Anorexia, Anxiety and Control

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I know that there has been some discussion on WP about anorexia in the past, but I wondered if anyone could identify with my experiences.

I am a 44 year old woman who was diagnosed last year with Asperger's syndrome. This was after 4 years of intensive one-to-one therapy with a psychiatrist who I was initially referred to for treatment of anorexia nervosa. My eating disorder started when I was 11 years old and was always considered 'atypical'. The reason why I restricted food, counted calories (and fat, carbs, protein), exercised in a very ritualistic way (i.e. same workout every day at same time of day) was NOT because I disliked my body, or wished to stay very thin, but because the behaviours that constituted my anorexia nervosa made me feel more 'in control' - of my life and my anxiety. I planned my whole day out around eating and exercise rituals. My thinness was almost a 'side-effect' of my daily diet and exercise rituals and routines. The only fear I had about my body was seeing it change with weight gain because I no longer recognised myself in the mirror and felt I was viewing a different person.

Close questioning by my psychiatrist showed that I had Asperger characteristics (including social and eating difficulties, sensory sensitivity, OCD and special interests before my anorexia nervosa began. Actually, it was social difficulties and changes in the social rules of adolescence that triggered the terrible anxiety I felt just before I started to control my life through eating and exercise rituals. When I was very 'deep' in anorexia nervosa I felt I was shielded from the world and other people. It felt safe.

Most people seem to think that anorexia nervosa is all about vanity, beauty, models and skinny celebrities. For me, this could not be further from the truth. I didn't want to attract attention from other people. I wanted them to leave me alone.

I am now almost weight recovered and am working on developing social skills but I seem to spend most of my time on my computer or reading.

I am interested to know if any other Aspies (male or female) had experienced anything similar in terms of eating disorders?

I never had anorexia but I had an eating disorder. It started when I was 15 that I had dropped five pounds over the weekend and I decided I wanted to keep it up, so I started to diet. I ate three meals a day and didn't go for seconds. I was in PE and weight training and my weight dropped more. Then I was in softball and I had a sore body and I still worked out from three things. Then my weight stopped at 128. Then I started gaining again and then I was at 140 and then I started to work out after I turned 18 and dropped to 133. Then my eating disorder started because I wanted to stay at 130. If I weight more than that, I ate very little food. I refused to eat a whole pop tart or finish my yogurt. I refused to finish my lunch and I had control over my weight. I wanted to stay thin. For all these years I had not ate three meals a day. I hardly ate in 2006 so I rarely grocery shopped. If I was hungry, I ate at my parents.

Even my ex knew I was maybe lying about being hungry so we wouldn't go out to eat. He was right, I was lying about being not hungry but I refused to admit it. He didn't drive or have his car so what could he do about it? He couldn't fight it. Then I moved out to Oregon and my new ex believed I was very thin and called me a toothpick. Even his son said the same thing. My ex would even give me a hard time about how I ate and said I ate like a six year old. Then we had split up and went our separate lives and then in September 2007 I found out my doctor and my therapist had diagnosed me with anorexia. I couldn't believe it and I was surprised. I didn't really meet the criteria because I was not under weight and I still got my regular period. Doctors said I was underweight but I decided I was not. Everyone says I look fine and healthy so no, I'm not underweight. I argued with my doctors about it and they said I can think whatever I want.

Even my therapists was worried about me living on my own and you know what I did want to eat more food but I was afraid too. I was afraid of getting fat and I said I wanted to eat like Joon, have those celery sticks with peanut butter and eat dinner every night. But after I moved into my own apartment, I ate better because my husband made healthy meals and I ate at work and my weight stayed the same and I felt so much better. My husband said I have more color in my skin. I was more awake and felt more alert and different. I still had an eating disorder because I still didn't eat fully and then I got pregnant and I was eating every two hours and my husband said he thought he was going to have to make me eat and even spank me if he has to to get me to eat. But then I lost the baby and I slipped back to my old eating habits. I'm not hungry all the time anymore.

My mom told me when I was 19 I had an eating disorder and we talked about it and she said I had no control over my family so I used food because it was something I could control. I did start throwing up at age 18 and then stopped at age 22. I never told anyone about my throwing up because I didn't want to be hospitalized. I knew what I was doing was stupid but I did it anyway. I used to play the game of how many days I can go without throwing up so it made me avoid big meals.

Now my stomach has shrunk and if I eat too much, I feel sick. I get full very quickly.

