A Different Kind of Food Trauma - Surviving Meanness

Monica Bhagwan posted:

I invite you all to bring your thoughts and comments to the ACES and Nourishment community page. It is a place to explore the relationship between food/nourishment/nutrition and trauma, recognizing that the original ACES study uncovered how trauma was at the root of people's relationship to food.  https://www.pacesconnection.com/g/aces-and-nourishment

Thank you, Monica will get in touch when I have something to share.

Food is a fundamental need and one that evokes deep emotions and feelings.  Thank you for sharing your experiences.  

I invite you all to bring your thoughts and comments to the ACES and Nourishment community page. It is a place to explore the relationship between food/nourishment/nutrition and trauma, recognizing that the original ACES study uncovered how trauma was at the root of people's relationship to food.  https://www.pacesconnection.com/g/aces-and-nourishment

Thanks to all the lovely people here (Karen, Liz, Cissy, Monica, Ruth, Mary and et.al.). At the risk of repeating myself, I reiterate my gratefulness for  Holding space for me.

Thank you Cheryl. I appreciate your bravery for looking at your experiences, and for generously sharing them with us so we can learn along with you.  These ongoing experiences with those who were supposed to protect you must have been so difficult.  Food can be representative of many aspects of our lives - and a daily reminder of the hurt you experienced as a child.  Thank you for sharing your story.  Karen

Thank you for sharing this perspective and thank you all in the comments for adding your experiences. 

I really connect with this piece Cheryl. Food is the symbol of nourishment and resources. Receiving nourishment and shared resources creates an expectation of standard treatment and worth. Not receiving that basic nourishment, and having it intentionally withheld creates a pervasive question - will the people I'm now with fill my needs or will they too be greedy and exclude me. I'm working through something similar myself these days. As much as we can tell ourselves we are worthy, when others exclude us, we're still the ones who have to deal with the consequences. Sure, we can now fill some of our own needs, but not all. We all need other humans to help us get what we need. None of us should have to be members of the prescribed group to get our needs met. We're all humans and we each deserve needs fulfillment. You've definitely touched on a deep issue I'm sure many of us experience. Thanks for sharing this important piece. Elizabeth

Thank you, Ruth, for validating my experiences. For a long time, I felt ashamed of my feelings about this issue. I am still trying to get over this trauma.

Thank you so much for this Cheryl. I learn so much from you. Being deprived of food is what a victim I'm working with went through. Thank you so much for this insight. it helps me a great deal. 

Thankfully, later in life, I met people who were so very generous with food. My friend's mothers who always made me feel welcome. My neighbors when I lost my partner were so giving. Those experiences in some ways mitigated the pain of being excluded and have helped me understand they were the mean ones not that something was wrong with me.

At a dinner party once, I noticed that the host first passed every dish to the person seated next to her. When I asked about it later, she told me that person was the youngest of 13 children and while growing up, she was always the last to receive whatever bowl was being passed around the family's table--and often there was nothing left. The young child did not feel empowered to say, "There is nothing left for me," and instead went hungry. Yes, food trauma is devastating. How may it be healed? EMDR? Emotion Code? Certainly not "talk therapy" because that keeps the 'swirl' of trauma alive.