Liv Label Free | Neurodivergent Eating Disorder Recovery

In today’s group podcast, participants share their perspectives and experiences in response to the following questions: Does the food noise ever go away? How to deal with mental hunger and the constant desire to restrict in ED recovery? How to support your loved one as they transition back home after being inpatient? Is it okay to NOT eat mindfully in autistic eating disorder recovery? What are distractions that can make eating easier and less stressful? As always, this conversation was filled with deep connection, compassion, and understanding. Want to join our monthly group podcast? You get direct access via the Liv Label Free Membership or after you’ve completed any of my coaching programs! Check out all my offers: https://www.livlabelfree.com/coaching

Many parents come to me seeking support for their autistic child struggling with an eating disorder only to discover they’re part of the lost generation of autistic parents! In today’s episode, I chat with Felicity, a mum of two who’s passionate about all things art, movement, and creativity. Felicity shares how she began questioning her own neurodivergence when she joined my Autistically ED-Free Academy, how she’s rebuilding trust with her daughter after the trauma of traditional ED treatment, and the importance of going on your own discovery journey as a caregiver. 🌈 Autistically ED-Free Academy: www.livlabelfree.com/group📚 Rainbow Girl: A Memoir of Autism and Anorexia: www.livlabelfree.com/rainbowgirl🎧 Free Audiotraining: www.livlabelfree.com/free-audiotraining

Four years ago, Amy started 1-1 coaching with me, desperate to support her autistic daughter who was struggling with anorexia. FBT had failed the family and Amy just felt so LOST! But through learning neurodiversity-affirming support strategies, Amy’s daughter has now taken significant steps on her discovery journey. In this episode, Amy shares priceless insights to support your autistic loved one with an eating disorder. 💗 Work with Livia: https://www.livlabelfree.com/coaching🎧 Free Audiotraining: https://www.livlabelfree.com/free-audiotraining🌟 Amy’s Website: http://neurohopecoach.com/

Today I’m joined by Julia, my former 1-1 coaching client and now my right-hand person behind the scenes at Liv Label Free! In this episode, Julia shares her story for the first time: from feeling misunderstood and struggling within the healthcare system to finding clarity, self-understanding, and a completely different way of relating to herself. Together, we talk about eating disorder treatment, neurodivergence, and what actually creates lasting change. Key Topics Discussed:  Julia’s journey and how she and Livia ended up working together  Why traditional treatment often doesn’t work for neurodivergent people  What MFT (Multi Family Therapy) is, and why it felt traumatizing for Julia  The moment Julia discovered she’s autistic  Why autonomy is so important for neurodivergent people in eating disorder recovery  How 1-1 coaching with Livia changed everything for Julia 🫶 Work with Livia: https://www.livlabelfree.com/coaching 📚 Buy Livia’s books: https://livlabelfreebooks.com/ 💗 Find us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/livlabelfree/ and https://www.instagram.com/juuls_healingjourney/

Most eating disorder professionals overlook autism. Yet even if they do recognize it, there’s a gap in understanding the nuances of just how autistic traits intertwine with eating disorder behaviors. For this reason, many autistic people are invalidated, traumatized, and stamped with countless labels including “hopeless,” “manipulative,” and “too complex” while trying to get help for their eating disorder(s). Just like me, they’re often told they’re never going to get better and that they’ll just have to “manage” an ED for the rest of their life. If you or someone you care for is currently struggling with food, exercise, and their body, I’m here to tell you from the start that full recovery is 100% possible for ANYONE. But here’s the catch: you have to want it. In this episode, I share my story growing up undiagnosed autistic, how this led to the development of an eating disorder, and what I did to tip the scales (no pun intended) from being terrified of recovery to actually WANTING to do whatever it took to find freedom from my eating disorder. It goes without saying that there’s only so much I can cover in a podcast episode, so if you want to dive even deeper into the complex connection between autism and eating disorders, be sure to grab a copy of my book Rainbow Girl: https://www.livlabelfree.com/rainbowgirl Want to discover your unique version of neurodiversity-affirming freedom? Save your seat in the Autistically ED-Free Academy: https://www.livlabelfree.com/group Blog post of this episode: https://www.livlabelfree.com/blog/autism-and-anorexia-my-ed-recovery-story

In this episode of the Liv Label Free Podcast, Livia discusses demand avoidance in autism and how it can influence eating behaviors and eating disorder recovery. She explains what Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) is, why basic needs like eating can sometimes feel like overwhelming demands, and how this can lead to avoidance around food and eating disorder treatment. Livia also explores the shift from viewing PDA as “pathological” to understanding it as a Pervasive Drive for Autonomy, highlighting why language and perspective matter. Finally, she shares practical strategies for caregivers and individuals to support recovery in ways that respect autonomy, reduce pressure, and foster collaboration. 🌈 The Autistically ED-Free Academy is open! Save your seat here: www.livlabelfree.com/group📚 Rainbow Girl: A Memoir of Autism and Anorexia: www.livlabelfree.com/rainbowgirl

Family-Based Therapy (FBT) is often hailed as the “evidence based” and “gold standard” treatment approach for anorexia patients. However, FBT can be severely traumatic for autistic individuals. In today’s episode of the Liv Label Free Podcast, Livia explores the harm of FBT, including theft of autonomy (especially harmful for individuals with PDA!) and the danger of prioritizing weight gain above all other aspects of eating disorder recovery. Livia also discusses how the core principles of FBT can unintentionally increase distress for neurodivergent individuals, whose eating disorders are often tied to needs for predictability, safety, and autonomy. Through both lived experience and insights from working with families, she highlights why one-size-fits-all treatment models may fall short and why more neurodiversity-affirming approaches are needed. 🌈 The Autistically ED-Free Academy is open! Save your seat here: www.livlabelfree.com/group📚 Rainbow Girl: A Memoir of Autism and Anorexia: www.livlabelfree.com/rainbowgirl

Season 3 of the Autistically ED-Free Academy is OPEN! 🎉 In this special group podcast, previous Academy participants share their experiences, including:  Why traditional eating disorder treatments can be traumatizing  How respecting autistic traits transformed parent-child relationships and saved lives  What it looks like to unmask and discover who you are beyond the eating disorder identity  How reframing eating disorders as “adaptations” creates compassion instead of shame  The power of authentic connection with people who truly understand you and your loved ones If you’re ready for an approach that helps you rebuild trust by honoring neurodivergence, save your seat in the Academy today 👉 www.livlabelfree.com/group

