Liv Label Free | Neurodivergent Eating Disorder Recovery

In this first episode of the Liv and Kathi coalescence, we let the conversation flow where our souls guide us! We chat about breaking free from past identities, following your intuition, how reality is a collective dream, and so much more. Ready to discover your authentic self with others who genuinely understand the neurodivergent experience of eating adaptations? Join us in 51 Days to Freedom! https://livlabelfree.com/freedom Sign up for Liv Label Free emails! https://livlabelfree.com/join

Livia shares a powerful metaphor to help you take the first step to breaking free from quasi recovery. If you’re ready to take the next step, join us in 51 Days to Freedom! https://livlabelfree.com/freedom Sign up for Liv Label Free emails! https://livlabelfree.com/join

Livia Sara chats with Rachael Herron about creativity, art, and how words will always fail. If you or your loved one are terrified of letting go of the eating disorder identity, this conversation is going to inspire and empower you to become the person you were born to be! Sign up for Liv Label Free emails: www.livlabelfree.com/join

Livia chats with Anna, who discovered me through my book Rainbow Girl, participated in the Autistically ED-Free Academy, and is on her own journey to discovering what freedom looks like after an eating disorder. This episode is the start of a new podcast era in which I leave behind excessive preparation and scripted episodes. Instead, I’m fully leaning into what my soul has been craving most – authentic, raw, & live connection 🫶 Anna and I talk about SO much, including how our evolving stories do NOT have “fairy tale endings,” why “discovery” is a much more powerful term than “recovery,” and why leaving conformity behind is the key to real freedom. 👯 Liv Label Free Membership: https://www.livlabelfree.com/membership📚 Read my books! https://livlabelfreebooks.com

Go on a walk with me as I record another spontaneous voice memo! In this episode, I share my evolving relationship with the podcast format, explaining how I’m craving more live, soul-to-soul connections rather than speaking into the void. I discuss feeling claustrophobic as I try to externally match my internal vastness through words, and how authentic connections through 1-1 Coaching, the Autistically ED-Free Academy, and the Existential Autistic Membership have become infinitely more meaningful than solo recordings. This episode covers my shift away from social media and AI-generated content to focusing on my books and my desire to preserve my speaking energy for live connections rather than scripted episodes. All in all, I’m embracing change and adaptation, moving toward a podcast format featuring guests and genuine energy exchange while being transparent about the everyday struggle of existing as an autistic person beyond the facade of “life is perfect” after an eating disorder. ✨ Existential Autistic Membership: https://www.livlabelfree.com/membership🌈 Autistically ED-Free Academy: https://www.livlabelfree.com/group📚 Read my books! https://livlabelfreebooks.com💗 1-1 Coaching: https://www.livlabelfree.com/coaching

In today's episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on my everyday experience being AuDHD (Autistic and ADHD). I share how trapped I feel in this body, how overwhelmed I am by my own mind, and how masking & giftedness play a role in it all. Discovery resources for you:🎙️ Free audiotraining: https://www.livlabelfree.com/free-audiotraining✨ Existential Autistic Membership: https://www.livlabelfree.com/membership💗 1-1 Coaching: https://www.livlabelfree.com/coaching📚 Neurodiversity-Affirming Books: https://livlabelfreebooks.com Mentioned episodes:Second Puberty & Feeling Trapped in a Body https://youtu.be/xKygJ1lExJgAre Eating Disorders a Form of Autistic Masking? https://youtu.be/6uvYhhN3BzkExistential Nausea (go on a walk with me!) https://youtu.be/cSbmVDWHHQs Episode transcript:Hello my friend and welcome back to the next installment of the Dopamine Diaries, AKA we’re continuing our conversation on ADHD! Because if you listened to the previous motherfucker of an episode on the relationship between autism, ADHD, and anorexia, you know that I’m all about being comprehensive. Because I am a DEEP learner. When I learn, I LEARN. I want to know everything there is to know about the topic I’m interested in. Which is of course why school was so hard for me, why I was quietly dying inside with my perfect grades and constant studying but struggling to keep up with it all because there was never enough time to truly go deep into the material.  And while I had SO many questions, a huge part of masking for me was hiding my curiosity. I was SO afraid of not being liked and of people thinking I was not smart enough, that I didn’t ask questions and just tried to figure everything out on my own. Of course, this can make you feel very lonely, because you’re constantly trying to suppress everything that you are. And while I feel like I’m just going off on a tangent here in sharing how I’m a deep & independent learner and how I grew up masking my curious self, I actually do feel this is super relevant to today’s topic. Because in the last episode I was really focused on the restrictive eating disorder manifestation of ADHD traits, but today I want to pull back the curtain on my personal life and talk about my everyday experience of being an AuDHDer, which is of course the combination of Autism and ADHD. I’ve got SOOO much to say so this is enough of an intro, time to dive in! Okay so where shall we start? Let’s just start at the beginning, I mean that just makes sense, right? But you don’t look like you have ADHD! Well for any of you that know my story and perhaps have read my memoir Rainbow Girl, you know I was the “good girl.” I was the star athlete in all my sports, I got good grades, I was one of the favorite students of all my teachers, and well, from the outside, my life was quite perfect! My middle sister Mae, by contrast, was the troublemaker. She was always losing her homework, going to the principal’s office for not listening to the teacher, and she would make us late for everything. The apparent contrast between me and her could not have been greater. This is why, when I started exploring ADHD for myself after being in the neurodivergent community for a few years after my autism discovery in 2020, my whole family said I *couldn’t* have ADHD. Because whereas my sister would start school assignments past midnight on the due date, I would start 3 weeks in advance to give myself a “buffer” because you know, just in case anything goes wrong. I never misplaced things and I got straight A’s, so how could I claim I had difficulty