The Hidden Connection: Trauma Responses and Your Relationship with Food

There's a chance that your disordered eating might be a response to trauma. Trauma can stem from many sources, like physical, sexual, or emotional abuse; neglect; witnessing domestic violence; or going through significant loss or disruption. These traumas can trigger a variety of psychological responses, with disordered eating often serving as a coping mechanism.

If you have disordered eating habits, I'm sure countless people have told you it's simple and all you need to do is just change your habits. Yet, for some reason, you can't, and you wonder what's wrong with you. You're not alone; for many women, what appears as a struggle with food is often a profound response to childhood trauma—it's a protective mechanism designed to help you survive. Trauma can manifest in various ways, each influencing our relationship with food.

I've worked with hundreds of women to help them change their relationship with food, and every one of them has had some trauma, causing them to turn to food for emotional support. Trauma responses aren't always obvious, like binge eating or restricting. They can be as common as feeling compelled to clean your plate because you were punished for wasting food, leading you to train yourself to eat more than you need, and end up feeling overfull and miserable.

The good news is that it isn't a flaw in your character; it's your body and mind's way of coping with experiences too painful to process conventionally. Even better, healing is within reach, and innovative techniques like Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) or 'tapping' and hypnosis are gaining scientific recognition for effectively addressing trauma responses. EFT and hypnosis offer ways to gently untangle the knots of trauma, shifting your relationship with food from one of survival to one of nourishment. This article aims to link trauma directly to your eating behaviors, illustrating how you can transition from merely coping to genuinely healing.

Ten Common Trauma Responses

Substance Abuse

This one is obvious. Many people dealing with trauma turn to substances to help them get through life. We typically think of alcohol, drugs, or even prescription medications when discussing substance abuse, but the scope is much broader. Using food as a coping mechanism, rather than for nutritional needs, can be viewed as a form of 'abuse' or misuse, especially when it results in compulsive eating, binge eating, or other disordered eating behaviors.

Many individuals turn to food to cope with emotional distress or trauma. Using food to numb or avoid unpleasant emotions often leads to emotional or binge eating. This behavior typically involves choosing foods that offer immediate comfort or pleasure, such as carbohydrates, sweets, or high-fat foods, which can briefly lift mood or distract from emotional pain.

Emotional eating stems from psychological needs rather than physical hunger, creating a cycle of guilt, shame, and more emotional eating. This misuse of food as a coping mechanism mirrors substance abuse, where someone seeks solace from inner turmoil via consumption, which can lead to health problems such as obesity, diabetes, or eating disorders.

It's not unusual for individuals to combine food and other substances to manage trauma symptoms, resulting in a complex interplay between these coping mechanisms. For example, someone might drink alcohol to deal with anxiety, which can increase cravings for comfort foods due to lowered inhibitions or intensified emotional states.

On the flip side, using food as a coping tool might prompt the use of substances to handle the emotional aftermath of overeating or the physical effects of one's diet. This dual approach can complicate recovery, with each behavior potentially reinforcing or worsening the other. For instance, alcohol might diminish self-control, leading to binge eating, or food can serve as a trigger for substance use if linked to specific emotional or social settings. Recognizing this dynamic is vital for effective intervention, as addressing one issue without considering the other may not lead to lasting recovery.

Fear or Distrust of Authority Figures

Humans are inherently social beings, relying on connections for emotional and physical support. When trauma leads to mistrust, it can fundamentally change how one interacts with the world, making it feel like an unsafe place where vulnerability is risky.

A lack of trust might push someone towards secretive eating, fueled by a fear of judgment or criticism. Food then becomes a private source of comfort when interpersonal relationships falter, offering a safe and predictable refuge where you can escape. This behavior can lead to deep shame and feelings of hopelessness.

In an environment where trusting others feels dangerous, food can symbolize safety. It's predictable, providing comfort or distraction from emotional turmoil. This reliance can show up as overeating or skipping meals, with food acting as a dependable source of comfort. Controlling food intake can be a way to reclaim a sense of control, offering psychological comfort where human interactions disappoint.

When you constantly feel like you're not in control of your life due to mistrust, controlling food intake can become a means to exert some form of agency. This control isn't always about the amount of food but might involve very specific eating rituals or restrictions, offering a semblance of safety and predictability.

Low Self-Esteem

Abuse or neglect often leads to a negative perception of one's value or capabilities. Harboring feelings of worthlessness or shame can profoundly affect self-care behaviors, including eating habits.

When your inner critic belittles your accomplishments or amplifies your mistakes, these criticisms can become your reality. Your sense of value is viewed through a harsh negative lens. Food becomes an accessible tool for self-harm when you feel worthless and believe you deserve punishment for perceived failures. This might manifest as overeating to numb emotional pain or restricting food intake as a form of self-denial. These behaviors reflect cognitive distortions and an inner narrative that you don't deserve health or happiness.

