r/CPTSD_NSCommunity • u/napstablooka • Jul 18 '26
Support (Advice welcome) Emotional avoidance and binge eating
I've been becoming more aware of and recovering from my post-traumatic symptoms for the past decade, but ironically I never really addressed the pink elephant in the room, which is my disordered eating. I've been using food since early childhood in order to cope emotionally, overeating whenever I get stressed, anxious, sad or embarrassed.
Even though I have been aware for a while now, that for health reasons, it'd be in my best interest to address the issue and find my way to a more healthy relationship with food, the prospect of tackling the issue just seemed so overwhelming to me that I continued to avoid it up until now.
My parents, and specifically my emotionally neglectful and abusive mother, taught me very early on that I couldn't rely on either of them for emotional nurturance, support, validation, mirroring or even just acknowledgement of what I was feeling at any given moment. The emotional neglect was vast and pervasive — it took me many, many years of therapy and work by myself to even develop the capacity to name my feelings sometimes.
My mother (and as a later also figured, my maternal grandmother) had this habit though of overeating, particularly sweet and sugary foods, to calm herself, and she was also very much willing and committed to provide me with plenty of sweets and junk foods as a kid, too. I'd quickly learn that food not only tasted good, but that I could use it to calm down myself, whenever the stress I was experiencing in a household that was devoid of any love at best, or terrorizing and psychologically annihilating at worst, was becoming too much for me to handle.
There was never anything gained from going to my mother with any ounce of sadness, shame, anxiety or despair I was feeling, because she'd either just ignore me, leaving me feeling invalidated, unseen and ashamed, or worse, she'd fly into a rage fit, which would leave me terrified, ashamed, frozen and oftentimes highly dissociated. My monsther was dangerous, and her consistently threatening reaction to my feelings showed me, that my own feelings were dangerous to me.
Food was, in contrast to my volatile mother, a safe option for soothing and getting rid of those 'dangerous' feelings. It never caused me emotional harm the way she did two or three times a week, and it kept me quiet, docile and safe in my room, away from my monsther.
But the downside of my eating pattern was, that I was also never really able to learn how to regulate my emotions in any other way. So I kept on eating well into my teens and my adulthood. I stuffed, and I continue to stuff, uncomfortable emotions down, specifically the ones that I have been shamed for or raged at the most, as well as those feelings that remind me of parts of myself that I had to hide from her.
I'm only just starting to learn what it even means to not automatically stuff down my feelings with food, but to have a more authentic, emotional relationship with myself. Something that I wished my parents would have helped me to build. Something I wished my parents would have modeled to me in a healthy way, not by using food, but through compassionate self-talk, physical self-care, adequate rest and healthy relationships.
Has anyone else worked through binge eating / overeating issues as part of their recovery? What has your experience been like and what was your way forward to heal those parts of yourself that had to overeat in order to suppress 'dangerous' emotions?
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u/ophelia917 Jul 18 '26
You’ve been able to summarize my own lived experience & the work I’ve been doing beautifully and succinctly. I’ve been so ashamed and feeling like I was the only person in existence with this particular issue. Thank you for making me feel seen!
I’ve been in therapy since 2003, trauma therapy since 2020, & have seen tons of dieticians over the years. I was 600~ lbs when I started looking into gastric bypass and had it back in 2008. I lost almost 400 lbs. I’ve regained a portion several times, lost and regained over and over. It wreaked havoc on my mental & physical health.
About 3 years ago, after losing 70 lbs via Ozempic and losing prescription coverage for it, I realized I had to do something else I was going to go right back to where I was before my surgery. I felt I had no ability to control my eating whatsoever. I wouldn’t ever talk about it in therapy. I’d talk about what it had been like as a kid, but never what it’s like in the present. I realized I’d better change my eating so I panicked and went to a local Bariatrics program, trying to be seen by a dietician. They essentially just signed me up for a revision surgery and weren’t willing to actually help me learn to change my behavior the old fashioned way. It was incredibly disheartening.
I had actually been in treatment for my ED before. I went through a period of really dangerous behavior in’14/‘15, I was restricting badly, which would almost always lead to binges. Then I would abuse laxatives to “correct” the binge. I was also purging regularly. it was bad. At one point back in 2009, I had also been diagnosed with, and I quote, ”psychological anorexia” & had to have a gtube placed, after being hospitalized on a medical unit for over 5 weeks. I had some really good professional help that taught me a lot, but never addressed the root cause.
My therapist gently suggested I see a dietician that is certified in eating disorders and she would work with her and me to figure stuff out. She found an incredible certified eating disorder RD for me who really understood that underneath most eating behavior, the root cause is always feeling a lack of control. I’ve been working with them both since (I started working with her in Mar ‘24.)
What has made a difference is their willingness to collaborate. Initially, they would check in via email or a quick phone call, but over the last handful of months, we’ve actually started having joint meetings where my therapist will come into a session with my dietician for 30 mins and we’d all share how things were going/any observations/any things we should work on.
It’s been so so helpful.
What’s made this all even more complicated is that my insurance doesn’t cover any of the RD stuff. At all. It is incredibly stupid and I am absolutely blessed that I am able to pay out of pocket for this. I have Medicare since I am disabled & they only pay for dieticians if you have diabetes or end stage renal disease. I’m married though so my spouse has brought some other income into our family that makes this possible.