focusing? Well, I hope you realize I’m being sarcastic because these are precisely the myths that often cause ADHD people to go undiagnosed, especially when autism is also present. Because the thing is that ADHD will present differently in an AuDHD person. For me personally – and it’s actually funny saying this out loud because we often talk about masking in the context of hiding our autism – but I believe that my autism masks my ADHD. And the most prominent way in which this shows up in my life is that my autism has routines that make up for my ADHD challenges. To give a concrete example, there’s the stereotype of ADHD people always losing their keys. Well for me, it’s not that I’ve never lost my keys or always lose my keys or in the grand scheme of things can never find anything, it’s that my autism has routines to always put everything back in the same place. Or to get even more specific, my autism is really good at finding patterns. So if I notice I’ve lost my keys three times in a week, my pattern-seeking-brain will go “Oh no, this has happened three times already! We better create a routine around the keys to prevent further mishaps.” This is why autistic traits are inherently adaptive; because in this example, it’s not that we’re being “rigid” about where we’re placing something, it’s that it probably makes us anxious to do something different every time because then you naturally increase the chances that something could go wrong AGAIN! Speaking of anxiety, nothing makes me more anxious than time pressure. When I was growing up, my family was always rushing, and we were always late to everything (and just to be fair to Mae, this wasn’t only because of her. My mother and father are also ADHD). I despised this so much because I was always ready to go way in advance, and in retrospect, even this seemingly insignificant aspect of our family dynamics could have been part of my feeling like I had no control, which is of course where the eating disorder so conveniently came in. I couldn’t control what people thought of me and I couldn’t control whether we’d be on time, but I could control what I ate and how I moved. Going back to not being able to handle time pressure, this is again where my autism is super adaptive. Because I don’t want to rush, my autism ensures I always have a buffer to be way on time, or as we say it in Dutch, “ruim op tijd” which literally translates to “roomily on time” (yes, I totally just made up the word “roomily” for the sake of a precise translation!). From this perspective, I have often wondered whether someone who presents as autistic and ADHD can even be labeled with the simple amalgamation “AuDHD” – because our experience goes way beyond “pure autism” plus “pure ADHD.” I don’t solely resonate with either label, meaning I feel like it’s almost a unique condition, or rather, a unique way of being. And maybe it’s just me, but don’t you feel that merging two existing conditions – or again, two ways of being – misses the point entirely? Because the point is to represent a unique human being? Anyways, here I go again with my semantic rabbit holes and this is why I always come back to liv label free. Because the truth is, no matter what we call anything, words can never even begin to encompass the complexity of the energy that has coalesced to create the unique human that is you. And as I’ve said before on this podcast and in my books, I’m not against labels. It’s all about the intention behind the label. For example, the label “anorexic” or “disordered” is not helpful because you’re essentially intertwining someone’s identity with something that is not a core part of their being. However, when I use the terms autism, ADHD, and AuDHD to explain my experience so I can connect with you, well now the labels are serving a really important function, right? That being said, this is actually a perfect transition into the next thing I want to discuss which is what I like to call the autism vs ADHD battle. The Autism vs ADHD Battle For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt an internal tug-of-war. My autism craves safety, predictability, routines, and stillness. But my ADHD constantly wants the complete opposite. My ADHD is constantly chasing movement. It wants novelty, which, for me, looks like NEVER being satisfied with what I’m doing. When I’m walking, I want to be writing. When I’m writing, I want to be biking. When I’m biking, I want to be eating. But when I’m eating, I want to be writing! For me, this is where the existential claustrophobia comes in – which, on previous podcasts, I defined as the acute awareness of being a boundless creative that’s confined by the limitations of physical reality. Because I want to do so much and I want to do it all at once, realizing that I can’t actually do multiple things at once AND that this body I inhabit has limits to how much it can do at all causes me to feel really claustrophobic in this human body costume. I literally cannot handle being bored because in moments of stillness, my soul feels like it’s pressing against my physical skin which is obviously so painful. But I think the most painful realization for me is the innate sense of my soul being pure energy – so the concept, dream, vision, soul experience, whatever we’re gonna call it – of being able to create and move and flow all at the same time does not match the physical laws. I know that’s kind of abstract, so what I mean by this, is that in my dreams (or rather, in my soul sense, if you know what I mean, like the part of me that is not bound by physical constraints) that part of me is most creative and writes best when I am running at the speed of light. My most creative ideas come when I’m working out, which has so often made me want to have the ability to write and be exercising at the same time. But of course, this is not physically possible! (And by the way, no, a walking pad or stationary bike is not the same. I literally feel like I need to be sprinting or doing something intense as fuck AND be creating my art at my most intense capacity.) So, I think that is precisely why I always want to be doing something different; it’s because in my soul, I do possess the ability to be doing everything at once. Or if we’re getting real spiritual, I am everything at once! And wow I honestly don’t know how I went from talking about ADHD to my soul being everything, but I guess it makes a lot of sense because this is the essence of the internal battle. The essence is that my essence is infinite, but the human body and nervous system I rely on to exist in this physical world create these boundaries that cannot be pushed. And perhaps that’s what we actually mean when we’re talking about ADHD and autism and giftedness. Maybe