This self-punishment is frequently linked to a pervasive fear of failure, where the mere possibility of failing can paralyze efforts toward change. People might shy away from trying new foods or adopting healthier eating patterns, driven by fears of failure or criticism. This fear extends to social eating situations, where the anxiety about being judged for food choices or eating manners can lead to avoidance, further isolating individuals and deepening their low self-esteem.

Chronic Anxiety or Hypervigilance

If you're stuck in a constant state of fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or dissociation because of trauma, life becomes incredibly stressful. This chronic state of alertness or emotional distress can profoundly affect your eating habits and food choices in various ways.

Constant anxiety might trigger emotional eating as a quick fix to calm nerves, often leading you to choose comfort foods high in sugar, fat, or salt for immediate but fleeting relief. People might eat not out of hunger but to cope with stress, resulting in mindless eating or overeating.

On the other hand, for some, hypervigilance can make eating seem like an unnecessary distraction or risk, causing skipped meals not as a choice but due to the body's persistent emergency state.

Feeling vulnerable might push someone into aggressive food behaviors; this includes binge eating to consume large amounts as a way to assert control or feel powerful, or restrictive eating to deny oneself food in an attempt to regain control.

Additionally, the innate urge to escape might manifest as avoiding meals, which can resemble anorexia or severe food restriction, in an attempt to 'disappear' from stress or trauma.

Emotional Dysregulation

Emotional dysregulation refers to the difficulty in managing one's emotional responses, where emotions can be experienced in a way that's intense, fluctuating, or otherwise hard to control. This can significantly impact eating behaviors.

Mood-driven eating involves fluctuations in mood leading to erratic eating patterns, where food becomes a tool to manage or suppress intense emotions. Beyond just eating for comfort, this can serve as a distraction during times of emotional upheaval, leading to mindless snacking or overeating without regard to hunger signals.

It can also manifest as a response to specific cravings where certain moods trigger desires for particular types of food, often high in sugar or fat, stimulating the release of feel-good hormones for momentary relief from emotional distress. Additionally, overwhelming negative emotions might cause someone to skip meals, either as a form of self-punishment or because stress diminishes appetite.

Binge-purge cycles are another manifestation where emotional swings result in periods of binge eating followed by guilt-driven purging, creating a cyclical pattern. After experiencing intense emotions, individuals might binge eat to cope, not out of hunger but to manage emotional turmoil, often feeling out of control during the episode.

Post-binge, emotions shift to guilt or self-disgust, prompting compensatory behaviors like self-induced vomiting, laxative misuse, excessive exercise, or fasting in an attempt to "undo" the binge, providing temporary relief but not addressing the core emotional issues. This cycle often repeats as the underlying emotional triggers remain unaddressed, with the anticipation of a binge sometimes triggering the cycle.

Intrusive thoughts or flashbacks, being involuntary and distressing recollections or images from traumatic events, can also profoundly influence eating behaviors.

Intrusive Thoughts or Flashbacks

Intrusive thoughts or flashbacks are involuntary, distressing recollections or images from traumatic events, which can profoundly influence eating behaviors:

Food might be used as a tool to distract from or suppress intrusive memories or flashbacks. This can lead to mindless eating where food becomes a way to occupy the mind, pushing away disturbing thoughts, resulting in overeating or choosing easy-to-eat foods not out of hunger but to avoid the mental noise of trauma. Similarly, eating can serve as a method for emotional numbing, not about satisfying hunger but about altering one's emotional state to mute the intensity of flashbacks.

Certain foods can act as triggers for traumatic memories or flashbacks, influencing eating behaviors in various ways. This might involve avoidance, where individuals steer clear of foods associated with trauma due to sensory cues that evoke painful memories, leading to a restricted diet or phobic reactions. Alternatively, there could be compulsive consumption, where individuals eat trigger foods compulsively as an attempt to gain control over the narrative of their trauma, revisiting it on their terms, even if it brings pain.

Ritualistic eating might develop around these trigger foods to manage or control flashbacks, providing a semblance of control in an otherwise unpredictable emotional landscape. Lastly, foods can trigger not just flashbacks but also the emotions tied to those memories, leading to eating as a coping mechanism for the flood of feelings.

Avoidance Behaviors

Avoidance behaviors in the context of trauma recovery or eating disorders involve consciously or unconsciously steering clear of situations or stimuli that evoke distress or anxiety. Here's how these behaviors might manifest around food:

This involves steering clear of social situations where food is central, leading to irregular eating patterns. Avoiding meals with others can disrupt hunger cues, resulting in irregular eating like skipping meals or overeating in solitude.

This irregularity can contribute to or worsen eating disorders like anorexia, where control over eating or weight becomes a major concern. Reasons for avoidance include fear of judgment, anxiety about eating in public, shame, or discomfort around individuals associated with trauma.

Prolonged avoidance might lead to broader social isolation, where the world shrinks to avoid triggers, further impacting mental health.

Using food as a safe, solitary activity when avoiding people or places linked to trauma, home becomes a sanctuary where food can be consumed privately. This can lead to binge eating, where individuals might engage in secret binge eating to self-soothe or escape traumatic thoughts.