This is one of my favorite conversations on PDA to date! Livia Sara and Allyson Inez Ford sit down to discuss the connection between demand avoidance and eating disorders in neurodivergent folks, highlighting the importance of autonomy and purpose on the discovery journey. Key Topics Discussed:  Why traditional eating disorder treatment fails people with PDA  The need for meaning and purpose beyond abstract recovery goals like “food freedom”  How eating disorders create boundaries in a boundless world and serve as distractions from existential overwhelm  Why shifting “recovery” to “discovery” helps remove the pressure that healing has to look a certain way  How the “why” for discovery must be self-defined, not externally imposed 📚 Read my books! https://livlabelfreebooks.com💗 Work with Livia: https://www.livlabelfree.com/coaching🌿 Work with Allyson: https://www.eatingdisorderocdtherapy.com/

In this vulnerable episode, Liv opens up about how her OCD has resurfaced since moving back home. Liv and Sharon also discuss how traditional treatments for OCD and eating disorders fail neurodivergent people when the approach isn’t person-centered. 📚 Read my books! https://livlabelfreebooks.com💌 Sign up for my newsletter! https://livlabelfree.com/join👯 Liv Label Free Membership: https://livlabelfree.com/membership My episode on Sharon’s podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CUp3I6AqyQ Connect with Livia: https://www.livlabelfree.com/contactConnect with Sharon: https://www.instagram.com/unmaskingsocial1/

How much of your existence is shrouded in resistance? Something a lot of us gifted autistics feel resistance towards is the needs of the human body. Food, water, sleep, bathroom… Every bodily demand feels like an interruption, a violation of autonomy. As Kathi shared in today’s group podcast, her father literally says “I want to decide when I want to eat. I don't want my body to tell me when to eat!” If you have PDA (officially “Pathological Demand Avoidance” but I prefer the term “Pervasive Drive for Autonomy”), rejecting bodily needs is an attempt to preserve autonomy. Through this lens, the eating disorder – the ultimate rejection of bodily needs – can almost be seen as an extreme manifestation of PDA. Of course, the paradox is that the ED itself is a violation of autonomy…because when your every next move is decided by the ED force, well you ain’t so much “in control” anymore, eh? In today’s episode of the Liv Label Free Podcast, we dive DEEP into eating disorders and PDA, as well as: How diagnoses help validate our struggles Intergenerational patterns of resisting bodily needs Why mental hunger is a legitimate hunger signal (Kathi shares a great metaphor!) Franz Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist” and existential loneliness Why recovery requires surrender before proof I know how “claustrophobic” it can feel to be an infinite soul contained in a human body costume. But as I’ve been reminding myself lately, suffering is amplified by resisting what is. XO Liv P.S. Want to join these live group calls and connect with other neurodivergent beings on this discovery journey? The Liv Label Free Membership includes 3x monthly group calls, 24/7 WhatsApp support, my extreme hunger course, continued access to the Autistically ED-Free Academy, and hours of previously recorded coaching calls. 🌈 Join the Autistically ED-Free Membership: https://www.livlabelfree.com/membership 🎙️ Listen to my free audiotraining on Autism and Eating Disorders https://www.livlabelfree.com/free-audiotraining

Teddie is finally on the podcast! As promised in last week’s episode, I’m reading the short story I wrote about wanting to recover but not gain weight. 💌 Sign up for my newsletter! https://livlabelfree.com/join👯 Liv Label Free Membership: https://livlabelfree.com/membership📚 Read my books! https://livlabelfreebooks.com🧸Read the blog post of this episode: https://www.livlabelfree.com/blog/i-want-to-recover-but-i-don-t-want-to-gain-weight-a-teddie-story

This might be the most vulnerable episode I’ve EVER recorded! Just me, a camera, and whatever came out. Watch for a behind-the-scenes peek of my two massive writing projects, why I’m done polishing the podcast, and what “unmasking around yourself” really means. Also: Teddie the autistic alien is coming to the podcast!! 👽🔥🌈 💌 Sign up for my newsletter! https://livlabelfree.com/join 👯 Liv Label Free Membership: https://livlabelfree.com/membership 📚 Read my books! https://livlabelfreebooks.com 💗 1-1 Coaching: https://livlabelfree.com/coaching

You know what’s been missing from the podcast space? A GROUP podcast where neurodivergent aliens with ED lived experience come together to share their struggles & insights. Because let’s be real, there’s nothing more validating than hearing from others that have the EXACT same thoughts as you… Which is why I’m beyond excited to share that myself and past Autistically ED-Free Academy participants have launched that group podcast! In this first episode, we discuss why eating disorders are distractions from our creative potential, the fear of emptiness in quasi recovery, and how we’re one quantum system in different bodies communicating through a collective unconscious energy field 😍 Want to join our live group calls AND get access to a shit ton of other neurodiversity-affirming resources? Everything is now part of the Liv Label Free Membership! When you join, you’ll get instant access to: ✅ 3x monthly live group coaching calls (including 1x monthly pod!) ✅ Private WhatsApp group for 24/7 support ✅ Full access to my extreme hunger course ✅ Full access to hours of recorded coaching calls (including Academy group calls!) The membership is the most affordable way to get access to me and my community! And if you sign up for the annual plan, you get a FREE 1-1 coaching session with yours truly 🥰 Sign up here: https://livlabelfree.com/membership I’ve been pretty tired of existing lately, but authentic CONNECTION is what makes life worth suffering for 💗🌈✨ With love always, XO Liv 💌 Sign up for Liv Label Free emails! https://livlabelfree.com/join 📚 Read my books! https://livlabelfreebooks.com

Happy 2026 my friends! It’s been a while since I recorded a solo episode, but it feels ✨aligned✨ again, so here we are! In today’s podcast, I share 5 things I’ve left behind in 2025 so that I can step more fully into my BEING. 💌 Sign up for my newsletter! https://livlabelfree.com/join👯 Liv Label Free Membership: https://www.livlabelfree.com/membership📚 Read my books! https://livlabelfreebooks.com💗 1-1 Coaching: https://www.livlabelfree.com/coaching Autistic Burnout and Energy Q&A:  https://www.livlabelfree.com/podcasts/liv-label-free-neurodivergent-eating-disorder-recovery/episodes/2148905858Neurodiversity-affirming meditations: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPe4yiySjHmHZt_BU0YFpDZO92JBVhyqt&si=z70HW_uPxftU5QY5