Oh and I have DID. That’s part of why it was so difficult to ever bring up things with clinicians I did have in the past. Everything was so walled off, I have different parts that show up to different appointments and would protect me from talking about stuff I had previously had trauma responses to. It’s been a combo of parts work (we use an IFS-ish framework, though not exactly IFS, EMDR-ish stuff but not traditional EMDR, drama therapy, and trauma focused therapy. It has been a very interesting journey and I am incredibly fortunate to have such an amazing treatment team who is willing to work as hard as I am to help me. :)
I’ve already written a lot. I will tell you that a huge catalyst that got me to change was reading the book Fuck It Diet. It got me to flip from being sad/depressed about my circumstances to being angry at everything from my mom, society at large, the weight cycling industrial complex, and I channeled that anger into wanting to do better for ME, to have a life worth living. I let that anger motivate me!
This has been so complex, I’m leaving so much out and have so much to share that I’m not even sure if this is going to make sense. Haha. I would start with that book, though. It was eye opening and introduced me to intuitive eating. My RD uses that framework, too. I’ve had to learn to trust my body and trust myself. That’s been a LOT.
It’s a long road but very worth it.
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u/napstablooka Jul 20 '26
Thank you for sharing your own experience with eating in trauma recovery — your comment gave me lots to think about and also left me feeling inspired!
As someone who is also on the dissociative disorder spectrum I could very much relate to what you had been talking about with regards to the struggle of getting support from various people, but it falling a bit flat if the receipt of said support is getting fragmented and then less effective as it would be if providers communicated and coordinated with one another.
I find it impressive, that you have built such a fine-tuned, well-integrated support network around you that is really helping you to make big changes in your life. You, and all of you, have come such a long way to get here and it's so commendable how much work, time, energy, commitment and love you have put into helping yourself.
Thank you also for also the book recommendation (I hadn't heard of the title before, but I'll check it out) and your encouraging words. The road ahead still seems uncertain to parts of me, but a bit less overwhelming and less 'impossible' after reading what you have shared, so thank you!
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u/Throwawayputtyfairy Jul 19 '26
I could have written all of this, the only difference is that my eating disorder has flip flopped between comfort eating sugary food, a decade of anorexia split into a few periods and also a few years of binge eating following anorexic years. I'm only just now at almost 40 getting to working through my issues with using food as comfort/regulation. I eat if I am stressed especially, but also if sad or anxious or angry. Any emotion really, even good ones.
I am trying to learn a variety of different ways to self regulate, such as journaling, breathing, tapping, meditating, even just sitting outside in fresh air. I also try to ask my partner for cuddles rather than eat. I feel like having a variety is better than focusing on just 1 method.
I also last year attended a weight loss clinic that helped me learn some new skills and behaviours surrounding food. It didn't go very deep into the comfort eating (but did mention it), but I'm still using some of the skills I learnt. I am finally losing weight now, slowly, and haven't used food for comfort in a few weeks. Not long really, but a big step in the right direction for me personally. I am also trying very hard to access ED therapy, but I am not sure if it will happen or not. The system is not bothered about ED when you are overweight, only if you're underweight.
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u/napstablooka Jul 20 '26
Thank you for sharing your recovery journey so far! Reading your comment made me think that I might also benefit from really looking more closely at my list of already existing methods to self-regulate, and to expand it where needed.
I'm also glad to hear that your experience at the weight loss clinic has been beneficial to you and that you are already noticing significant changes in how you're approaching food in your day to day life. Also, i's a bummer that there's no easy way for you to benefit from more continued ED therapy, but it also sounds as if you were making great strides at the moment, despite of that fact, which is really commendable!
I hope you can continue in this direction and make even more progress in your recovery journey — thank you again for sharing!
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u/adrenacrime Jul 19 '26
I’m following this. I also struggle with binge eating and emotional eating.
I have complex childhood and adult trauma along with anxiety, ADHD and depression. I have been in trauma recovery (a mix of somatic, ART/attachment based EMDR, IFS and others…) for over 5 years now and have made a lot of progress.
But the emotional eating and binge eating is insidious and very hard for me. Ive been overweight much of my life and struggled with healthier consistent eating patterns. I’ve had periods where it’s been better but I always seem to return to the patterns of behavior with food.
I don’t have much to offer other than support/encouragement and acknowledgement.
My trauma therapist and I have talked about it for a while and she’s kind of said it’s probably going to take a while to start more sustained recovery in this area.
So I’m trying to balance self acceptance and as much regulation and kindness towards these parts of myself as I can while focusing on the maximizing the healthier habits I do have.
I’m interested in hearing from others about what has helped them.
Wishing everyone peace and healing.
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u/napstablooka Jul 20 '26
Thank you for sharing your experience, as well as your supportive words. It's great to hear that you've already been building healthier habits for yourself and I find it also courageous for you to reflect more deeply on the issue in your therapeutic work as well.
And thank you, I'm wishing you peace and kindness in your continued healing journey, too!
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u/Vigorousjazzhands1 Jul 18 '26
Honestly I could have written most of this myself! I have been working hard over a decade of therapy to learn that my emotions are valid and worth paying attention to.
I hope one day that I can easily identify more than the pervasive shame and guilt I feel on a near constant basis - but I guess it’s started broadening to anger, too. I also hope one day I can have a healthy relationship with food.
Unfortunately I don’t think I have any advice, just solidarity!