A personal reflection on late diagnosed AuDHD, masking, atypical anorexia, and finding myself on the other side.
When I was first diagnosed with ADHD aged 27, I felt like something finally shifted. I had spent 14 years in and out of eating disorder services, receiving diagnosis after diagnosis of “Atypical Anorexia”. A term that, for a long time, felt like a quiet way of saying I wasn’t sick enough for anyone to care. Despite never feeling quite “enough” and carrying the strange shame of feeling as if I’d failed at having an eating disorder, the comfort of the restriction was something I just couldn’t let go of. I tried, countless times, to stop counting calories, to eat a more varied diet, to let other people cook for me, to go out for food and just… enjoy it. But I couldn’t get a sense of joy from living that way. Something always pulled me back, back into restriction, which felt familiar, safe, and protective.
What I didn’t know then, and didn’t know for a very long time, was that the eating disorder wasn’t just a mental health condition. It was, in many ways, the most effective coping mechanism my undiagnosed neurodivergent brain had ever found.
The girl who wanted to live in a fairy land
As a child, I was what my mum describes as a “crazy rainbow little girl.” Bright, vibrant rainbows were my best friend because being friends with actual people never quite lived up to what I needed, wanted, or expected from them. I wanted to pretend I was living in a fairy land with unicorns, glitter, and monkeys. My friends, meanwhile, wanted to talk about boys, makeup, and celebrity gossip.
I loved to play, paint, and draw. I’d sit in my room for hours making schoolbooks for my toys and teaching them maths, French, and science. I loved learning, I loved teaching, and I wanted to share my knowledge with others. When friends came over, they’d want to chat on MSN. I couldn’t understand why, as teenagers, we were no longer playing like we used to. Those playdates filled with giggles, make-believe, and silliness were distant memories. Everyone else seemed to be changing, and I just wanted to stay the same.
What I now understand is that this wasn’t immaturity, or oddness. It was the early shape of my autism. The deep focus, the love of systems and teaching, the confusion when social rules shifted without warning, the longing to stay inside a world I could understand and control. But because this didn’t look like the “stereotypical” presentation of autism, nobody named it. Instead, I embarked on a long journey to learn how to be “normal,” rather than one to honour who I actually was.
Learning to perform ‘normal’
As I got older, I discovered that the feeling of being wanted and accepted felt better than almost anything else. So I began to morph myself into something that felt “normal”, at least to everyone else. I’d stand in the girl group circle I found myself in, quietly cataloguing how to stand, how to speak, how to eat, how to smile. I noticed that my big, beaming, toothy smile wasn’t the same as the smiles of the girls getting asked out on dates. So I started closing my mouth when I smiled. I wore makeup that itched my skin. I straightened my curly hair. I wore trousers that felt too tight, but that didn’t matter; I just wanted to fit in.
This is what we now call ‘masking’: the exhausting, often unconscious process by which autistic people learn to suppress or camouflage their natural behaviours to appear neurotypical. For me, masking started young, and it went deep. So deep that by the time the eating disorder arrived, it slotted seamlessly into a life I was already performing.
Restriction became another costume, another way of managing how I appeared to others, another rule I could follow in a world whose social rules made no sense to me.
Atypical anorexia: the diagnosis that never quite fit
Atypical anorexia is a diagnosis that describes someone who meets all the behavioural and psychological criteria for anorexia: the restriction, the fear of weight gain, the distorted relationship with food and body. However, their weight does not fall into the “underweight” category. It is a real, serious, and often life-threatening condition. And yet, for many people who receive this diagnosis, there is a persistent, painful sense of not being believed, not being seen, and not being “sick enough” to deserve help.
That was my experience. I spent over a decade cycling in and out of services, convinced that I was failing at being ill. The eating disorder had become so enmeshed with my identity, my need for structure, control, routine, and a way to regulate overwhelming emotions, that I genuinely could not imagine who I would be without it.
What nobody had thought to ask was: why does she need this eating disorder so much? For me, it wasn’t just about restricting food, but also a reliance on exercise. I needed to move daily, and each day saw a small increment in how much exercise I did to feel the same sense of escape and regulation.
Reflecting now, I can see how much it was doing for me: helping me stay present in a chaotic world, giving me a set of rules to live by when the social rules of being human baffled me, suppressing a nervous system that was constantly over-stimulated. It was, in the language I now have, a form of emotional regulation. And a remarkably effective one, which is exactly why it was so hard to give up.
When recovery made things louder
When I first entered eating disorder recovery and began to weight-restore, something unexpected happened: the ADHD got louder. Through therapy, I began to understand that I had been using restriction to suppress a chaos that felt all too overwhelming. The constant questioning, rumination, overthinking, and intense anxiety had always been there; they had just been channelled into food and body. As I recovered, they needed somewhere else to go.