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

Livia answers a listener question about how to get rid of headaches, tinnitus, and dizziness in anorexia recovery. Want more? Find my books, courses, and coaching programs at livlabelfree.com Episode transcript: Hello my friends, well today is another Q&A episode and today’s question comes from jellyfish1093 on YouTube and they asked if I could do an episode on physical and mental symptoms no one talks about when in anorexia. And obviously there are an infinite number of things no one talks about – or rather, not enough people are talking about – when it comes to eating disorders, especially when said eating disorders intertwine with autism and LGBTQ+ identity and chronic illness and all the other things that well, no one talks about! And by this point, I do hope you know that a huge goal of mine with this podcast and with my books and my courses is to shed light on these underserved topics because they’re things I wish I had known during my own recovery. They’re the things my family wished they’d known because they would have been better able to support me. They’re things that all healthcare professionals SHOULD know so that they can help individuals unleash their full potential rather than trying to treat a “disorder” that’s merely a manifestation of, again, everything no one talks about. Anyways, all that being said, because we’ve of course gotta have some direction, I replied to jellyfish1093 asking if they could elaborate on what stage of recovery they’re in and specifically what symptoms they wanted me to talk about. And here’s what they replied:  “I’m currently in quasi recovery. My weight is very low and I am still exercising every day and struggling immensely. I am eating 4 meals a day but have been experiencing headaches, dizziness, tinnitus, and other symptoms like brain fog, extreme anxiety and depression. I also have Autism. Just looking to find hope that if I can fully recover that these symptoms can go away. For 4 years I have been trying to find out why these symptoms are happening but now I am wondering if they are all related to anorexia? Just trying to find hope. Thank you.” Well we’ve got a lot to get into and I am super excited to get into it because, as you may have guessed, I did some research (which basically means I went into multiple research rabbit holes, a very autistic trait, I might add) and I paired my findings with my own lived experience and those of my clients to now bring you this podcast! So buckle up because I’m going to take you on a journey to what I’ve learned so that hopefully, jellyfish1093, this gives you hope, and to anyone else with similar experiences, I hope this gives YOU hope as well. So without further ado, let’s dive in! Alright so we need to establish the facts first. Based on what jellyfish1093 (I freaking love saying that username so thank you for gifting me this opportunity to have a laugh), we’re going to establish as a fact that you are malnourished. Your weight is low, you’re engaging in exercise that you probably shouldn’t be, and you’re not eating enough. So, you’re in a state of energy deficit. Quasi recovery aside, the fact is that your body is depleted. And the fact that I’m really hammering this down right now is because when the body is in a state of energy deficit, nothing can function correctly. And I mean nothing. Because the truth is that the human body is nothing more than a living organism that uses energy and requires that energy to be replenished. And if that energy replenishment – AKA eating and drinking – is hard for you, trust me, I am right there with ya my friend. The amount of times that I have wished that I could photosynthesize, the amount of times I have wished this body didn’t even have needs. The amount of times I have wished I didn’t have to drink or eat or sleep or shower or clean or whatever it is that we have to do on a daily basis just because we have bodies…my god, it’s fucking exhausting. But all those feelings aside, the bottom line is that we do have bodies. And these bodies do have needs. So what happens when we don’t give our body what it needs? What happens is that the body goes into energy conservation mode. It does everything humanly possible (no pun intended) to not use up its limited resources. Now, I’m not going to elaborate on the science behind this too deeply because I literally wrote an entire book called How to Beat Extreme Hunger explaining energy deficit and how this leads to energy debt and why extreme hunger is your body’s attempt at getting you back into homeostasis, and of course, in that book I also share my lived experience around all my recovery fears including mental hunger just being a bad habit, that I would become addicted to food and develop binge eating disorder if I gave into my extreme hunger, and of course, I share how to make peace with weight gain because I’m autistic and philosophical and the whole “oh just love your body and appreciate what it can do for you” NEVER resonated with me because to be honest my friends, I still feel hella trapped in this body. I mean for real, it’s too freaking constraining and demanding. But we’re not gonna go there right now because we were gonna talk about headaches and dizziness and tinnitus and all the things jellyfish1093 has asked about. But yeah, shameless plug for all my books right now because they’re awesome and I worked really hard on them and you can find them all at livlabelfreebooks.com or on Amazon. But now back to the episode and why it’s so important to understand that energy deficit AKA restriction causes the body to try and conserve energy is that this energy conservation causes all kinds of symptoms that, to put it bluntly, fucking suck. You weaken your digestive system which means that when you start eating again in recovery you’ll feel really sick and bloated. You starve your brain which means that there will be imbalances in ALL the neurotransmitters, so hello anxiety and depression. And if you compound energy deficit with being autistic, which I’m just gonna go off on a limb here and say you probably feel permanently burnt out just trying to navigate a world not built for you, well when you take all these factors into account, well no wonder you’re in so much pain all the time. But here is the plot twist: You’re not broken. You don’t need to be fixed. What you need is to create safety within yourself and your environment. But that’s of course just the overarching message of all of this. Because essentially, the trauma caused by being autistic in a non-accommodating world compounded with the trauma of an eating disorder, while ironically being the ED being a trauma response in and of itself, well all of this just creates a never-ending spiral of fight-or-flight mode, which is incredibly energetically demanding, and thus not sustainable.  So how does all of this connect to anorexia symptoms, specifically headaches and tinnitus? Well, there are a lot of different kinds of headaches, but for me personally, my headaches were always tension headaches. This might sound kinda weird, but I felt my headaches from the front of my head all the way down to my lower back and this is because I carry so much stress with me all the time, and honestly, I still do. But when you are malnourished, your body is way more fragile so everything you experience is going to be experienced on infinitely high volume. This is why we have zero flexibility when we have eating disorders. The body and brain simply do not have enough energy to consider other options. So hello black and white thinking and what is often termed as “rigid” thinking. Now of course there’s nuance to this because autistic people often already have difficulty with change. So again, add malnutrition to that, and you’ve practically just turned that autism dial up a few notches. This is also why many people who are not autistic can actually display autistic traits during active eating disorders. But again, that’s a whole nother topic which you can learn more about in my Autistically ED-Free Academy at livlabelfree.com/group or you can book a 1-1 coaching session with me at livlabelfree.com/coaching if you’d like to work with me privately.  So, jellyfish1093 and anyone else listening, I don’t know what kinds of headaches you’re experiencing or if there’s anything that makes them worse or better, but what I do know is that restriction is fueling your fight-or-flight response, which scientifically speaking can cause headaches! Why? Well, your body perceives restriction, so energy deficit, as a famine. When you’re not eating enough, your nervous system believes there aren’t enough resources. I mean, why else would you be starving yourself? As I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, a lack of resources is one of the greatest threats to human survival! But because your body is designed to do everything in its power to ensure your survival, it’s going to activate that fight-or-flight mode so you can fight or flee whatever is causing you to be malnourished. Of course, your nervous system that obviously doesn’t have a logical thinking organ cannot know that you’re not actually in a famine environment, and it doesn’t know that you’re purposely restricting for other reasons, including fear of weight gain, autistic masking, and all the other things I talk about on this podcast and in my books and courses. Now, why is this relevant? Because when you’re in a permanent state of fight-or-flight mode, your body is literally tensing up ALL the time! Your neck muscles, your shoulder muscles, your scalp muscles, everything is constantly clenched and ready for battle. And, well, can you guess what happens when those muscles stay contracted