 The Thoughty Autie podcast. Now, being able to bridge that gap between eating disorders and autism, a gap that I'm learning is so, so important and such a strong link that's so common. I mean, I wouldn't want to do any other work in the world because it lights me up more than anything helping others find their own freedom. What aspects of autism, like autistic traits, could impact the development of like an eating disorder? What are like the crossovers that really stand out to you? Yeah. So the first one that comes to mind for me is Interceptive Awareness, and I mean, I'm sure you've talked about interception on the podcast before, but in short... You know what? I don't know if I have. I don't think I've even made a podcast about Alexa Fine. Yeah, I really need to like do something related on that. Maybe I have. Maybe. But yeah. There's been a few episodes. Because I'm sure you've mentioned it like a couple of times. I probably mentioned it. It probably wasn't like one of the topics. Right. But anyways, yeah, for the listeners that maybe don't know, interception in short is the sense through which we monitor the inner state of our body. So whether we know whether we're hungry or thirsty or too hot or too cold, or whether we need to go to the bathroom or not, like that's all regulated by our interceptive awareness. But autistic individuals, as well as those with eating disorders, often tend to lack interceptive awareness. So we may not be able to recognize a physical hunger as easily, or we also may be unable to recognize when we're full or when we're satisfied, which can of course make eating and nourishing yourself really, really difficult. Definitely. Like even with stuff like hydration and going like... Yeah. Going to the bathroom, you know, like there's been many times looking back in my life where I've just got into this, this crazy like hyper fixation rabbit hole of just like working from morning to like early hours in the morning. And I just, I start working and then like, my God, my stomach is like absolutely churning and like making all these noises. And I haven't been to the bathroom much today either. And I've been drinking like loads and loads of water. I'm just like, how did I not realize? Right. Yeah. Well, I think that for me, for an example, like doing, doing eating disorder treatment, I was like, I'm never hungry. Like I did not feel physical hunger and they, they'd accuse me of lying, right? They'd be like, that you're eating disorder talking. But I'm like... Psycho, psychosomatic. Right. And I'm like, and I'm like, that is so harmful now that I think like you were telling me I was lying to a little 15 year old girl that was just telling the truth. Like, I mean, it's just so, so awful. So yeah, that's like... Space is medical gaslighting, like... Totally. Totally. Yeah. So that's a big one is that lack of interoceptive awareness. And because, I mean, if you're unable to recognize whether you're hungry or not, like it can cause, it can lead to unconscious restriction, but also on the other end of the spectrum, I think it can also lead to overeating. If you don't, are unable to recognize when you are sadistic, when you fall, like you'll just keep eating until you feel like you're going to burst. And you're like, oh, maybe I ate a bit too much, right? So I've experienced like both sides of that. Like when I was younger, didn't have like hardly any hunger. Like I would, I mean, I would eat enough, but I would eat like really like high calorie dense foods. So I just wouldn't have like a lot of bulk in like what I was eating. Whereas like nowadays starting this, this medication, metazepine, which I think I've talked to you about before. It's like, it's, it's for anxiety and depression and stuff. And it's like a sedative and it helps you sleep. But one of the side effects for a lot of people is that it stimulates your appetite. And like soon as I was on that, like my weight just went straight up. I started like binging at night. I like the only real way that I can tell that I'm full when I've had my tablets is if my stomach hurts or like it feels sick. Like. Yeah. And I think for me, like that was a really strong experience that I had when going through extreme hunger. Cause when I, when I was coming out of energy deficit, after years of restriction, I mean, I always say like I was used Newton stood law, which Newton, I think, by the way, was autistic, but his, his stood law states like for every action, there was an equal and opposite reaction. And I think it's the same for restriction and binging, right? Like if you've spent a long time not eating enough malnourished, then like, yeah, you are going to need to eat a lot of food to make up for that and almost compensate for this, this buildup of energy debt that's been happening to your body. So for me too, it literally felt like even though I didn't feel like a physical hunger, I guess, like it was just like my, my body was like this invisible force that was like calling me to eat and eat and eat until I literally couldn't eat a bite anymore. Cause I felt like I was just going to like explode. And I was also like relieving that mental pressure, isn't it? It's like if you go, yeah, especially when I was competing and stuff, if you go for like days and days and days or weeks and I'm sorry, even years of like doing daily intense cardio and like eating barely enough. And it's like when you, when you stop doing that, you're like, oh my God, I can eat what I want. And you know, it's like you go the opposite way. You're just like, right? Cause your body like has completely lost trust with you. And the only way to gain that trust back with your body is to prove to your body like there's enough food, like you're allowed to rest. And, and of course here, a lot of times what we, what I see with clients is that when they come, come from a history of restriction, usually anorexia, bulimia or orthorexia, really any kind of restriction, there's this huge fear when they're hit by this wave or like tsunami that sweeps them up of like, you need to keep eating. They have this huge fear like they're going to gain weight forever, right? They're going to become obese.