Anybody who has experienced trauma knows their life in two separate timelines – before the event and after.

Quite often after a traumatic experience, people are left on their own to cope with the effects, impact, feelings, emotions, nightmares, flashbacks and so much more.

In some cases, dealing with these things is too much and we develop ways to handle what is overwhelming us.

When these tools are used for a short term, they can be called coping mechanisms. No matter what the coping mechanism is, there is always the potential for a short term helpful tool, to change into an unhealthy addiction. The more common ones are drugs, alcohol and food issues – anorexia, bulimia, overeating & obesity.

If you add physical, emotional or sexual abuse into the equation, the eating can take on an additional purpose. In some cases it can take on a literal protective covering to prevent people from being hurt further.

In some cases, the self hatred for what has happened to our bodies, how our bodies reacted, responded, betrayed – means our body is the enemy and doesn’t deserve time, intention or any sort of true care.

Additionally in other cases, the body has no value at all, other than being the shell that keeps us here in this place of pain.

Food is the first “addiction” we are exposed to and is quite often the only thing that we can “control”, giving the illusion of safety or protection.  No matter what way you look at it, trauma related weight issues are complicated and challenging, because you can’t just give up eating, like you can drugs or alcohol, so your biggest temptation is everywhere and you need it to survive.

Recovering from trauma related weight issues is possible, no matter where you are starting from right now.