My inner critic shifted: from “you’re not skinny enough” to “you’re not working hard enough,” and “you don’t have enough friends.” I coped with losing my eating disorder by overworking and overcommitting, depleting every inch of energy I had to suppress what lay beneath: an inability to self-regulate.
This is where my relationship with exercise got worse before it got better. I couldn’t cope with feeling emotions, so I would over-exercise to feel something else instead. Some people turn to alcohol or other addictions, but mine became exercise. The same cycle as before. And just as before, my dedication and ability to push myself in ways others couldn’t were glorified. It wasn’t just the exercise that was addictive; it was the praise. Finally, I was accepted, people wanted to talk to me, and I was part of something.
But validation from others, I was beginning to discover, was a goal post that kept moving away. The more I chased it, the more I realised it would never be enough, and that the answer I was looking for wasn’t going to come from outside me at all; it needed to come from within.
The puzzle piece of autism I didn’t expect
Following my ADHD diagnosis, I was also diagnosed with autism, but this is something I’d never expected. Based on stigma and stereotypes, I’d always associated autism with a very different presentation from mine. I was sociable, I craved connection, I loved being part of a community with a shared interest. But the more I learnt about AuDHD (the co-occurrence of autism and ADHD), the more I recognised myself.
My special interest is friendship. I love connection, community, and feeling part of something. But I also have a burning need to be alone, to be independent, to carve my own path. I can’t stand injustice, and my empathy for others is profound, yet I can barely extend that same compassion to myself. I want to do things differently from others, but I desperately want to belong. These contradictions, which had always felt like personal failings, suddenly made sense.
And then I began to see how my autism had been hiding inside my anorexia all along.
The eating disorder had taken everything my autistic brain genuinely needed. The structure, routine, predictability, and a sense of mastery, superiority, in fact, I say it was another special interest of mine. My ability to hyperfocus became obsessive calorie counting, my need for control in an unpredictable world became exercise and sensory sensitivities that felt unbearable were numbed by restriction. Autism gave the eating disorder somewhere to live, but this made the autism invisible, because it didn’t look like what people expected.
What my AuDHD diagnosis taught me about anorexia
Understanding that I am AuDHD has changed how I relate to my eating disorder in ways I couldn’t have anticipated.
I want to be the best. Not out of arrogance, but because my brain is genuinely wired for perfection and measurable improvements. The eating disorder exploited this relentlessly, offering me a metric I could obsess over and a standard I could never quite reach.
I thrive in routine, but too much structure becomes its own kind of cage. My AuDHD brain’s genuine need for predictability is real and valid. The eating disorder took that need and turned it into rigidity that kept me stuck for years.
Most importantly: my AuDHD is an explanation, not an excuse. It explains why I sought structure, why I struggled with change, why I craved external validation and found self-regulation so hard. But it is not a reason my eating disorder gets to keep going. Now that I have this understanding, I can hold my own with it. I can offer my brain what it actually needs, without letting the eating disorder be the one to provide it.
Learning to regulate without the eating disorder
One of the most important shifts in my recovery has been learning that there are other ways to regulate a nervous system that feels too loud.
Going back to the things I loved as a child, such as drawing, painting, and cuddling my toys, has been more healing than I expected. I spent years being embarrassed by these things, convinced they were childish, but now I understand that they are simply things that help me feel safe and calm. They are not childish – they are mine.
When I am overwhelmed, I can call a friend, get a big fluffy jumper and a hot water bottle, draw, scrapbook, and remind myself of all those who love me. I no longer need to jump on my bike and cycle until I can’t feel anything or pick up heavy weights to suppress my emotions. Sometimes I love those things, and I still do them, but now they’re part of my toolbox rather than being the only way I can regulate. For me, learning to enjoy movement and using movement to avoid feeling are two entirely different things. Being able to tell the difference is one of the most significant steps in my recovery
Rainbows and all
My AuDHD diagnosis has opened my mind, given me more compassion for myself than I have ever had. I can be kind to myself, honour time on my own without guilt or panic, and still have energy left to love, celebrate, and feel joy.
I am no longer trying to shrink a version of myself I am embarrassed by. I no longer need the eating disorder to give me structure, or compulsive exercise to give me belonging, or restriction to give me a sense of control in a world that doesn’t always make sense. I have better tools now. I understand myself better now.
The crazy rainbow little girl is still here. She just finally has the language to understand herself, and the self-compassion to stop asking her to be anything else.
Hannah is the host of the eating disorder awareness podcast, Full of Beans. She speaks to a range of individuals from those with lived experience, researchers and clinicians, to bridge the gap and raise awareness of eating disorders. Head over to Spotify to listen now!
