I Want to Normalise this Conversation!

“There is a systemic issue of drinking and eating irregularities that directly correlates to trauma’s impact on a woman that needs to be addressed.”

If you’ve suffered any form of trauma, your struggles with your eating and drinking habits will certainly be complex. Change is hard, and there are many factors to consider: biology, social culture, temperament and more.

Still, women who have suffered abuse always share commonalities in their behavioural patterns and challenges. The brain and body have coping mechanisms to deal with complicated feelings and experiences resulting from the trauma. In most cases, one of them is a disconnect between your body and your mental state.

Why Women Need Help After Trauma Experiences

A problem we face in our communities is that people who have never experienced physical, mental or sexual trauma underestimate its short- and long-term effects on the victims. Some may know something about it and yet have this entirely backward—they think the unhealthy food relationship comes first. 

Women affected aren’t just those in lower social, economic or indigenous communities—it happens at every pay grade, in every community and postcode, on every street in Australia, and everywhere around the globe. So these women suffer in silence, suppress their emotions and develop destructive behaviours with food and alcohol. It’s more a case of ‘envy someone until you reach their front door’.

Eighty per cent of abused women don’t seek help, can’t afford it or can’t get into government-funded programs. But research tells us that people who struggle with food and alcohol consumption irregularities can heal themselves—given the right set of tools.

The Effects of Trauma

Food And Drink Addictions

When a person has been traumatised due to abuse at any age, they experience excruciating and dehumanising loneliness driven by the toxic shame of exposure to abuse and the lack of an empathic witness (someone who provides emotional validation). Abuse or neglect may impair the brain’s physical function, leading to psychological problems such as low self-esteem and reducing resistance to stressful events. These problems may later lead to high-risk behaviours, poor impulse control, inability to regulate emotions, and dependence on substances for a cerebral high. 

Most trauma victims become addicted to food and drink to enhance positive emotions and reduce negative ones, a form of self-medicating because of trauma. These are some common patterns:

• Developing food addictions to soothe and defer pain. Highly flavoured, desirable, salty or sugary foods trigger the brain’s pleasure centres and release feel-good chemicals such as dopamine and serotonin.
• Relying on drink to numb emotions, escape from stress and self-judgement, or reduce inhibition and memory.

Talk soon,

Fleur Elizabeth