for weeks, months, perhaps even years? Hello tension headaches! Of course, tension headaches aren’t the only type of headaches that restriction causes. Now, let’s talk about what happens when your brain is literally running on empty. As I’ve talked about before on this podcast, your brain requires glucose – so, sugar! – to function. This is why during extreme hunger, we crave so much sugar. We’re not becoming “addicted to sugar,” we’re not developing binge eating disorder, our brain is literally screaming for us to help it heal! But because restriction depletes your brain of the glucose it needs to function, you experience not only headaches caused by blood sugar spikes and crashes, but you experience that brain fog, anxiety, depression, and other mental health struggles jellyfish1093 mentioned. So you may be wondering, how the heck does this blood sugar stuff work? Well, when you’re engaging with an eating disorder, your blood sugar is basically on a constant roller coaster ride because energy deficit makes it harder for the body to properly regulate blood sugar. Why? Because regulating blood sugar costs energy, and well, you don’t have enough of that, remember?! Your liver, which normally stores glucose and releases it when needed, doesn’t have enough reserves to keep your levels stable. So even if you do eat something, your blood sugar might spike too high and then crash even harder, creating this vicious cycle of glucose instability that leaves your brain in constant distress. And then there’s electrolyte imbalances. When you’re malnourished, your sodium, potassium, and magnesium levels get thrown off. These minerals fuel the electrical system of your body – they’re what allow your nerves to send signals properly. So when those levels are imbalanced, which they absolutely will be during restriction, your nervous system starts misfiring. And where do you feel that neurological chaos? Yep, in your head! So moral of the headache story before we move onto tinnitus is that yes, absolutely anorexia can cause headaches and they’re probably not some mysterious separate condition that you need to worry about on top of everything else you’re already dealing with. Your headaches are your body’s completely predictable response to being in energy deficit – whether that’s from your nervous system being stuck in fight-or-flight mode, your brain running on fumes, or your electrical system going haywire from electrolyte imbalances. The really important thing I want you to hear, jellyfish1093, is that these headaches aren’t permanent. They’re not a sign that you’ve broken your body beyond repair. They’re actually proof that your body is still fighting for you! When you give your body consistent, adequate nutrition – which is probably more than just four meals a day and probably less exercise and yes, weight gain – these systems can and do heal. Your nervous system can calm down, your blood sugar can stabilize, and your electrolytes can rebalance. It takes time, and to be honest, it often gets worse before it gets better. This is where coaching can be so helpful because you have someone who’s been there supporting you every step of the way! So if you are interested in working with me, do schedule a discovery session because I would love to meet you and create your freedom plan. And now, onto tinnitus! So jellyfish1093 I’m actually so happy you mentioned this because I used to have really bad tinnitus during my anorexia and in quasi recovery and I had never even connected the dots to malnutrition until your comment, so thank you for enlightening me! And before we get into the science behind how malnutrition can cause tinnitus, it’s worth saying what tinnitus is because it can kinda sound like a fancy word! So tinnitus is a condition where a person perceives ringing, buzzing, hissing, or other noises in their ears, even when there is no external sound source. It can be caused by several factors, including aging, ear infections, and can be a side effect of certain medications. But what’s not talked about ANYWHERE is how tinnitus can be caused by anorexia! But here comes Reddit to the rescue! Yep, that’s right. As I was doing my research for this episode, I googled “tinnitus and anorexia,” and the top hit was a Reddit post! Which is saying a lot about there not being information on this connection. Anyways, maybe you already saw this Reddit post in your own research, jellyfish1093, but I want to read it aloud just in case it’s helpful and because it of course provides another lived experience story about how eating enough truly is the only way to heal yourself! So the post is in the subreddit /tinnitus and it’s titled “For those with malnutrition/eating disorders…” and here’s what the OP writes: “Hey, I just wanted to share that my intense and persistent tinnitus was resolved through recovery from my eating disorder (anorexia). I thought I was getting enough nutrition, however, I was not. Also, you cannot simply take enough vitamins/supplements. I was attempting to do that but it didn’t make up for the food I was supposed to be ingesting. The tinnitus for me was like the sound of white noise, particularly in one ear. Machine sounds, such as the low hum of a refrigerator in a store could further intensify it, and I had been to a great ENT doctor that ruled out anything structure-wise on their end. I did not connect the dots, that tinnitus could be caused by malnutrition…but I am SO glad to be free from it. I want you to be free from it too. So I figured I’d share what helped me.” Honestly, this is why I love Reddit. The amount of validation I have felt on there is kind of unmatched. But because I want this podcast to be unmatched as well, I’m gonna give you more than lived experience and hope because I also want to explain WHY tinnitus is a symptom of anorexia. And here’s what I discovered: First off, remember those electrolyte imbalances we just talked about with headaches? Well, your inner ear is incredibly sensitive to changes in fluid balance. When your sodium, potassium, and magnesium levels are all over the place, it messes with the fluid in your inner ear. This can create pressure changes and affect how sound waves are processed, which your brain might interpret as ringing or buzzing. But there’s also a blood flow component. When you’re malnourished, your blood pressure often drops because you’re dehydrated and your blood volume is low. But then sometimes your body tries to compensate and your blood pressure spikes. These blood pressure fluctuations affect circulation to your inner ear, and poor blood flow to those tiny, delicate structures can absolutely cause tinnitus. And remember how we talked about your brain being starved of glucose? Well, your auditory system requires a ton of energy to function properly. When your brain doesn’t have enough fuel, it can start misfiring, and sometimes that misfiring gets interpreted as sound when there isn’t any. It’s like your brain is so desperate for stimulation that it starts creating its own – which honestly makes so much sense for those of us with neurodivergent brains that are already seeking stimulation all the freaking time! To bring this full circle with that chronic fight-or-flight state I keep coming back to, sympathetic nervous system activation makes your brain hypervigilant to everything, including sounds that would normally be filtered out. And if you’re autistic, you already know how overwhelming auditory processing can be even when we do feel regulated. So imagine how much worse that gets when malnutrition has your nervous system completely dysregulated. Now before we wrap up here, what’s worth emphasizing is that none of this is happening in isolation. It’s probably not just one thing causing your tinnitus. The mechanisms I just described – so your inner ear fluid being off, your blood flow being chaotic, your brain misfiring from lack of fuel, and your nervous system being hypervigilant – this is all happening simultaneously. This same concoction of mechanisms is likely what’s causing your dizziness as well. Your vestibular system, which is a sense that plays a crucial role in balance and spatial orientation – lives right there in your inner ear alongside your hearing. So when malnutrition messes with your inner ear fluid and blood flow, it’s not just affecting how you hear, but it’s also going to affect your sense of balance and where you are in space. Add in those blood pressure fluctuations and blood sugar crashes we talked about, well, you guessed it, hi there dizziness! So I know this is a lot, but jellyfish1093, you did say in your original comment that you were looking for hope, so that’s exactly what I want to leave you with. Your body is so wise, wiser than our mind could ever be. Your body knows exactly what it needs, and it is doing everything in its power to support you and your healing. All the symptoms you’re experiencing – the headaches, tinnitus, dizziness, brain fog, anxiety, depression, and I’m sure so much more – these aren’t actually separate parts that need individual targeting to heal. In reality, these are all your body’s way of saying “Hey, I need consistent fuel to function properly.” And I can promise you that when you give your body what it actually needs, it will take all that energy and utilize it to fully recover. Of course, if you want my help on that journey, you can schedule a consultation call for 1-1 coaching or enroll in my extreme hunger course or join me and other neurodivergent aliens in the existential autistic membership! You can find all the different ways to work with me on my website livlabelfree.com. I hope to chat with you in real-time, and otherwise, I’ll talk to you in the next episode. Bye bye for now!