what we’re actually talking about is exceptional, remarkable, boundless souls… but because these souls exist within the boundaries of humanness, we present as “disabled.” Well, there’s a ton of food for thought! Autism, ADHD, and Twice-Exceptionality Now, speaking of giftedness, I learned the term twice exceptional – or 2e for short – a few years ago, which is defined as the intersection between giftedness and neurodivergence. In other words, a 2e individual is intellectually gifted but struggles immensely in the physical human world due to being neurodivergent. So if you imagine a Venn Diagram, where one circle is neurodivergent and the other circle is gifted, twice exceptionality is that converging zone in the middle. While this may seem totally irrelevant to our discussion on autism and ADHD, there are a few interesting connections I want to draw which I promise will make all of this make sense. First off, masking. I’ve talked a lot about masking on this podcast, specifically how my autism went undiagnosed for practically my entire life because I was a pro masker. And for anyone who hasn’t read my book Rainbow Girl or hasn’t listened to episodes in which I share the beautiful story of how I discovered I’m autistic (which was through my very first 1-1 coaching client, another reason why I’m SO glad I didn’t wait until I was “qualified” to start helping people), I was actually the one who advocated for the autism diagnosis before it was even discussed with a professional. But that rabbit hole aside, like I said at the top of this episode, I was the “good girl.” I was the epitome of perfectionist, bound to do great things – which, in most people’s eyes, and if I’m honest, my own at the time, meant following the expected path to “success.” Ya know, doing good in school, doing good in more school, then getting into a good school to do good in even more school, and then of course, to get the fancy job so you can show everyone how much status you have. Well, it’s no secret that my eating disorder really threw those plans for a loop, which, as I know many of you resonate with, caused me to feel behind in life. I was literally 21 by the time I finished high school, and I didn’t even go to the graduation ceremony because the whole thing just felt so pointless to me. And while, at the time, others labeled my decision to start my own business as “reckless,” and “impulsive” (which, now looking back, I do think was thanks to my ADHD in many regards, and my taking risks is definitely the ADHD part of me, I think more so than the autistic part of me), that was me learning in the most powerful school of all: the school of life! I’ve also done an entire deep dive episode on how my eating disorder was a mask in so many ways, so if you haven’t already, I highly recommend you check out my episode very creatively titled “Are Eating Disorders a Form of Autistic Masking?” in which I explain 3 types of masking and how this presents across the entire adaptive eating spectrum – so not just anorexia, but also binge eating, bulimia, orthorexia, and ARFID. But what I haven’t ever really talked about, and I honestly don’t think I’ve ever heard this talked about, is how autism can mask ADHD and vice versa. I discovered my autism years before I even considered ADHD because I didn’t present in the typical ADHD way my younger sister did. And that’s because, as I mentioned earlier, my autism compensates for my ADHD challenges in many ways. But that’s again where I think the label AuDHD is quite accurate, is that it really helps us understand – or at least, conceptualize – how in AuDHD individuals, autism is constantly trying to override the ADHD and ADHD is constantly trying to override the autism. Now, it goes without saying that this creates an absolutely exhausting inner world. When one part of your soul is constantly wanting one thing but the other part of your soul is constantly wanting another, it can literally feel like you’re being ripped apart from the inside. Yeah, I know that’s graphic, but that is the closest way to describe what it feels like. And that’s why I say that for me, every day is suffering. I don’t mean that in a pathological, depressing, suicidal way, but more in a, I don’t know, just matter-of-fact kinda way. And I share it with you now because I’m guessing you feel the same way! And for me personally, reading and hearing other’s stories about feeling this way as well made me feel SO much less alone, and in fact, has illustrated to me that the best artists, the greatest creatives, these are the ones who do tend to feel like they are being ripped apart from the inside! Existential Suffering of Being an Artist If you’re a loyal listener of this podcast, I’m sure you’ve heard me mention Franz Kafka before because I swear he’s like my soul brother. If you haven’t read his diaries, oh gosh please do. They’re hella long and a lot of the books are just random experiences he’s had that obviously I don’t always resonate with,  and honestly there are moments when I’m quite uninterested when he’s writing about sitting in the train with his friends or whatever, but because it’s just his raw, stream-of-consciousness writing, there are so many nuggets of resonance in there, a lot of them being about that constant inner battle and just how painful it is to be in a body. He has a quote that goes “I write this very decidedly out of despair over my body and over a future with this body.” And while there are SO many quotes I’d want to share with you right now, I am, once again, physically limited by time and energy and all those constraints, so I want to share another one that is quite relevant to our current discussion: “The tremendous world I have in my head. But how free myself and free it without being torn to pieces. And a thousand times rather be torn to pieces than retain it in me or bury it.” I mean, obviously, everyone has their own way of interpreting such quotes, but I believe it illustrates the impossible choice many gifted neurodivergent people face, which is to either express your vastness and risk being overwhelmed and judged by it, or to suppress it and feel like you’re suffocating your own soul. And what is the eating disorder if not the ultimate suffocation? Now, back to what I was saying about ADHD, and that is that, I think for me, I will always appear more autistic than ADHD just because of course, these labels have connotations and it’s a spectrum of presentations, but part of the reason why I really started chasing the ADHD diagnosis earlier this year is so that I could try medication. And the reason I wanted to try medication is because I hit kind of a breaking point in my distractibility, because there was this slow evolution of my ADHD becoming way more prominent.  