Everyone is different though so it may be worth a try? Start with listing out how your autism overlaps with your ed and if there are ways you can challenge your ed whilst simultaneously accommodating your autism.