Livia and Mike chat about the fear of not knowing who you are, redefining success, and how to create a meaningful life in the void of infinite possibilities. ✨ Existential Autistic Membership: https://www.livlabelfree.com/membership💗 1-1 Coaching: https://www.livlabelfree.com/coaching🎙️ Free Audiotraining: https://www.livlabelfree.com/free-audiotraining  

Have you always asked why? Have you always been so relentlessly curious that it overwhelms your own mind? Have you always asked existential questions only to become mentally paralyzed by the fact that they will never have answers? I feel you. In fact, I was recently explaining to my psychiatrist that my brain feels like a room filled with bouncing balls. You know what he replied? “Wow, it must be exhausting to think like that.” Me: Yeah, no shit, Sherlock! 🕵️ In all seriousness though, being a neurodivergent soul in a human body is exhausting. Not only are you navigating the overwhelming stimulation of the external world, but you’re constantly being confronted with your own inner landscape that’s much too vast to be contained within a physical vessel (let alone a single lifetime). It’s this disconnect that can cause neurodivergent people to feel trapped… 👉 Trapped in expectations 👉 Trapped in a body 👉 Trapped in the system 👉 Trapped in the pressure to perform 👉 Trapped in the prison of your own mind And what’s a more convenient way to escape than through the rules of an eating disorder? When I started learning about health and nutrition in fifth grade, everything clicked. Suddenly, I had a clear path forward. As long as I adhered to the rules in my black-and-white composition notebook, I would be on the fast-track to becoming “the perfect healthy eater.” Whereas the existential questions I continued to ask had no answers, my eating disorder always did. Instead of me being overwhelmed by the abundance of choices around me, anorexia simplified my options. The eating disorder was never about food or weight – it was about the comfort of having clear boundaries in a boundless world. Black-and-white thinking serves the same purpose. When you’re spending SO much energy on surviving, there’s simply nothing left to consider the colorful in-between! ❌ 🌈 But aren’t you bored of living in black and white? Don’t get me wrong – I’m not telling you to abandon structure. Quite the opposite, in fact! What set me free from the ED prison while embracing my autistic self was creating freedom routines – routines with built-in flexibility, routines that include space for spontaneity. Because here’s the truth: The problem isn’t that you think in black and white. The problem is that your eating disorder hijacked this adaptive mechanism and turned it against you. In the Autistically ED-Free Academy, you’ll learn how to channel your autistic traits into a life that aligns with your authentic self. You’ll learn how to use the very same traits that trapped you in ED prison as keys to break free. Here’s what Becky has to say: “I am so grateful to have been a participant in Livia’s Autistically ED-Free Academy. My daughter has been in recovery for anorexia for the last four years and was recently diagnosed with autism. I can’t tell you how comforting it is to finally have someone understand and validate the struggles our daughter has been through. Livia has helped me to recognize that some of my daughter’s “ED behaviors” are actually autistic adaptations, and that not all ED recovery follows the same path or responds to the same treatments. The weekly meeting topics and the Q&A sessions were equally beneficial. I highly recommend the Autistically ED-Free Academy to anyone who is struggling in their recovery and wants to begin to trust themselves and their loved ones again.” Are you ready to discover what your life of freedom looks like when you embrace your neurodivergent self? 🌈 Join the Autistically ED-Free Academy: https://www.livlabelfree.com/group Your eating disorder gave you answers when nothing else could. Now it’s time to discover the answers that actually set you free. Your rainbow-full life is waiting, XO Liv 💗 Want more emails like this? Join my weekly newsletter: https://www.livlabelfree.com/join

In this spontaneous “walk with me” voicememo, I share my experience with existential nausea and how painful it feels to be confronted with consciousness. Let’s connect!🌐 WEBSITE: https://livlabelfree.com/📚 BOOKS: https://livlabelfreebooks.com🍩 INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/livlabelfree/