But, if you ask me WHY my ADHD is suddenly coming out more, I don’t have one straight answer for you because it’s something I’ve been reflecting on a lot myself. But what I learned in my research is that ADHD symptoms can worsen due to stress, lack of sleep, inconsistent routines, overstimulation, hormonal changes, and well, basically anything in existence. So yeah, that’s not really helpful! Which means I kind of had to draw my own conclusions which ties together all these root causes and that is being in fight-or-flight mode. Because yes, I experience so much stress, I struggle with sleep, I went through a freaking second puberty last year, so hello hormonal changes (and I did do an episode on this a while ago which I will link in the shownotes), not to mention, my routines have been all over the place due to all the moving, evolving existential awareness, and again, everything I’ve been talking about on this podcast! So of course, there are an infinite number of directions I could now go in, but what’s coming up for me right now is the existential claustrophobia because intuitively, this just seems to parallel my increasing ADHD traits. How ADHD Contributes to Existential Claustrophobia So In the past two years especially, I have gotten SO many ideas, I’ve been receiving SO many downloads from the Universe if you will, many more than physical reality will ever allow me to manifest. Well because there’s so many ideas, not to mention the infinite number of ways I can use each of these ideas, my soul just feels like it’s bursting at the seams of this human body costume. And because, naturally, as humans, especially as autistic and ADHD humans, we’re constantly weighing the pros and cons of going in different directions because hello existentialism and wanting to make the “right” decision, we become paralyzed by our own mind, known as analysis paralysis. When your thoughts are running at the speed of light but the physical body can’t match up, execution of anything can feel too overwhelming because you know that no matter what you do, you’ll be “behind” all the other thoughts… and then comes in that existential question of “what’s the point?” which of course just makes everything harder! Pair this with having a hypersensitive autistic nervous system that picks up EVERYTHING on the highest volume and well, no wonder we’re all so freaking burnt out! I think it also explains why so many neurodivergent people procrastinate. It’s not that we’re not interested or that we lack motivation, it’s just that we want to do SO much while having this acute awareness that we’ll never be able to do it all anyways, and because we also often think in black and white, it’s like “Well, if I can’t do it all anyways, I won’t do any of it!” And OHHH this perfectly circles back to twice exceptionality because this lack of execution due to the overwhelm of your own nervous system due to being neurodivergent is exactly why so many gifted individuals struggle to do anything with their gifts. Especially when you experience your giftedness as pressure, which we talk about quite a bit in the Existential Autistic Membership, you just become crushed by the pressure and will do anything to try to escape it. And ohmygosh, add PDA onto that, and well hello eating disorder and fear of growing up and being healthy, because as long as you stay small in every sense of the word, well then you can avoid responsibility, which also means you can avoid doing anything with your gifts! But now you may be wondering, how does giftedness and twice exceptionality relate to our discussion on ADHD? Well, I did promise this would all make sense, so here goes. It’s no secret that more ADHD people and more autistic people are gifted than neurotypical people are gifted. I almost feel like neurodivergence is the cost of giftedness…like the Universe couldn’t make it too easy for us to be gifted, so it created this world where most people are neurotypical and shallow and are practically sleepwalking through life. And then us neurodivergent aliens were placed on this Earth to literally have the opportunity of a lifetime, which is to express our gifts and create our art and to find and connect with fellow neurodivergent beings…but of course, no journey comes without challenges, so our challenge of this lifetime is turning our MESSes into our MESSages, aka learning how to navigate this messy, scary, and overwhelming world in a way that respects our neurodivergent traits. That being said, when the Venn Diagram has all those masks going on, from giftedness masking autism to autism masking ADHD to ADHD masking giftedness, well the more neurodivergences you add to this equation, the more masking that can happen and the more an individual will struggle to express their artistic self. Well, THIS is precisely why it is so important that we learn to recognize and accommodate neurodivergent traits, because the world needs our gifts, the world needs us to be operating at our maximum potential. And that’s exactly what I help you do through 1-1 coaching, the Existential Autistic Membership, and all the other content I put out. I am an artist and this is my art. It’s not easy. In fact, it’s often very painful. But it’s also what I know in my heart is what I was put on this planet to do. That being said though, I believe neurotypical people are afraid of artists. In fact – and full credit to Anna from the Existential Autistic Membership for instilling this insight into me – I think that neurotypical people feel threatened by neurodivergent people. I mean, we all know the system demands conformity. It wants people to follow the rules and to fit into the boxes society has made up. Anyone who doesn’t fit into those boxes threatens the system because their existence challenges the established order. And since the system must protect itself, just like an ego in a way, the system turns the tables by labeling those who don’t conform as “out of order.” Rather than being curious as to how neurodivergent humans bring necessary creativity and innovation, society pathologizes difference to maintain the status quo. And on that note, in the next installments of this ADHD series, I will be sharing how I experienced this pathologization and misunderstanding to the max with my psychiatrist who thankfully did diagnose me with ADHD, which we’re gonna talk about what that process was like, but we’re also gonna be talking about my experience with ADHD medication as an autistic person. Because my oh my, that has been a wild freaking ride. So, be sure to subscribe to the podcast wherever you are watching or listening, rate and review the show if you haven’t already, and I’ll talk to you in the next episode. Bye bye for now!

