I Harm Myself and Feel I am Overweight

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I would like to ask for some help. I used to be overweight, and ended up loosing a considerable amount of weight. In fact, its to the point where many individuals do not recognize me if they see me after not having done so in some time. However, I cannot stop thinking that I am still fat, and constantly have to continue loosing weight. My mother fears that I might be mildly anorexic, and I don’t enjoy eating as I once did. Many people have told me that I am thin, but I guess I just don’t believe it. Today I was caught exercising more than I should have, which I often do, and I feel absolutely horrible about it.

That is another major problem of mine. I suffer from long-term boughts of extreme guilt. Whenever I do something that I deem mean, which ends up often being something that was not so, I will feel the need to punish myself. I have this constant idea that I am a terrible person. For instance, when speaking with an individual lately, she started to yell at me. My parents say that the individual in question is always quite grouchy, and tends to yell at other people for no reason many times during the day. However, I blame it all on myself and even consider it my responsibility to fix her problems. Whenever I feel that I have been particularly bad, or sometimes immediately after I have done something I deem wrong, I will strike myself hard.

Does anyone have any advice? Each time I have gone to therapy, I have more or less been deemed someone who can’t be cured any further.

Thank you so much!

Ah, excuse me. My neurosis and depression as a whole.

Anxiety and depression, along with eating disorders, can be treated, but only if the underlying AS/ASD is taken into consideration. In other words, the depression and anorexic tendencies may be symptoms of the AS/ASD, and so can be treated as such by a competent professional with experience working with Aspies and Auties.

Many of us Aspies and Auties are very hard on ourselves. I don't experience guilt or shame per se, but I do hold myself to very high standards, ones which are probably unrealistic in most circumstances. When I fail to meet my expectations, I am very hard on myself in my internal dialogs.

I've also been accused of being too thin, underweight, and anorexic by family members and others for years. But no clinician I've seen has ever seen fit to diagnose me with an eating disorder.

Hope you can ease up on yourself a bit and not hold yourself accountable for what you cannot control or be responsible for.

Thanks for the personal anecdotes. It really helps, if nothing else, to know that there are other people out there that can relate to me. Not saying, of course, that I like to see anyone suffer at all. That is most certainly not the case!

Overall, from what I've read from all of you, may I make the assumption then that it is most likely symptomatic of the autism spectrum condition that I have? That would certainly make things more clear. Even though my parents had said so, I found it hard to believe I suffer from anorexia. I do not deny that I have a problem with constantly thinking that I am fat, but I do not really have the other symptoms. I certainly hope, however, that this does not seem to be insulting towards my parents.

By the way, the condition that I have been diagnosed with is Non-Verbal Learning Disability, or NVLD.