I know you’re tired – tired of going back and forth between the ED and “trying recovery again.” Tired of believing it’s possible for you to achieve freedom, only to be submerged back into belief that you’ll just have to “manage” an eating disorder forever. Tired of having your entire life REVOLVE around rigid eating schedules and strict exercise routines. There’s no sugarcoating it: being “in recovery” is f*cking EXHAUSTING. But more importantly, it’s no way to live. And I know you know that, which is precisely WHY you keep “trying recovery again”! Let me be brutally honest with you: every time you try to recover the “normal” way, you’re fighting your autistic brain. You’re being asked to abandon the very traits that make you the unique human that you are. No wonder you keep falling back into old patterns. Your neurodivergent nervous system is trying to protect you in the only way it knows how. Most recovery advice tells you to “go all in,” smash the scales, delete the calorie counting apps...but for you, going down this path just feels wrong. Because the typical approach is consistently unsuccessful, you start believing you’re broken. Unfixable. You believe that you’ll just have to “manage” the eating disorder forever. Meanwhile, life is passing you by. You’re watching everyone else move forward while you feel more and more behind – and you know you’re missing out on becoming who you’re truly meant to be. But here’s what I want you to know: the problem isn’t you, and it never was. The real problem is that no one has taught you how to create your unique version of freedom while honoring what your autistic soul truly needs. That’s exactly why I created the Autistically ED-Free Academy: https://www.livlabelfree.com/group  This isn’t another recovery program asking you to choose between honoring your neurodivergence and healing your relationship with food. Instead, the Academy turns the tables (pun intended) – it shows you that honoring your neurodivergence is precisely what allows you to heal your relationship with food and movement! Over the course of 8 weeks, you will: ✅ Finally reclaim your autonomy from the eating disorder that’s been stealing your life✅ Stop feeling behind everyone else and start building the life you’re meant to live✅ Learn how to channel your autistic traits into meaning and purpose rather than fear-based ED behaviors✅ Create your own “freedom routines” that will serve you for life✅ Connect with other autistic individuals who truly understand your experience …and MUCH more! Here’s what previous Academy participants have to say: “This program was brilliant! It helped me shift my mindset to understanding how eating disorders function as adaptive responses when experienced by neurodivergent people. The Academy shone a light on a way forward – to decode what is serving vs not serving our authentic selves, and therefore a way out of the false safety of an eating disorder.”– Eve, Australia “I learned so much that I never knew about autism and eating disorders even after years of being in both communities online. Explanations as to why I struggle with certain behaviours and situations, how our brains and bodies work, and techniques to help move away from needing an eating disorder to handle the world. I struggle to justify spending money on myself but I’m so glad I spent this money. Thank you Livia!”– Nico, UK 🌈 Want to join these success stories? Join us in the Autistically ED-Free Academy today! https://www.livlabelfree.com/group Your freedom is waiting, XO Liv 💗 Want more emails like this? Join my weekly newsletter: https://www.livlabelfree.com/join

🎉 The Autistically ED-Free Academy is OPEN! Save your seat: https://www.livlabelfree.com/group For most neurodivergent people, the fear of weight gain isn’t about body image or the infamous “wanting to be thin so I can look like the models on the magazines!” In today’s episode, Livia Sara chats with Harriet Parsons and Jenny Langley about the real reasons autistic people fear weight gain beyond the stereotypical “fear of fatness” or distorted body image. Whether you’re an autistic person who feels misunderstood in eating disorder treatment or are a caregiver seeking to understand the connection between autism and anorexia, this episode is guaranteed to give you new insights.

🎉 The Autistically ED-Free Academy is OPEN! Secure your spot: https://www.livlabelfree.com/group Do you feel behind in life due to your eating disorder? That’s how I felt for many years. While my peers were progressing through school, getting jobs, and forming relationships, my whole life was on pause. In today’s episode, I explain why ED recovery actually gives you a jumpstart on a meaningful life & and how you can reframe your own sense of delay as perfect timing.

💫 Join the Existential Autistic Membership: https://www.livlabelfree.com/membership🌈 Autistically ED-Free Academy: https://www.livlabelfree.com/group The connection between neurodivergence, eating disorders, and LGTBQ+ is undeniable – yet it isn’t talked about enough. As someone who’s incredibly passionate about inviting curiosity and compassion to underserved topics, I’m very excited for you to listen to this podcast episode with Nico! Nico, who uses they/them pronouns, shares their journey of navigating an eating disorder that began at 14, getting diagnosed as autistic at 18, and exploring their non-binary identity. From struggling with unwanted changes during puberty to finding trans-affirming healthcare providers, Nico’s story sheds light on the complex web of neurodivergence, gender, and recovery (or rather, discovery). This conversation highlights the importance of community for neurodivergent individuals, the challenges of accessing trans healthcare, and the courage it takes to experiment with identity in safe online spaces. Nico and I also discuss our personal experiences with feeling “wrong” in a body, exploring the nuanced difference between “body betrayal” and “existential claustrophobia” – it’s fascinating! So whether you’re questioning your own gender identity, supporting someone who is, or are simply seeking authentic conversations about the messy & map-less process of discovering who you are, this episode offers both validation and practical insights for your journey. TLDR: This conversation explores the intersection of autism, eating disorders, and LGBTQ+ identity, finding specialized healthcare providers, the role of online communities for neurodivergent people, ED recovery approaches that honor both neurodivergence and gender identity, and the patience required for authentic self-discovery.

📚 How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery: https://livlabelfreebooks.com🌈 Existential Autistic Membership: https://www.livlabelfree.com/membership I’m simplifying the shownotes! 😊 In today’s episode, Kenyan is back to chat with me about how we handle being in bodies – specifically female bodies.

🌈 JOIN THE MEMBERSHIP! https://www.livlabelfree.com/membership📚 AUTISM & ED RECOVERY BOOKS: https://livlabelfreebooks.com✨ 1-1 COACHING W/ LIVIA: https://www.livlabelfree.com/1-on-1-coaching Are you afraid of growing up and being healthy in a female body? Livia and Kenyan both resonate with feeling like a girl but CRINGE when they’re called a “woman.” This episode explores the connection between autism, eating disorders, masking, burnout, and feeling like an alien in your own body! MENTIONED EPISODES:I Feel Trapped in a BodyAutistic Burnout & InjuryWatch my episode on Divergent Conversations here

How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery: https://livlabelfree.com/quasirecoverybookThe Discovery Workbook: https://livlabelfree.com/discoveryworkbookBundle & save on all my books: https://livlabelfreebooks.com/ Franz Kafka once wrote “I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? We need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply…like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.” Most eating disorder recovery books are written to make you feel better, to give you hope, to reassure you that “everything will be okay if you just follow these steps.” But real transformation doesn’t come from comfort – it comes from books that disturb your comfortable illusions. The truth is, I didn’t write How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery to make you feel better. I wrote it to be the axe for the frozen sea of fear within you. That frozen sea is the illusory safety of hiding behind the recovery identity. It’s the comfort of endlessly watching other people’s “What I Eat in a Day” videos, looking for permission to do the hard work instead of actually doing it. Fear makes you believe that if you just find the right map, the right approach, the right influencer to follow, you won’t have to face the terrifying truth: that your path to freedom can only be discovered by you. How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery is designed to wake you up with that “blow to the head” Kafka wrote about…but in service of your freedom. Let me be clear here: this isn’t about destroying you. It’s about destroying the illusions that have kept you small. And the Discovery Workbook? That’s your own axe. It helps you take these uncomfortable truths and use them to chip away at the stories that are no longer serving you.

