Autism and excessive eating.

This world is a very confusing place to be.
A place full of people we don’t understand.
A place full of rules we don’t want to stick to.

Rules.
That is what ‘our Autism’ struggles with the most….
….and the consequence of breaking them.
She just does not understand, or maybe accept, that things happen as a result of a negative behaviour.
Maybe accept more than understand?

The biggest rule she suffers with involves eating.
We struggle with food intake.
My girl constantly eats.
All children go through faces of excessive eating, but my girl goes beyond the norms.
If she cannot get something she wants she will eat out of the bin, or eat inedible items.
She was diagnosed with PICA and sensory processing disorder when she was younger, and tested for a variety of other conditions.
There could be a number of reasons for it; jaw pain from dislocations, proprioception difficulties, sensory input, hyper/hyposensitivity…..the list goes on.

I know the reasons. I know there must be a reason, but it is the most difficult thing to manage…..by far.
I can cope with sleep deprivation, violence, bodily fluids of any description, but denying your child food, that they so desperately believe they need, is heartbreaking.

My girl can eat more in a day than I can in a week.
She never appears to be satisfied or full.
She can eat a whole loaf of bread and then search for something else.
I have stopped shopping weekly, and now shop on a daily basis only buying what we need that day.
Any food we have, my girl *needs* to eat.
The easiest way to manage it is by not having food in…..right?
No…..because then she eats inedible items.

I buy punnets of soft fruit daily so that there is always something there.
5 a day usually, and they all get eaten.
I am so worried about the future as she seems to have no concept about what excessive food consumption, or the consequences.

Please someone tell me we are not the only ones who struggle with this?!