An effect of trauma

Eating disorder or difficult relationship with food

Using food, or the control of food, to manage what cannot otherwise be managed. Restriction, bingeing, purging, compulsive eating, orthorexia. The body becoming a site of control when everything else felt out of control. Or a way to feel, or to stop feeling, or to punish, or to comfort. Eating disorders are not about vanity. They are about survival, and they are serious, and they deserve real care.

It can sound like

“I restrict food to feel in control.” “I binge and struggle to stop.” “I hate my body.” “Eating feels loaded for me.” “I think about food a lot.”

If any of those sentences live in your head too, you are in good company here.

Experiences this often follows

Effects do not come from nowhere. These are some of the experiences that people who carry this one often describe. You do not need to have been through any of them for what you feel to be real.

Nothing on this page is a diagnosis, and nothing here decides what is wrong with you, because nothing is wrong with you. Something happened to you. This page exists so that when you are ready, you can find people who understand it from the inside.

You do not have to carry this alone.

Bridge of Hope Recovery is a free, anonymous, peer-led fellowship for trauma survivors. Meetings run throughout the week by phone, by video, and in person. No cost, no waitlist, no one asking for your real name.

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