I have known for a few years I had an eating disorder but I wasn shocked at the anorexia diagnoses two years ago. I don't connect my eating disorder to my Asperger's because any girl can get obsessed about their weight and food. To me it has always been about my self image and feeling I was fat. Not about I didn't have control over my family.

I have heard about anorexia being female Asperger's but I know that is a bunch of baloney. Yeah they share the same characteristics but a normal girl developing anorexia doesn't make her an aspie. Yes it's possible to have both but she already had Asperger's before her eating disorder. I was diagnosed at age 12 but got an eating disorder when I was 18 but was obsessed about my weight since I was 15. I was even counting calories at that age.

Spokane_Girl - thanks for the reply. I'm sorry you lost your baby

I am aware that it has been suggested that 'Anorexia is the female Asperger's' - but I don't think that's accurate. I know many people with anorexia nervosa and few of them have Asperger's syndrome or other ASDs. Starvation and low weight can cause obsessive behaviours around eating and research has shown that some people who are severely anorexic do behave like people with autism, even though they didn't have symptoms of autism before they had an eating disorder.

I used eating and exercise rituals to organise my life. Without these rituals I felt I had no control over my anxiety. Planning diet and exercise rituals became a sort of special interest, and none of this was about body image. I therefore wondered whether others had used eating and exercise rituals/routines in this way.

I also don't think that anorexia is the Female Asperger's either. If that was the case, than all female aspies would have it, and there wouldn't be any female aspies who are pleasingly plump. On the other hand, I'm worried that I might have Emotional Anorexia.

Emotional Anorexia is when a person doesn't eat as much as they should, because that person is really upset over something, perhaps a loss of some sort, or anything that's not going right, that might affect a person's mood. I was consistantly losing 3 lbs a week, for a while after my Grandpa passed away. 1 - 2 lbs a week is considered healthy. 3 Lbs is too much to be losing that often. There are days that I have to talk myself into eating at each meal time. I don't think I'm fat, and I'm proud of my size. I'm just too upset to eat, most of the time.

I don't think it's so much that anorexia is "the female aspergers" in the sense that it's the only presentation of AS in females, but rather that it's a very common feature. According to this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... gers-girls up to 20% of anorexics could have undiagnosed asperger's. Things like intense interests and obsessions, need for rituals, etc., are parts of both anorexia and AS-- a lot of times in females, those features of AS come out as fixations on calories, fat, etc. Such girls are also not going to get any help out of "conventional" eating disorder treatment.

For me, some of it comes back to something I've known for a long time but never really connected-- if I'm not obsessed with something, I can't do it. Things are either always on my mind, or not in it at all.

There's a fitting in component, too.. If a girl with AS is being made fun of, especially if she's being called fat, she may think that losing weight would make it stop. When you don't understand what causes people to make fun of you, it's easy to fixate on something as the cause.

It's been recently pointed out to me that although not actually anorexic, I exhibit a lot of behaviours of the condition, and it wouldn't take much to tip me over onto the other side.

I can be quite indifferent to food, don't feel hunger until it's quite pressing, and do sometimes control food intake.

Since my husband's death, I've lost a stone in weight, and this is with my friends feeding me quite a lot, and pointing out the pitfalls of not eating, so if it weren't for their help, heaven knows how much more weight I would have lost. I can only afford to lose this weight because coincidentally, I've been spending the last two years actively working on putting on weight, and I'd put on about a stone and a half, and gotten to a decent weight.

Sorry to creep in on a discussion at this time, but I was googling around for "anorexia and Asperger's" and found this. Actually, I think you have written a post in response to a similar one of mine

You have almost written down my EXACT experience with anorexia, which started when I was 15.

In my case, it hurts so badly when people automatically assume that I want to be so terribly thin. It confuses even me; I flat-out won't eat things like fried foods and get caught in eating routines that I know are insufficient, but when I see what it does to me I'm terribly self-conscious and try to hide my skinny appearance. I wish I could magically be my proper size (about 115-120 lbs on my 5'5" frame, according to past experience and friends/family), without having to change my routine. Better yet, I almost wish humans didn't have to eat so that I wouldn't ruin the concept of it and turn it into such a big part of life. Hmmmmm.

I am a female Aspie and I have been struggling with Bulimia since I was 12. It is like you said, a ritualistic practice that makes me feel more in control of my life and anxiety, the weight loss is sort of a side-effect. I never had body dysmorphia, and I could definitely see and feel the difference between weighing 140 lbs and weighing 89 lbs. I just got out of a 6 week inpatient rehab for my ED. This is where I was officially dx'd with Asperger's, after a neuro-psych eval, though I've been pretty certain I was an Aspie for a few years now....