In this first installment of Dopamine Diaries, Livia Sara unravels the overlooked connection between autism, ADHD, and anorexia. You’ll learn how dopamine differences create a neurodivergent vulnerability for engaging in anorexia behaviors, including restriction, compulsive exercise, ADHD hyperfocus, and constantly thinking about food! Further resources:📚 Neurodiversity-Affirming Books: https://livlabelfreebooks.com✨ Existential Autistic Membership: https://www.livlabelfree.com/membership💗 1-1 Coaching: https://www.livlabelfree.com/coaching📖 Free Extreme Hunger Guide: https://www.livlabelfree.com/extreme-hunger-guide🎙️ Free Autism and Eating Disorders Training: https://www.livlabelfree.com/free-audiotraining Mentioned episodes:Autism and Binge Eating: https://youtu.be/V1Ut5spEVHsBut Restriction Helps Me Focus! https://youtu.be/_MHB8y9qackBlack & White Thinking in Autism and Anorexia https://youtu.be/TpDAEncit2YAutism, Anorexia, and Metabolism https://youtu.be/xsOBtfY9CcAIs it harder for an autistic person to recover? https://youtu.be/jh7kYLOpUcM Episode transcript:Ok my friends, we need to talk about something that I literally have never heard anyone talk about but (at this point) it comes up with almost every one of my clients, because almost every one of my clients isn’t only autistic but is also ADHD. So what we’re gonna be talking about today is the connection between ADHD and anorexia. And I’m super excited to finally be diving deep into this connection because most of the information on neurodivergence and eating disorders is still quite binary. Supposedly, autism is linked to anorexia and ARFID (Avoidant-Restrictive Food Intake Disorder), while ADHD is linked to binge eating and compulsive overeating. While, of course, these links are valid and true, where’s the nuance? Why is no one talking about how autistic people struggle with binge eating or how ADHDers struggle with restrictive eating disorders? Well, I’ve already done a whole series on autism and binge eating on this podcast, so now I’m starting a series on how those of us who are autistic and ADHD interact with food and movement. In this first episode specifically, I’m unpacking the overlooked connection between autism, ADHD, and anorexia through both scientific research and lived experience as an AuDHDer with a history of anorexia nervosa. We’ll explore how core anorexia symptoms like restriction, compulsive exercise, and mental hunger can be better understood through the ADHD lens, and what this understanding means for more effective approaches to recovery – or should I say, discovery? Whatever term you prefer to use on your unique journey, let’s get to discovering! Busting the Dopamine Myth: Wanting vs. Liking Before we get to any of the specific ADHD and anorexia overlaps, we need to bust a common myth about dopamine. Many people believe that dopamine floods our brain when we engage in rewarding activities. I mean, this is why ADHD people are constantly seeking stimulation, right? Because they constantly want to experience reward? Well, not quite. In reality, dopamine isn’t primarily responsible for pleasure or satisfaction. Rather, it’s at the foundation of anticipation and motivation. What this means is that a dopamine surge happens not when we experience the reward itself, but during the anticipation phase right before we obtain it. This “wanting” versus “liking” distinction is critical to understanding both ADHD and eating disorders. In ADHD brains – and autistic brains too – dopamine is lower when compared to neurotypical brains, which obviously creates a specific vulnerability. Us AuDHD folks experience intensified “wanting,” but a diminished “liking” of the actual reward, which creates a perpetual cycle of seeking satisfaction without ever feeling satisfied. This is why so many ADHD people do experience binge eating and compulsive overeating – in these cases you’re constantly wanting the food to stimulate you in a way that your brain and nervous system are never satisfied with. So that’s the binge eating angle. But again, why is no one talking about the dopamine high – the euphoria – that you get from engaging with anorexia or bulimia? Why is no one talking about how addictive restriction is, how the anorexia is never satisfied, and so you keep setting new “precedents” around food and exercise? Because I don’t know about you, but for me, the eating disorder made me feel superhuman. I was able to numb out everything that didn’t directly support the eating disorder, including the existential questions, my relationships, and, well, everything else that makes life meaningful. So I’m going to elaborate on all of this later in today’s episode, because right now I really want to emphasize this concept of numbing and how it applies to the full spectrum of disordered eating behaviors, which I have termed The Adaptive Eating Spectrum (TAES). So even though anorexia nervosa and binge eating disorder seem like the epitome of contradiction, the underlying mechanisms – especially in neurodivergent people – aren’t actually different. Whether someone restricts food or eats too much of it, the root of the behavior is to numb and escape. It’s an escape from sitting with the discomfort of being a soul so infinite, so vast, and so boundless that being in a human body feels like being trapped in a cage. The eating disorder – or as I like to call it, eating adaptation – is a way to numb yourself from the existential thoughts, the fear of being wrong in this world, and the perpetual anxiety that arises as a direct result of navigating a world that wasn’t built for your neurodivergent nervous system. How My Autism Manifested as Anorexia Nervosa If you’ve been around for a while, you know that I’ve talked plenty about how I believe my autism manifested as an eating disorder, or again, eating adaptation. My need for predictability turned into strict eating schedules and rigid exercise routines. My sensory overwhelm turned into fear of weight gain. My fear of being healthy – and, more specifically, being healthy in a female body (we’re talking boobs, butts, and periods) – manifested as trying to stay as small as possible. It hasn’t been until more recently – due to, ya know, being a lifelong learner, being relentlessly curious, and constantly asking WHY – that I’ve started reflecting on eating disorder behaviors through an ADHD lens. (And major shoutout to all my clients right now, because none of these insights I’m sharing would have occurred to me without the meaningful conversations I’ve had, and continue to have, with other neurodivergent beings.)  It’s worth disclaiming here that my personal experience of anorexia in relation to both ADHD and autism will always be skewed because I’m not purely ADHD or purely autistic. I’m AuDHD, which means the autism and ADHD are interlinked, and it’s this interlinking that creates the unique conditions for my unique experience of, well, everything! Including my history of disordered eating. And I am planning on recording a dedicated episode about how my autism and ADHD are constantly battling each other, which obviously creates its own set of difficulties, eating disorders aside. But obviously that’s a story for another day, so back to the main topic of today which is ADHD and anorexia. In fact, now it’s time to get juicy because we’re starting off with the infamous claim “but restriction helps me focus!”