How I Got My Period Back After Anorexia: A Recovery Journey with Hypothalamic Amenorrhea

At eighteen years old, I experienced something that most girls go through at twelve or thirteen – I got my first period. After seven years of living with anorexia, seven years of my body being unable to trust that I would nourish it properly, seven years of my growth being completely stunted, I finally reached this crucial milestone in my ED recovery journey. While it was a moment of victory, it was equally a moment of fear. Now that I had balanced my hormones, what came next?

If you're reading this, you might be someone struggling with hypothalamic amenorrhea, a parent watching your child navigate this challenge, or a healthcare provider seeking to understand your patients better. Maybe you're an athlete who's lost their period, someone in eating disorder recovery waiting for the first signs of getting your period back, or are simply trying to understand why your or your loved one's menstrual cycle hasn't started yet. Whatever your experience, I want you to know that healing is possible.

In this post, I'll share my journey of recovering from hypothalamic amenorrhea, including the surprising gift of growing two inches taller after getting my period back (yes, really!), the six essential steps that helped me restore my period, and what life looks like now as an autistic woman navigating PMDD. 

The Hidden Layers: Understanding Anorexia Through an Autistic Lens

I was just eleven years old when I was diagnosed with anorexia. What the doctors didn't see – what my parents, teachers, nor me understood then – was how undiagnosed autism shaped my relationship with food, exercise, and an outward need for control. As I describe in my book Rainbow Girl, my eating disorder was never about food or body image. It was a mask, a coping mechanism for the overwhelming sensory experiences and existential pain that came with being an undiagnosed autistic girl trying to fit into a neurotypical world.

My competitive athletic background provided the perfect cover. Who would question a young athlete's dedication to nutrition and training? The rigid routines, the precise measurements, the strict schedules – these weren't just symptoms of an eating disorder. They were expressions of my autistic need for predictability and control, manifesting in the most destructive way possible.

Why Does Anorexia Stunt Growth and Cause Missing Periods?

On the outside, I was the picture of athletic dedication, training hard and watching my nutrition. Inside, my body was fighting for survival. From the age of eleven to eighteen, my physical development stopped completely. While my peers navigated puberty and growth spurts, my body remained frozen in time, using every sliver of energy it received just to keep my heart beating and lungs breathing.

Although I was well aware as to why I wasn’t developing like everyone else, the ways in which I believed my eating disorder protected me outweighed my desire to grow taller. In recovery, this remained a prominent theme. I knew – logically – that I would have to gain horizontally (so to speak) before gaining vertically. But taking action on this logic was, of course, a whole nother story.

The magic of our bodies is that they cannot be fooled. You can try to trick yourself into satisfaction by eating high-volume, high-protein, sugar-free, light versions of your favorite childhood foods. You can try to trick yourself into believing you’re a “foodie” by roaming the supermarkets like they’re museums and browsing menus that you’ll never order off. You can try to distract yourself from mental hunger by drinking more water and blaming your constant food fantasies on “bad habits.” But ultimately, all you’re doing is trying. You’re not actually achieving anything aside from a meaningless existence.

While you’re busy immersing yourself in stories wrapped up in fear, your body is doing everything it can to ensure your survival. Your metabolism slows, your heart rate decreases, your digestion moves down the priority list, and of course, the very energetically costly cycle of menstruation comes to a grinding halt.

I delve into this concept of energy conversation and how to deal with the changes that accompany anorexia recovery in my book How to Beat Extreme Hunger, but essentially, any bodily processes that are not absolutely essential for human survival become luxuries the body simply can't afford.

Why Getting Your Period Back After Anorexia Is Worth the Struggle

The reason you’re reading this post right now is because, like I was, you’re sick and tired of being controlled by the fear and limitations of an eating disorder. Yes, it may be protecting you from gaining weight and the belief that you can’t handle the responsibilities that come with being healthy, but it’s equally shielding you from the possibility of leading a meaningful life. That’s exactly how I felt years ago.

In July 2017, I decided I couldn’t rely on the eating disorder anymore. I wanted to create a life that was actually worth living, which meant making peace with weight gain and rest. After six intense months of eating thousands upon thousands of calories and remaining absolutely sedentary, I reached the highest weight I’d ever been in my life. Not only had I achieved the point of “weight restored,” but I’d overshot my weight. My body felt so foreign to me that I wanted to crawl out of my skin. Yet I kept reminding myself of everything else I had gained: mental clarity, energy, and a new lust for life.