There's often a preference for comfort foods, seeking temporary emotional relief, which might lead to guilt or weight issues. Eating alone becomes the primary method for emotional regulation, replacing social interaction with food-based coping.

Ritualistic eating might also develop as a way to impose order in one's life when external chaos feels overwhelming, offering a semblance of control or predictability.

Difficulty with Relationships

When individuals struggle with forming or maintaining healthy relationships, these challenges can manifest in their relationship with food in complex ways:

Unmet emotional needs like love or support can drive someone to use food as a source of comfort or connection. This can lead to emotional eating, where eating becomes a way to compensate for the lack of intimacy or validation, with food filling an emotional void. This might manifest as compensatory eating, consuming food to simulate feelings of being cared for or loved.

There could also be habitual eating, turning to food during times typically reserved for social interaction, like weekends, due to loneliness or rejection. An attachment to food might develop, forming an emotional bond with certain foods, treating them as companions in the absence of human connection.

In dysfunctional relationships, food can be used to gain control or attention. One partner might dictate the other's eating habits to exert power, which could involve restricting food by controlling access or choices to manipulate behavior, or forced eating where one pushes food to control another's body image or self-esteem. Eating habits might also be altered as a form of attention-seeking, including dramatic weight changes, either gaining or losing weight to provoke attention or concern, or developing eating disorders as a cry for help to signal distress.

Lastly, food behaviors might be used for emotional manipulation, such as guilt-inducing eating, where one eats in ways that induce guilt or sympathy in others, or using food as a reward or punishment within the relationship dynamics. one's life when external chaos feels overwhelming, offering a semblance of control or predictability.

Physical Symptoms

Trauma can manifest physically in ways that directly influence eating behaviors, creating a complex interplay between how the body responds to stress and your relationship with food:

Physical discomfort like pain or fatigue might be mistaken for hunger or a need for comfort, leading to overeating. This can manifest as comfort eating, turning to foods that provide temporary relief from physical stress symptoms. It might also involve eating for distraction, using food to distract from or mask bodily sensations linked to trauma. Another response could be emotional numbing, where one consumes food to numb physical symptoms like anxiety-induced stomach issues.

Physical symptoms can lead to a decreased interest in food. Symptoms like nausea or general malaise can suppress appetite, where stress alters hunger cues, making it hard to feel or acknowledge hunger, leading to skipped meals. A food aversion might develop, associating eating with negative experiences, or the body might enter an energy conservation mode, reducing the desire to eat as a survival mechanism.

Physical discomfort disrupts normal eating, resulting in erratic eating patterns. This might be due to sporadic eating caused by physical discomfort or altered bodily functions, leading to nutritional deficits over time, which can result in malnutrition, exacerbating health issues or weakening the immune system.

Sleep Disturbances

Sleep disturbances are a common aftermath of trauma or stress, significantly impacting eating behaviors in several ways.

Night eating involves eating at odd hours, often due to insomnia or nightmares, which can disrupt normal hunger cues and lead to various health issues. Insomnia-driven eating occurs when, without sleep, food becomes a way to pass time or manage anxiety, leading to late-night snacking or overeating which can disrupt natural hunger signals. It might also cause digestive issues like acid reflux or indigestion. There can also be metabolic consequences as it disrupts circadian rhythms, potentially leading to insulin resistance or other metabolic disturbances.

From the moment we are born food is used to comfort us. When waking from nightmares or distressing dreams it can feel natural to seek comfort through food. It is common to choose high-calorie, comfort foods, choosing them for immediate emotional relief rather than for health or sleep benefits.

Using food to facilitate sleep, people often resort to self-medication with carbohydrates, eating high-carb or sugary foods under the belief they'll induce sleepiness. This can give a temporary serotonin boost, which might help with falling asleep but doesn't address the underlying cause of sleeplessness.

While this might lead to short-term sleep improvement, it can result in poor sleep quality or dependency. Moreover, choosing foods for sleep can skew one's diet, leading to a nutritional imbalance by missing out on essential nutrients due to food choice. Regularly eating to sleep can also contribute to weight management issues, promoting weight gain.

The connection between trauma and disordered eating is profound and multifaceted, revealing that what may appear as lack of willpower or a simple struggle with food is often a complex survival strategy. The behaviors discussed, from using food as a substance for coping to the myriad ways trauma can influence ones relationship with eating, are not merely habits to be changed but are deeply ingrained responses to past experiences.

Understanding this link is crucial for both individuals experiencing these symptoms and for those seeking to support them. The journey towards healing is not about willpower alone but about addressing the underlying trauma with compassion and specialized care. Therapies like EFT and hypnosis offer promising avenues, providing not just symptom management but a path towards redefining ones relationship with food from one of survival to one of nourishment. Healing from disordered eating as a trauma response involves recognizing the strength in these coping mechanisms, then gently guiding the individual towards healthier ways to manage their emotional landscape.

Remember, if you’re struggling, you’re not alone, and with the right support, transformation and recovery are within reach.