? But Restriction Helps Me Focus! The reason I’m starting with this restriction and focus aspect of the ADHD-Anorexia connection is because I’ve done an entire episode and blog post with this title on the Liv Label Free Podcast before, so I definitely encourage you to listen to that episode if this is a topic you resonate with. But what exactly do autistic and ADHD people with eating adaptations mean when they say restriction helps them focus? How can this even be true? Doesn’t everyone say that eating more and recovering will improve your focus? Well to answer all those questions, we need to start by debunking the belief that this statement is used to “lie” or “manipulate.” Because I’m sure we’re all familiar with the idea that weight gain is a top priority when someone is malnourished because a malnourished brain equals a brain that cannot think clearly, right? This understanding lies at the root of why so many people with anorexia who aren’t autistic may display autistic traits. Not because their anorexia has caused autism or they are now becoming autistic, but because the brain simply does not have enough energy to process information that it doesn’t deem necessary for survival. (And I do explain this energy trade-off in my book How to Beat Extreme Hunger and in my episode on Black & White Thinking, so do go check those out if you haven’t already!) Because the brain does not have adequate energy to consider a vast array of options, it narrows its focus to what can be easily grasped. Enter the ability to hyperfocus on meal plans, calorie counts, exercise routines, and watching What I Eat in a Day videos, but getting a full-blown panic attack when your mom can’t read your mind of how many almonds you always put on your oatmeal when you test her to make sure she still loves you (because hello codependency, which is a whole nother topic, and if you want to read more about my experience with this, go do yourself a favor and grab a copy of my book Rainbow Girl!). It’s worth clarifying that just because a malnourished brain mimics an autistic brain in many ways, this obviously does not mean that an autistic brain is inherently a malnourished one (and yes, I am well aware that many health “experts” have their own theories about how diet causes autism and ADHD and other bullshit like that, but we’re not even going to get into that here for obvious reasons.). Well, to be fair, nutrition can help improve the more disabling aspects of neurodivergence – such as anxiety and depression, which have everything to do with the gut-brain connection, which is why I created my cookbook Nourishing Neurodiversity! It’s no rocket science that the autistic brain processes more stimuli more intensely, which also means it uses more energy (so yes, it burns more calories!) compared to neurotypical brains. And there have been scientific studies on this as I shared in my podcast a while back on Autism, Anorexia, and Metabolism, although it’s worth putting a large footnote here that the research is significantly lacking, and is, no surprise, incredibly biased towards males because, again, people across the entire gender spectrum are being left out. It’s this heightened sensory processing that leads to an overstimulated brain. Merging this with what I said earlier about adequate energy – because all of the brain’s resources are being directed towards dealing with the bombardment of stimulation – there’s simply no energy left for other tasks – including social interactions, executive function, and even digestion. So, no surprise most neurodivergent people experience challenges in these areas. Add the trauma of disordered eating to the mix, and, well, I’m sure you have your own lived experience to calculate the results of this complex equation. When your body and mind are overwhelmed in every way possible, we seek that escape I mentioned earlier. People who present with restrictive eating disorders such as anorexia or ARFID will avoid food, adhere to rituals and routines, fidget excessively, engage in compulsive movement, and isolate themselves. Someone who isn’t familiar with neurodivergence may hear these behaviors and think “Clear signs of an eating disorder!” But if you are even the slightest bit familiar with my work and approach, you know that one of the greatest dangers of traditional eating disorder treatment models is that they completely misunderstand the fact that in autistic people, the “ED behaviors” are merely a manifestation of the autistic traits. And if there’s also ADHD in the mix, the “ED behaviors” are a manifestation of that as well, which is of course what we’re talking about today. Myths About Autism and Eating Disorders In my recent episode titled “Is it harder for an autistic person to recover?” in which I debunk 3 myths about autism and eating disorders, I talked about how there’s this belief that you can’t diagnose someone with autism (or ADHD) when they have active anorexia because anorexia behaviors allegedly mimic autistic traits. So like I just said, these may include strict adherence to rituals and routines, compulsive pacing or other exercise, excessive fidgeting like leg bouncing, and I’m sure you have other examples coming up right now because there are so many. And I’m sure I don’t have to repeat that this claim that you can’t diagnose neurodivergence in someone with an active eating disorder is problematic for SO many reasons…because the obvious implication of this belief is that we’re not even going to consider the person as autistic until they’re “recovered” from anorexia, which, as we all know, the medical people equate to being “weight restored.” They claim that the person will magically start “thinking clearly” once they’re no longer starving, but this logic is so twisted! Why? Because they somehow forget the fact that someone developed the eating adaptation before they were already starving, meaning that the starving brain is not necessarily the driver of anorexia. I mean, someone decided to diet or exercise or what have you because they needed a way to feel safe in the world. See how it’s an adaptation? They adapted their behaviors to reduce overwhelm. What makes the medical people’s “weight gain needs to come before the mental work can start” logic even MORE twisted is that an individual actually needs to address the underlying fears and root causes in order to start accepting weight gain. I mean, how do we expect someone to even begin doing this when we aren’t acknowledging the possibility of underlying autism and/or ADHD (and other conditions, for that matter)? This awareness could allow us to make accommodations to help them reach a point when their brain does start functioning better, state of nutrition aside! Well, here comes the plot twist, my friend, which circles back to the claim that “anorexia helps me focus.” Eating Disorders are Protective Mechanisms The plot twist is that many people with eating disorders secretly don’t want their brain to start functioning better. Why? Because a healthy brain for us autistic and ADHD folks means a brain that’s overwhelming. A brain that’s constantly asking those existential questions. A brain that’s constantly confronted with awareness itself. And if you listened to my spontaneous “go on a walk with me” episode in August 2025, you may remember my sharing of my experience with this confrontation with consciousness as existential nausea. When your sole focus is food, and in a way, the eating disorder is almost serving as an autistic special interest, you don’t have the mental capacity to think about anything else! You’re numbed from the existential questioning because anorexia creates the ultimate answer to