At this point, I was playing a waiting game with my menstrual cycle. I was doing everything “right” by taking the hard actions that my eating disorder wanted to shoot me for. But to quote my book Rainbow Girl, I hadn’t come this far to only go this far. Healing hypothalamic amenorrhea was one of my biggest motivators for eating disorder recovery. It was the reason I used to eat copious amounts of sweets and the reason I used to lay on my bed all day, reading blog posts led by search queries including “how to get period back after anorexia” and “steps to recover from hypothalamic amenorrhea.” But more than researching how to regain my period after years of over exercising and under-eating, I was searching for permission slips to do what deep down, I already knew had to be done.

Of course I knew that getting a period wasn’t going to be a pleasant experience. I mean, there’s no denying that an absent period is one of the “perks” of having anorexia! Add my autistic hypersensitivity and PMDD onto that, and well, I think many autistic people who get periods can agree that menstruation is a neurodivergent nightmare! Yet despite the fear that loomed around the prospect of being healthy and having a regular cycle, an innate part of me knew that there was no sustainable way to fight my female physiology. Menstruation hasn’t been called the “fifth vital sign” for nothing!

From Recovery to Discovery: Moving Beyond Period Restoration

In July of 2018 (precisely a year after I committed to real recovery) I got my first period. As I describe in my book Rainbow Girl, this was a time of contradiction. I was over the moon (no pun intended) about having achieved this incredible milestone, yet at the same time, I felt a loss of direction. Up until that point, my period had been the sole reason to eat more and take time off exercise – it had been the reason I used to challenge the eating disorder.

But now, since I was “healthy” and had a period, I genuinely did not know what my next purpose was. This is when I found myself turning to external validation once again, falling prey to diet cultures messages in a completely new way. I believe “orthorexia” would be quite a fitting description of my behaviors at this time, which is an obsession with eating only “clean” foods that is often accompanied by strict routines around movement. During my orthorexia phase, I was adhering to rigid food rules that perhaps weren’t as “severe” as when I was emaciated, but were equally harmful. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that being in this state of “quasi recovery” is more torturous than having an eating disorder. Why? Because not only are you suffering mentally and physically, but you’re now also suffering in silence. Because you may “look healthy” on the outside, no one can see how much you’re still fighting for your life.

This is why the label atypical anorexia is so harmful. Many people with this diagnosis believe they’re not sick enough, and thus believe they don’t deserve help. The truth is that this ideal of being “sick enough” to have an eating disorder is itself nothing but a trick. For “sick enough” isn’t an objective observation – it’s a symptom of the eating disorder, a driver of the endless chase that ultimately leads to death.

On that note, it’s worth mentioning that some people with anorexia never lose their period. This is yet another reason why they may believe their restriction “isn’t bad enough” and thus, their eating disorder isn’t “valid.” But again, this search for being “valid” never ends. Meaning, the only way to get off the path towards self destruction is to stop searching for meaning in external circumstances and instead, create meaning within yourself.

True, sustainable recovery goes beyond any tangible achievements. As I’ve alluded to, every achievement will only be followed by the yearning for yet another achievement. This is why I prefer the term discovery over recovery. More than healing from anorexia or orthorexia or hypothalamic amenorrhea or any of these labels, the journey is about discovering who you are at your core – your true being – without the external identities you’ve become so wrapped up in.

When Orthorexia Leads to Hypothalamic Amenorrhea: The Hidden Risks of "Clean Eating"

Similar to how my anorexia began in 2011, my obsession with "clean eating" after getting my first period was built on illusion. I thought I was protecting my health, maintaining the progress I'd made. Instead, I was creating new chains. Ever since my new commitment to clean eating, there were zero signs of a second period – clear evidence that I hadn't truly healed my hormones after all.

The mental hunger persisted, a constant companion demanding attention. Exercise urges continued to rule my days. Slowly, a heavy resignation settled over me: maybe this was just my life now. Maybe I would always have to "manage" my eating disorder, like the professionals had warned. The thought of this being my forever reality felt suffocating. Had they been right? Was I destined to spend my life in this exhausting dance with food and exercise rules?

In October of 2018, my body decided it had enough of my "clean eating" rules. I experienced extreme hunger for the first time, which, it goes without saying, was one of the most terrifying experiences in my entire anorexia recovery journey. My days were spent eating, eating, and eating a bit more. I couldn’t stop bingeing on everything I had labeled as “junk” and would stuff myself until I felt like I was going to explode. I sincerely believed I had broken my body and was now developing binge eating disorder.

How Extreme Hunger Helped Me Get My Period Back

A month after my first encounter with extreme hunger, I got my second period. This time felt different than the first. Instead of the bittersweet mixture of triumph and fear I'd felt with my first period, this one came with a deeper understanding. My body wasn't just checking off a recovery milestone – it was showing me it could trust me again.