How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery: https://livlabelfree.com/quasirecoverybookThe Discovery Workbook: https://livlabelfree.com/discoveryworkbookBundle & save on all my books: https://livlabelfreebooks.com/ Are you constantly second-guessing yourself in eating disorder recovery? With the amount of contradictory messaging in our society – from both diet culture and "ED recovery influencers" – no wonder you're constantly comparing yourself to others! This comparison can lead you to believe you're "doing recovery wrong" and traps you in quasi recovery. In today's episode, I share my personal doubts around recovery and how I stopped living in fear.

How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery: https://livlabelfree.com/quasirecoverybookThe Discovery Workbook: https://livlabelfree.com/discoveryworkbookBundle & save on all my books: https://livlabelfreebooks.com/ If you’re overwhelmed by all the contradictory messages in the ED recovery space, this episode is for you. I explain why you feel stuck in the “recovery trap” and how to break free from quasi recovery.

How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery: https://livlabelfree.com/quasirecoverybookThe Discovery Workbook: https://livlabelfree.com/discoveryworkbookBundle & save on all my books: https://livlabelfreebooks.com/ Are you stuck in quasi recovery? I know how it feels to be trapped in that frustrating middle ground between your eating disorder and true freedom. You’re “recovered” to an extent, but you’re still constantly thinking about food, exercise, and whether or not you’re doing recovery “right.” The relentless self-doubt and mental questioning is f*cking EXHAUSTING…and it’s no way to live! This is why I wrote How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery and created the accompanying Discovery Workbook. With chapters exploring existentialism, perfectionism, conformity, and being “good enough,” both books guide you to transform your relationship not just with food and your body, but with your entire existence.

Quasi recovery is worse than having an eating disorder. In today's episode, Livia and Victoria chat about their experiences with quasi recovery, why the map is a trap, and how to begin trusting your inner wisdom. If you enjoy this episode and want to dive deeper into the topics discussed, you will LOVE Livia's new book How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery! 👉 Grab your copy: https://livlabelfree.com/quasirecoverybook Connect with Livia:🍩 INSTAGRAM🌐 WEBSITE📚 BOOKS

Do you feel like you’re never good enough? Livia Sara and Wouter Kleinsman both know what it’s like to chase illusory fulfillment through external identities. In this confrontational conversation, Livia and Wouter discuss how labels imprison us, why conformity is a trap, and how the story you tell yourself is the story that narrates your life. Episode highlights:  Why breaking free from the system is the only path to genuine freedom  The connection between autism, black-and-white thinking, and eating disorders  How to shift from victim mentality to consciously writing your own story  Why qualifications are bullshit and don't determine your worth or capabilities  Using human design and instinct over logic when making decisions  What it really means to live in alignment with your core being Connect with Livia: https://livlabelfree.com Connect with Wouter: https://www.wouterkleinsman.nl/

Have you ever felt that your "gifts" were more of a burden than a blessing? In this Autistically ED-Free Membership call recording, Livia and the community explore the concept of "existential claustrophobia" – that suffocating feeling of being confined within a finite physical form while having an infinitely expansive inner being. Members share their raw experiences of how giftedness, existential anxiety, and neurodivergence can create unique pressures that often manifest as disordered eating. Through authentic, unscripted conversation, this episode reveals how many of us use food behaviors as protective mechanisms when our souls feel too vast for our bodies. Key Topics Discussed: How "existential claustrophobia" creates a disconnect between our infinite inner world and the limitations of physical existence The paradox of neurodivergent creativity: having so many ideas that they become overwhelming rather than inspiring Why words and traditional emotional labels often fail to capture the depth and complexity of neurodivergent experiences The connection between giftedness, perfectionism, and using eating disorders as a way to manage overwhelming expectations How authentic self-expression becomes a pathway to healing when we stop trying to fit our experiences into neurotypical frameworks The importance of forging your own path rather than trying to follow a map that doesn't exist 👯 Join the Autistically ED-Free Membership 💗 Apply for 1-1 Coaching with Livia

What if ED behaviors in autistic people were not problems to be fixed, but rather, powerful adaptations to feel safe? More specifically, what if eating disorders themselves are a form of autistic masking? In this episode, Livia Sara explains how eating disorders can manifest through three distinct types of masks, why neurodiversity-affirming approaches form the foundation of freedom, and how to discover your true self – without the masks of fear and limitation. Highlights of today’s episode: How autistic masking can be seen as a survival strategy in a neurotypical world How the eating disorder forms three interwoven masks: external, identity, and compensatory Introduction to The Adaptive Eating Spectrum (TAES) and how different eating patterns serve as both escape and mask Why the body itself can feel like a mask for the infinite autistic being The connection between masking, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, and eating disorder behaviors The powerful of transforming eating disorder “recovery” into your unique discovery journey How to embrace neurodivergence and create safety while unmasking 🕊️ Apply for 1-1 coaching: www.livlabelfree.com/coaching🌈 Join the Autistically ED-Free Membership: livlabelfree.com/membership📚My books about autism and eating disorders: livlabelfreebooks.com📲 Connect with Livia on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/livlabelfree/ Mentioned episodes:Spontaneous Life Update: https://www.livlabelfree.com/podcasts/liv-label-free-neurodivergent-eating-disorder-recovery/episodes/2149012972Autism and Binge Eating (4-part series): https://www.livlabelfree.com/blog/autism-and-binge-eating-part-1Unnecessary Calories: https://www.livlabelfree.com/podcasts/liv-label-free-neurodivergent-eating-disorder-recovery/episodes/2149024496

Do you or a loved one ever feel like you were born on the wrong planet? Livia Sara and Dr. Marianne Miller both know what it’s like to experience life as a neurodivergent alien. The existential loneliness that comes with this sense of alienation can be so unbearable that the eating disorder becomes an escape – a way to create a sense of meaning and purpose when you feel lost. In today’s episode, Livia and Marianne discuss how eating “disorders” are adaptive responses to a threatening world, emphasizing the importance of listening to stories of lived experience. Key Topics Discussed: Growing up feeling existentially lost as an autistic person in a neurotypical world How eating disorders can be viewed as a form of autistic masking – a way to compensate for your innate sense of being “wrong” Unpacking the “atypical anorexia” diagnosis and dismantling harmful hierarchies in eating disorder treatment The difference between autistic routines vs OCD rituals How eating disorders can be considered a form of stimming in neurodivergent individuals 🌈 Grab your copy of Rainbow Girl, Livia’s memoir of autism and anorexia👯 Join the Autistically ED-Free Membership💗 Apply for 1-1 Coaching with Livia📷 Connect with Livia on Instagram Mentioned episodes: My episode on Marianne’s Podcast Existential Suffering AFTER an Eating Disorder What if I Can’t Handle Being Healthy? About Marianne: Dr. Marianne has been in the mental health field for 27 years and has specialized in eating disorders for the last 12 years. She was a full-time academic for 12 years and had a part-time eating disorder practice for much of that time until she left the university and went into private practice full-time in 2018. Dr. Marianne loves working with eating disorders as a therapist and an online course creator (her newest course is on ARFID and Selective Eating). She takes a non-diet, feminist approach that helps people of all genders live empowered, authentic lives. She embraces the Health at Every Size (HAES®) model, and is neurodivergent and LGBTQIA+ affirming. Dr. Marianne is neurodivergent herself. Connect with Marianne: Instagram @drmariannemiller Website drmariannemiller.com ARFID and Selective Eating Course on Teachable