everything. You don’t have to face the responsibilities that come with being healthy, or if we go further, being a meaningful member of society. You don’t have to face your own vastness and creative potential, and what about all those ADHD bouncing balls in your head? Well, because there’s not enough energy in the brain, the bouncing balls can’t bounce as high or as fast. When we view the eating “disorder” from this perspective, wow, how adaptive that someone with ADHD and/or autism would develop anorexia! Of course, this isn’t to say that starving yourself is a positive adaptation. When an adaptation becomes maladaptive, that is to say, it hinders your ability to lead an authentic life, the behaviors are no longer sustainable. Even more than that, they’re destructive to both the individual and everyone around them. Because I’m obviously not here to promote restriction. There’s a reason I chose to recover! My mission here is to help you understand why you or your loved one may feel so addicted to the eating disorder so that you can create your own “why” for leading a meaningful life. So, in a nutshell, anorexia is addictive because it’s the tried-and-true method of transcendence. It’s a way to distract yourself from physical reality, to quiet the constant autistic and ADHD noise that can be so goddamn overwhelming. Trust me, I know. Because I experience that noise all day and night long, my friend. I dread going to sleep due to that confrontation with consciousness, and even when I’m sleeping, I have all the thoughts! I don’t know about you my friend, but I have VERY intense dreams and a lot of neurodivergent people I speak to say the same thing. I find this very fascinating because no joke, I literally did not dream when I had an eating disorder. Now that I think about it, it’s probably because my brain was just too tired to come up with stories. Wait let me rephrase that, because if you’ve read How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery, you know that that entire book is about the whole idea of the eating disorder and the recovery identity being stories in and of themselves, and the power in acknowledging this is that it creates space for writing a new story – the story you actually want to be part of. So if you haven’t yet read How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery (or listened to the audiobook), grab yourself a copy at livlabelfreebooks.com or on Amazon, and grab the Discovery Workbook while you’re at it! Now going back to the dream thing, because my entire body, including my brain, was operating in survival mode during anorexia, when I woke up, I just hadn’t dreamt of anything. But on the rare occasion that I did dream, it was almost always a nightmare of me eating food that wasn’t allowed or it was me not being able to go on my run because my parents had a court order placed on me to force me into treatment. In fact, I once woke up at 3am sweating and having heart palpitations because I had dreamt about eating an entire kilogram bag of pepernoten, which are Dutch spice cookies, and they are oh so good. And oh my god, me eating that entire bag had felt SO real. Of course, that’s what made the extreme hunger so terrifying because my binge nightmares had literally become a reality; and if you want to read more about my experience with this, grab a copy of my book How to Beat Extreme Hunger! By the way, now that I’ve mentioned all my books anyways, you can actually get a bundle discount when you buy them all directly from my website livlabelfreebooks.com, so go do that if you’re curious. Anorexia as Autistic Hyperfocus Anyways, now that we are talking about hunger, I feel it just makes sense to talk about another ADHD & anorexia link which is hyperfocus. Specifically, hyperfocus on food, which is basically mental hunger right? And oh god, the restriction high because hellooo dopamine. Now, if you’re listening to this, chances are you know what mental hunger is…but just in case you’re new here or you’re a caregiver and are like “Wait, what?” let me briefly explain. Mental hunger is exactly what it sounds like: it’s being hungry and having your hunger cues be mental. It’s constantly thinking about food, mentally counting calories, shifting food items around in your mind to create the “perfect” balance. And thinking about exercise all the time can be a form of mental hunger too if you’re wanting to move more so you feel less guilty about eating. One of the biggest fears of my clients is that mental hunger is just a “bad habit,” like a negative thought loop you’ve conditioned yourself to be stuck in. They fear that giving into their mental hunger will make them an “emotional eater,” and OH NO, we don’t want that! So instead of surrendering to our body’s innate wisdom, we micromanage our food and exercise habits and tell ourselves the story that we can’t be trusted. But again, that’s all it is – a story. And this is why, in my courses and coaching programs, we really dive deep into the stories you’re telling yourself and the limiting beliefs you’re convinced are the absolute truth, because the real truth is that your biggest fears are just lies. Sure, they’re protecting you, but they’re equally shielding you from living the life you know in your heart you are capable of living. As autistic, ADHD, or AuDHD people, we WANT to have a special interest. We WANT to hyperfocus. It’s how we channel our energy, the way we transcend this shallow world and enter our own creative dimension. As I write in How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery, I believe we are all artists. That’s why we’re on this planet. To create art so we can connect and contribute. But of course, this is also where the possibility of failure comes in. Because how do you know that your unique creations won’t be judged and shamed? How do you know people will even like you? There’s no proof, because, well, welcome to life! So what do you do? You adapt. You pick a hyperfocus that’s predictable, and well, welcome to eating disorder land, and later on, the land of quasi recovery! So how do we break free? How on Earth can you recover when your hyperfocus is food? Well first, we must acknowledge that restriction is going to make you hyperfocus on food whether you’re neurodivergent or not. This doesn’t make you special, it just makes you a mammal whose only priority is survival. The brain obsesses over what it can’t have, which is why you spend your days dreaming about food while not trusting yourself to actually eat enough of it. When you prove abundance to your body and brain, you’ll simply have no reason to hyperfocus on food. I know that might sound unimaginable, especially because you’re probably listening to this while simultaneously planning what you’re going to eat next or how to “balance out” what you just ate, but my clients and I are living proof that you can fully recover and fill your life with true meaning and purpose. You can fully recover and discover your gifts, and yes, even use your gifts to help others, even if that feels like a lot of pressure. This is all part of the meaningful suffering, the life worth suffering for. So if you’re listening to this and are like “No, but I need proof first! I need to know for certain that I won’t swing to the other side if I honor my mental hunger!” please do yourself a favor and grab a copy of my books How to Beat Extreme Hunger and How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery. Literally the first chapter of my quasi recovery book is titled “knowledge” and the