This isn’t to say that the weight gain was suddenly easy. Far from it. Every day felt like a battle between mind and body, and my mind was stricken with doubt about whether or not honoring the extreme hunger was even the right course of action. But I had no other choice; every time I even thought about restricting, I was met with an extreme hunger episode. My body was protecting me, and it would do everything in its power to ensure I didn’t go back to my anorexia days.

Second Puberty and PMDD: An Autistic Woman’s Experience

Over the next few years, I struggled to accept my body that was slowly but surely developing into a woman. As an autistic person, body changes felt especially overwhelming. My sensory sensitivities meant I noticed every subtle shift. New curves changed how clothes felt against my skin. Developing breasts stripped me of the possibility of leaving the house without a bra on. Every change demanded adjustment, creating a constant stream of sensory information that my autistic brain struggled to process. But I began to understand that fighting these changes only increased my suffering. The more I resisted my body's natural development, the more overwhelmed I felt. Gradually, I learned that acceptance – while challenging – brought more peace than resistance ever could.

The puberty-related challenges didn’t end there. My periods became increasingly difficult, and I eventually discovered I have PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder) which I talk about at length in my post on Extreme Hunger and PMDD. The hormonal fluctuations affected me intensely, amplifying my autistic sensitivities during the luteal phase. But even this diagnosis helped me understand myself better. My struggles weren't me being “dramatic” – they were real, physiological experiences that deserved compassion and accommodation.

Growing Taller After Recovering From Anorexia

As I continued to nourish myself adequately, something remarkable happened. I noticed I didn't feel quite as short as before. So I decided to measure my height, and I had grown two inches since committing to recovery! My body, that now had evidence of abundance, completed the growth that anorexia interrupted years ago. This growth spurt in my early twenties, as well as going through a “second puberty,” is proof that bodies retain their healing capacity far longer than we might expect.

To anyone fearing that recovery in your late teens or early twenties is pointless because you've missed your "vital growth window,” I hope my story shows you otherwise. Our bodies are incredibly capable of healing, even years after damage. But this healing can only begin when we give ourselves permission to listen to and honor our body's needs.

6 Steps That Helped Me Recover From Hypothalamic Amenorrhea

When I was deep in my ED recovery journey, I desperately searched the internet for concrete steps to heal hypothalamic amenorrhea. While everyone's path is different, there are fundamental principles that create the foundation for hormonal healing. Through my personal experience of recovering my period twice – first from anorexia and then from orthorexia – I discovered what truly works beyond just following a mechanical set of rules.

These steps aren't just theory. They're the practical actions that not only helped me regain my period but also maintain healthy cycles long-term. More importantly, they address both the physical and mental aspects of recovery, because true healing requires more than just changing your behaviors – it requires transforming your relationship with your body.

1. Eating More Than You Think You Need

When I was in eating disorder treatment, my meal plan quickly increased to 4,000 calories daily. This wasn't arbitrary – my body needed this abundance to repair years of damage. Even after weight restoration, I had to continue eating well beyond what felt "normal." Remember, getting your period back requires not just reaching a healthy weight, but maintaining it consistently enough that your body trusts you again.

2. Accepting Weight Gain

This was perhaps the hardest part. I gained over thirty pounds initially, and then more during my extreme hunger phase. The weight gain wasn't just about numbers on a scale; it was about allowing my body to develop into its biologically primed blueprint. Your body knows what it needs to menstruate. Trust it.

3. Drastically Reducing Exercise

I had to let go of my identity as the "athletic girl." I stopped running completely and limited myself to gentle walks and basic stretching. This wasn't forever, but it was necessary. Your body won't prioritize reproduction if it believes you're in a state of constant stress or danger.

4. Challenging Food Rules

Getting my first period wasn't enough. As mentioned above, I lost it again when I fell into orthorexia. True recovery meant letting go of all food rules, even the ones disguised as "health." This meant eating foods I'd labeled as "bad," eating when I wasn't hungry, and often eating past fullness (this is something I still do as an autistic person who struggles with interoception!).

5. Addressing Underlying Stress

Understanding my autism helped me recognize why I found certain situations so overwhelming. I learned to manage sensory overload and social stress in healthier ways. Remember, stress isn't just about food and exercise – it's anything that puts your body in a state of alarm.

6. Practicing Patience

My first period came eight months after weight restoration. The second one took another few months. Even now, my cycles aren't always regular, and that's okay. Healing happens on your body's timeline, not yours. Some people get their period back quickly, others take longer. Neither experience is more valid than the other.

The key thing to remember is that these steps aren't a checklist to be completed – they're a complete shift in how you relate to your body. Recovery from hypothalamic amenorrhea isn't just about getting your period back; it's about creating an environment where your body feels safe enough to function as it's meant to.