What If I Can't Handle Being Healthy?

"What if I can't handle being healthy?"

This question haunted me for years, echoing through my thoughts each time I contemplated recovery. It wasn't about the food, the weight, or even the physical aspects of health – it was about what being "well" would mean. Because being healthy meant being responsible. It meant facing a world that already felt overwhelming, but this time without the protective shield my eating disorder had become. If you or someone you care for resonates with this fear, this post explores how eating disorders can become a way to avoid growing up, especially as a neurodivergent person in a neurotypical world. By understanding the complex relationship between autism and anorexia, you'll discover why choosing to recover isn't just about letting go of behaviors – it's about redefining freedom on your own terms.

Autism and the Fear of Growing Up

When I was eight years old, I told my mom I didn't want to grow up. This was quite the paradox, considering I had always been "an old soul on young shoulders." While other girls my age imitated doll voices and held imaginary tea parties when it was someone’s birthday, I spoke to their parents about the meaning of life and how my school performance would set the stage for my entire future. (Wow, I was putting so much pressure on myself!)

“She’s so wise beyond her years,” one would say when I headed off to draw another symmetrical rainbow or castle. “Yeah, she talks so well with adults,” said another. Why did I feel such intense pride when I overheard these observations? This sense of "superior maturity,” for lack of a better term, was how I compensated for the inadequacy I felt of not fitting in due to being undiagnosed autistic.

When Eating Disorders Become a Coping Mechanism for Autism

Of course, this wasn't the only way I tried to make up for never feeling good enough. I wanted to be the best at everything – from school to sports to wanting everyone to like me, although the irony was that I didn’t like being social at all. The fourth and fifth grade (in the US, I was age ten/eleven) were especially tough for me in that regard, because that’s when I became an outsider to a cliquey group of girls from my soccer team.

I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just fit in, why I didn’t enjoy talking about make-up or gossip or all of the other things that became the entire world of my sisters at that age. So when we started learning about health and nutrition in fifth grade, it was like a domino that would eventually cause me to topple into an eating disorder.

Anorexia and the Fear of Being Healthy

The eating disorder added another complex layer to the initial fear of growing up: the fear of being healthy. Anorexia was yet another way I attempted to (unconsciously) compensate for my innate feelings of being different and inadequate. It gave me a sense of purpose and meaning at a time where I felt lost and confused. It made me feel superior when I ate less than others and exercised more than them. But perhaps the best part of all: anorexia kept me “young.” In a very literal sense, I stayed the little girl that kept telling her mom she didn’t want to grow up.

While my classmates were going through puberty, my body remained frozen in time. Just like a plant doesn’t grow when it lacks water and sunlight, my growth window was boarded up by the restrictions and limitations of the eating disorder. This board on my window protected me from the outside world, from the responsibilities that accompany being well. But as soon as a boundary is defined, it has two sides. There was the side of me that felt safe and protected in this self-contained snow globe, but at the same time, I knew I was shielding myself from the sunlight that’s necessary for living life in full color.

I denied the cons of the eating disorder for many years. To do so would be to remove the board that was blocking the sunlight from coming in, sunlight that I didn’t know I would be able to handle. What if it was too strong? Too painful? There was no way of knowing – so better to stay inside, a space that I’ve already proven I can handle. Although the eating disorder slowly turned from a shelter into a cage as the years went on, it was familiar. And in the end, humans tend to choose familiar pain over the unfamiliar possibility of ease. We tend to choose the pain we already know we can handle rather than the pain we have no guarantee won’t be worse.

The Unique Challenges of Eating Disorder Recovery for Autistic Individuals

The fears around growing up and being healthy in eating disorder recovery are often elevated in neurodivergent people due to the fact that we are already navigating a world that wasn’t built for us. Instinctively, we know there’s a good chance our way of doing things won’t be accepted. So we take measures to avoid having to do these things at all. It goes without saying that PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance, or rather Pervasive Drive for Autonomy) can play a major role here. Escaping into the land of eating disorder allows us to escape the demands of not only society, but also the demands of our bodies. And when we escape from these responsibilities, we also can’t “fail’ at them.