accompanying Discovery Workbook helps you create a life where you’re living ON PURPOSE. To be clear here, this isn’t about finding a “replacement” for your eating disorder because the eating disorder is nothing but emptiness itself. Rather, this is about creating a life you don’t need to escape from. Because again, THAT is what the ED is. It’s an escape! It’s nothing but a giant distraction from your true self. And by the way, if you’ve already read my books and have completed the exercises in the workbook and you still feel stuck, well then schedule a discovery call for 1-1 coaching to receive support directly from me! Or if you’d like more affordable options, check out my courses and memberships The Role of Exercise in Anorexia and ADHD Now, all that being said, damn we’ve covered a lot so far. And now that we have covered everything we just did, it’s time to move onto another real important connector of ADHD, autism, and anorexia which is exercise. Because oooohhh this was a big part of my eating adaptation and it is for most of my clients. And it’s SO misunderstood in eating disorder treatment. I mean, one of my clients even told me she got reprimanded for bouncing her leg while sitting. Like WTF?! Anyways, it is SO important to understand how compulsive movement, or, as you may know, I like to call it adaptive movement because it completely changes the game for ED recovery. So I do have multiple chapters on exercise in my quasi recovery book, and I have done two previous podcast episodes on exercise addiction so I’m just gonna jump straight into the connection to ADHD and autism now. The first thing that’s coming to mind is how exercise is one of the top recommendations for improving ADHD. Why? Because we all know exercise releases dopamine, and my theory is that the exercise addiction in anorexia is just a form of self-medicating. When you compound this with the hypervigilance – so being in constant fight-or-flight mode due to being neurodivergent – exercise is a way to release that energy. It’s a form of stimming, which is short for self-stimulatory behavior, or as I prefer to call self-regulatory behavior, because that’s the entire point of it: to regulate your nervous system. During my eating disorder, the running and the pushups and the HIIT workouts and everything in between, these things weren’t about weight loss or trying to burn calories. The intensity was a biological drive to release stress, and the strict adherence to distances and times and sets and reps was to maintain predictability and routine. When I was forced into eating disorder treatment, I did secret exercises in the bathroom, and even these were not truly “ED behaviors.” The secret exercises were literally just my PDA because I wasn’t gonna let anyone tell me what I could or couldn’t do. Oh my god, so this is probably one of the longest solo episodes I’ve ever done, and you bet I’m gonna be using some of this in the book I’m currently writing about anorexia and autism, because my time is valuable and honestly, what a waste if I don’t repurpose this! But that’s just me, always optimizing, just like I know you are my friend. Anyways, I do hope you loved this episode, I hope you got a lot out of it, and if you did, please leave a positive rating and review for the podcast! Or if you’re listening on YouTube, subscribe and like and do all the things. It’s a completely free way to support my work and helps other people find the show. And of course, if you want more help, head over to my website livlabelfree.com where you can buy my books, join my courses and membership, and of course, work with me privately. I hope to talk to you soon and otherwise, I’ll be back in your ears for the next episode. Bye bye for now!  

Welcome to this Liv Label Free meditation! I’m Livia Sara, an autistic eating disorder recovery coach that’s here to help you turn your MESS into your MESSage. Today, I’m delighted to guide you through this meditation designed for autistic people struggling with eating disorders. It’s a connection that’s hugely misunderstood, which is beyond unfortunate because of how common autism and eating disorders are! My promise to you with this mediation is that you will feel validated and that you will walk away with at least a teensy tiny bit of hope. Because you are absolutely not alone, my friend. Freedom from disordered eating is already out in the Universe waiting for you. Your unique version of a healthy relationship with food is already swirling through the cosmos, waiting for your powerful neurodivergent essence to collide with it! But of course, that can be difficult to imagine, let alone to trust, when you feel stuck. When you feel like food is your only coping mechanism. When you feel that food and exercise are your only way of numbing from this overwhelming world not built for you. So that’s what we’re going to explore together today. Through your breathing and intention, and my guidance, we’re going to regulate your nervous system together, and we’re going to create the space for YOU to create a life you don’t need to escape from. Which is a life of safety. Because when you feel safe, there’s no numbing necessary. 💗 1-1 Coaching: https://www.livlabelfree.com/coaching ✨ Existential Autistic Membership: https://www.livlabelfree.com/membership 🎙️ Free Audiotraining: https://www.livlabelfree.com/free-audiotraining

Do you ever have a conversation with someone where you talk about SO much that you have no idea what you talked about afterwards? Well that’s literally the experience I had with Rosie in today’s podcast episode! Rosie contacted me around this time last year after she had completed my free audiotraining “3 Steps to Recovery From an Eating Disorder as an Autistic Person.” She’d already gotten so many insights from that training that we decided to work together through 1-1 Coaching, and we’ve been best friends ever since! We both felt it only *made sense* to have her come on the podcast to talk about ALL the things, including: Rosie’s lived experience of an eating disorder as an autistic person How eating disorders are adaptive safety mechanisms rather than about weight loss or body image Why freedom isn’t about “recovering from” an ED at all, but rather, about creating a life worth suffering for Even I got super vulnerable in sharing how my life AFTER an eating disorder is actually way more challenging than when I was struggling with anorexia – but how this is precisely what we mean when we talk about creating a meaningful life! 📚 How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery: https://livlabelfreebooks.com💗 1-1 Coaching: https://www.livlabelfree.com/coaching✨ Existential Autistic Membership: https://www.livlabelfree.com/membership🎙️ Free Audiotraining: https://www.livlabelfree.com/free-audiotraining

In this episode, Livia Sara unpacks the following 3 myths about autism and eating disorders: It’s harder for an autistic person to recover from an eating disorder You can’t diagnose someone with autism if they have an active eating disorder Autistic people can’t eat intuitively You’ll also hear a preview of two chapters from Livia’s newest book How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery, which you can buy here: https://www.livlabelfree.com/quasirecoverybook Book a discovery call for 1-1 coaching: https://livlabelfree.com/coaching Mentioned episode: What if My Autistic Traits Weren’t There Before My Eating Disorder? Blog post of this episode: https://www.livlabelfree.com/blog/3-myths-about-autism-and-eating-disorders