Food Trauma

when food is triggering

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by

Content Note: eating disorders, disordered eating

“Are you pregnant?”
”What? No! I’ve never had sex!”

My 17-year-old self sunk into the cold sticky chair at the doctor’s office.

“Well, I’m not sure why your stomach hurts every time you eat. We’ll have to do an abdominal ultrasound.”

I was 17 when my three best friends ostracized and bullied me. I’ve written about this a lot because it was a life-changing traumatic event (one of many). It threw me off more than my parent’s divorce. Looking back now, as a fully-fledged adult (in age, anyways), I see my stomach issues as a physical symptom of the trauma I experienced.

After the bullying subsided, I lost my appetite. Food became unappealing. Food became a thing that hurt me. I would feel ok, try to eat something, then feel shitty again. My dad would get me bland takeout from the local diner: turkey with mashed potatoes, veggies and a roll. I would eat, even though I didn’t want to but knew I needed to. I would then feel sick. It was like this for weeks.

Food became triggering. I wasn’t trying to lose weight. I didn’t want to lose weight. I was already thin at the time. I danced ballet and jazz four days a week. Eventually, I had to take a break from dancing because I didn’t have the energy. Food became my enemy. I hated how it made me feel, but I knew I needed it to live.

After one particularly bad day, I walked past the mirror in my mom’s bedroom and my reflection scared me. I was too thin. I looked sick, because I was. I stopped looking at mirrors. Whenever I hear people say thinness equals good health, I shudder and think back to this time.

I finally got the abdominal ultrasound and it showed nothing but gas. That’s it, that’s all. I was out of school for months due to excess gas (well, and trauma). I couldn’t eat because of gas (and trauma). My stomach hurt because of gas (and trauma).

I was put on a liquid diet and told to take baths to alleviate any stomach pain. At this point, I didn’t care about eating anyways, so getting my calories through liquids was fine. I did this for a couple of weeks. Then came the scary part: reintroducing solids.

I started slow and bland. It seemed to work. I felt like I was relearning how to eat food at 17. Eventually, I was fully back on solids and feeling mostly okay. Except, now I had an eating disorder. I was afraid of food. I would consistently ask my mom (who used to be a nurse) if it was okay that I ate beans, bread, popcorn, anything. She would say yes, of course. I was terrified of food hurting me again. I was scared of food making me ill.

After being on Zoloft, the fear of food subsided. In my 20s, I went to the other extreme. I began eating any and everything, and most often, too much of things that I knew wouldn’t make me feel good. It was like a taunt to my body: “I’m gonna eat this shit and you just have to deal with it! You’re not gonna make me afraid of food ever again!”

I know now that my fear of food was connected to a traumatic event. I also know that it’s less about food, and more about feeling sensations that distress me. As someone with Sensory Processing Disorder and the trauma I described above, I have a really difficult time with the sensations of hunger and fullness. I don’t like feeling either. So, I often eat when I don’t need to, just in case. I dislike feeling glucose spikes. I also know that low blood sugar can feel the same as flight or fight and it really does for me. I don’t want to be rigid or controlling, but I also know what my body likes and dislikes. I have an internal fight with myself whenever I want more coffee, sweets, or carbs. All of which, if eaten in large quantities, will absolutely make me feel like shit (physically and mentally).

In the last year, I’ve seen many criticisms of “food noise” in the last year ranging from “is it real?” to “it’s just your body’s hunger cues.” Whatever we want to call it, “Food noise” is something I struggle with daily and it’s exhausting. I find myself jealous of people on Ozempic, who report that their “food noise” has disappeared. How lovely that must be to have more spaciousness in your mind! Sometimes I want to be numb. Sometimes I want to feel blank. Sometimes I don’t want to think a single thought—especially about food.

Yet, I know that sitting with/in my discomfort is necessary to live this life. I also know that, for me, there is a tendency to use external interventions whenever I feel uncomfortable in my body. I take Advil when a headache hasn’t happened, but I worry it might. I overexercise thinking it will make me healthier, even if I’m sore or injured. I reach for food to change a feeling. Intervention is prevention and I do it all of the time.

In her essay about food noise,

Dana Leigh Lyons

writes:

There’s tremendous value in learning to quiet food noise without external intervention. There are gifts and benefits that we simply cannot achieve by choosing to turn off food noise and food-related addictions like a light switch. …I want to broaden the conversation and expand the options. Because it is possible to quiet food noise naturally—even when connecting to your body feels painful, scary, or triggering.

Obviously, we all need to do what we need to do and if certain external interventions are needed or necessary to live your life, then that’s important to know. It’s not about doing things perfectly all of the time or being rigid, but rather, taking a beat, a pause, before reacting, which I think many of us can and should be doing.

I still struggle with disordered eating. I still fear food (at times). If I don’t meal prep, I will ruminate about where my next meal or snack is coming from. But some days and weeks, I just don’t have it in me to do the things I know I need to do. Some days, I just have to be gentle with myself and eat the food that might make me feel shitty later. I’m trying to learn balance, which is difficult since I have tended to live my life in extremes.

I have to think that someday I’ll figure it out.

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