It’s this fear of failure that often underlies an autistic person’s existence. If you’re anything like me, you’re an existential thinker that’s constantly questioning your purpose on this planet. Perhaps, you’re constantly weighing your options, doing mental gymnastics trying to find the “best” course of action, and generally approaching everything in a systematic way because the anxiety that comes with the prospect of removing the boundaries is too overwhelming. I feel you. I used to live in constant fear, and this fear ended up controlling my life. That being said, I’m not against boundaries. In fact, I believe boundaries are at the heart of living a meaningful existence. To quote Rainbow Girl: “I always believed that a life of freedom was the equivalent of living without limits. When I discovered I am autistic, I learned that freedom means knowing my limits and respecting them without judgment.”

(While we’re sharing Rainbow Girl quotes, here’s another one from the chapter “Identity Crisis” that is particularly relevant to today’s topic: “I missed aspects of my life that the eating disorder had given me. I missed the excuse that I was too sick to complete a school deadline. I missed the excuse that I was too tired to attend certain events. I missed the excuse that I would have a panic attack if others didn’t listen to how I wanted things to go. I was now responsible for my actions; I was no longer the victim of an illness. This put even more pressure on me, as I didn’t know who I was – let alone who I would become – without the very thing I had carried for almost half my life.”)

Finding Freedom Through Boundaries: An Autistic Perspective on Recovery

Curiosity is the key that unlocks the door to love, safety, trust, abundance, and all the other aspects of healing. When we open ourselves to discover which boundaries align with each unique human, we can show up as our unmasked selves. Just like the banks of a river are what allow the river to keep flowing without spreading itself thin, setting boundaries (not only in recovery, but also in life) allows you to contribute in the most meaningful way possible. Yet it’s this contribution that requires you to take responsibility – including the responsibilities that come with being healthy.

The Price of Freedom

The American writer and philosopher Elbert Hubbard said that “responsibility is the price of freedom.” Many of us, including those struggling with eating disorders, choose to stay stuck in the miserable familiar because it feels safer. When the identity becomes so intertwined with anorexia, it becomes impossible to view yourself as anything other. Who will you be without the eating disorder? Because there’s no way of knowing, you continue to tell yourself the story in which you are the powerless protagonist. As long as you can blame your inaction on the illness – or any external identity for that matter – you get to keep being a victim. But here’s the thing about victims: they don’t take responsibility.

If you’ve already decided that you can’t recover, it’s worth considering why you made that decision and what would help you unmake it. Is it because you’ve tried before, and failed? Is it because you need proof of the outcome? Is it because you need to find a replacement before you can fully let go? For years, I said I can’t recover because it’s too overwhelming. I said I can’t eat more because I’ll feel too full. I said I can’t rest because it’ll make me too anxious. But if I really couldn’t recover, eat more, or rest, I wouldn’t be alive today. The reason I am alive today is because I stopped validating my victimhood. I stopped enabling the behaviors of my toxic partner, anorexia. I turned “I can’t” recover into “I’m choosing not to recover.” The moment I admitted that, I had reclaimed my power and could finally say “I’m done being a victim.”

Breaking Free: Moving from Victim to Empowered Recovery

Sure, being a victim feels safer – it always will. Yet it’s this same sense of safety that will continue to take your freedom as long as you keep enabling your eating disorder. You will indeed lose the “buffer” between yourself and the responsibilities that accompany being healthy, but can you even imagine what will come in its place? You probably can’t. Which is precisely where the most magical forms of discovery happen.

To be free, you will have to take responsibility. For neurodivergent individuals, this means not only challenging the eating disorder but also embracing our authentic ways of being in a world that often misunderstands us. You will have to turn “I won’t recover” into “I will recover.” And ultimately, “I will recover because I want to recover – on my own terms, in a way that honors my neurodivergent identity.” These shifts changed my life. Not only was this mindset work the key that unlocked me from my eating disorder’s prison, but it’s what allowed me to pour my heart and soul into building a business that gives me the freedom to write these words for you. This freedom comes at a price. There are many trade-offs I must make each day so I can focus on what’s most important. But this isn’t about me. It’s about which price you are willing to pay: the price of an eating disorder or the price of freedom?

Want to dive deeper into creating a life of freedom as an autistic person in anorexia recovery? Grab your copy of my book Rainbow Girl, in which I pull back the curtain on how my autistic identity transformed my ED recovery journey.