What if unnecessary calories were one of the most necessary aspects of living a meaningful life? In today’s episode, Livia Sara explores the concept of “unnecessary calories” through a client’s fear of butter, revealing how this restrictive thinking is actually a manifestation of deeper existential fears. You’ll learn: The hidden meaning behind labeling foods as having “unnecessary calories” and how it connects to the fear of being “wrong” in the world Why diet culture’s contradictory messages can be particularly overwhelming for autistic individuals How the scarcity mindset extends beyond food into every aspect of life, from productivity to pleasure The powerful parallel between fearing “wasted” calories and fearing “wasted” time How to start challenging the labels that keep you trapped in restrictive patterns Want to dive deeper?👉 Work with me via 1-1 Coaching🌈 Join the Autistically ED-Free Membership🍩 Enroll in my Extreme Hunger Course Mentioned episodes: I don’t know how much to eat! What if I can’t handle being healthy? Fear of weight gain in autism & anorexia

What if we viewed “eating disorder behaviors” as adaptive responses to an unsafe world? In this special episode, Livia Sara is interviewed by Harriet Parsons and Jenny Langley from the BodyWhys Podcast about her view of reframing eating disorders as adaptations, and how this perspective can support individuals moving from quasi recovery to a life of freedom and purpose. Highlights of the episode: Livia shares her personal journey with anorexia from age 11-18 and how her autistic traits influenced both her eating disorder development and recovery path The concept of quasi recovery as the frustrating middle ground between active eating disorder and full freedom, and why many people get stuck in this phase How demand avoidance and the drive for autonomy play crucial roles in both eating disorders and recovery, especially for neurodivergent individuals Why the phrase “that’s your eating disorder talking” can be harmful, invalidating, and traumatic, particularly for autistic individuals The importance of understanding intention behind behaviors rather than simply categorizing them as “disordered” or “healthy” Reframing exercise and movement as adaptive rather than “compulsive,” and discovering what a healthy relationship with movement looks like for each individual The power of partnering with fear rather than trying to overcome it, and using anxiety as a compass to understand what matters most to us 🎙️ Listen to my free audiotraining on Autism and Eating Disorders🌈 Join the Autistically ED-Free Membership📚 Read my books about autism and eating disorders

Traditional eating disorder recovery advice tends to be harmful for autistic people. Many regulation techniques are often labeled as behaviors to be eliminated, which can lead to feelings of hopelessness. But there is another way! In today’s episode, Livia speaks to Rob about his personal journey with binge eating disorder and how discovering his autism has helped him develop more effective coping strategies. We discuss the limitations of one-size-fits-all approaches to recovery, the concept of the “adaptive eating spectrum,” and the importance of forging your own path when it comes to living a meaningful life. Key Topics Discussed: The nuanced view of calorie counting as a potential self-regulation tool rather than always being harmful How walking can help anchor autistic people in safety Why traditional eating disorder treatment approaches often fail autistic individuals Impact of the pandemic on eating habits and mental health Viewing eating “disorders” as adaptive responses to a neurotypical world Developing personalized coping mechanisms that work for your unique nervous system 🌈 Join the Autistically ED-Free Membership🎙️ Listen to my free audiotraining on Autism and Eating Disorders📖 Access my free extreme hunger guide for answers to the top 10 questions about extreme hunger! Connect with Livia:🍩 INSTAGRAM🌐 WEBSITE📚 BOOKS Contact Rob at bingefreerob[at]gmail[dot]com

It’s time for another spontaneous life update! In this unscripted episode, I share some major changes and exciting announcements – including new books, moving overseas, the launch of the Autistically ED-Free Membership, reflections on the fear of relapse, and how I’m dealing with my own fear of failure. 🌈 Join the Autistically ED-Free Membership💗 Join the Liv Label Free weekly newsletter🎙️ Listen to my free audiotraining on Autism and Eating Disorders📚 Read my books about autism and eating disorders

How many calories should you eat in anorexia recovery? I used to obsessively watch “What I Eat in a Day” videos and scroll Reddit threads in a desperate attempt to answer this question. But the more I searched, the more lost and confused I felt. If you resonate with the fear of “not knowing how much to eat,” this episode will transform how you approach food freedom. You’ll learn: Why asking “how much should I eat?” is rooted in fear of weight gain rather than a genuine lack of knowledge The connection between early-onset eating disorders and difficulty trusting hunger cues What a typical day of extreme hunger looks like in anorexia recovery Why the unpredictable nature of honoring hunger is especially challenging for the autistic mind Why the recovering body requires far more calories than society deems “normal” 🌈 Join the Autistically ED-Free Membership📚 Grab your copy of How to Beat Extreme Hunger📖 Access my free extreme hunger email course for answers to the top 10 questions about extreme hunger!📝 Read the blog post of this episode

It’s no secret that people with anorexia often engage in excessive amounts of exercise. When you combine that hallmark restlessness with neurodivergent traits like anxiety, perseverance, masking, and a constant state of fight-or-flight mode, you have the perfect storm for exercise addiction. But what if these same traits could become powerful tools in ED recovery? In the second installment of this 2-part series on Autism and Anorexia Athletica, Livia Sara explains how to transform movement from an escape into an energetic outlet. You’ll discover how three autistic traits can influence our relationship with exercise and how to harness them for healing. Episode highlights: How the athletic identity can serve as a mask for autism and why creating a new identity is crucial for recovery Why viewing "compulsive" movement as adaptive behavior can shift our understanding of exercise addiction How nervous system dysregulation drives the urge to move in autistic individuals The paradox of how restrictions can increase the urge to move, and what to do about it The power of creating "freedom routines" that provide structure while allowing flexibility Resources mentioned:🎙️ Listen to my free audiotraining, “3 Steps to Recovery From an Eating Disorder as an Autistic Person”📖 Access my free extreme hunger email course for answers to the top 10 questions about extreme hunger🌈 Enroll in the Autistically ED-Free Academy📚 Read my books about autism and eating disorders💗 Join my newsletter to receive Liv Label Free updates📝 Read the blog post of this episode