Hey there. It's Dr. Susan Peirce Thompson, and I want to talk to you about how early complex trauma can impact eating and weight in adulthood. It turns out there is a massive increase in the risk for developing food addiction later in life if you have experienced complex trauma in childhood. Similarly, there's a massive increase in the risk of developing food addiction if you're neurodivergent. Interestingly, complex trauma in childhood can lead a brain to develop neurodivergence, even if the genetics aren't there and the biological basis isn't there to begin with. So, there seems to be a comorbid bidirectional relationship between these things, complex trauma, neurodivergence, and food addiction.
Let's talk about how complex trauma affects the brain, because really there are three ways that complex trauma in childhood can lead someone to have a brain that's more predisposed to turn toward food for comfort, for soothing, for an addictive hit. We're talking about sugar, flour, processed foods, the types of foods that people turn to for comfort. First of all, there's the reality that with early trauma, the striatum stops processing social interactions typically. They just feel less satisfying. The type of soothing and nourishment and comfort that a typical brain will get from social interactions with people, that's something that someone who's experienced a lot of complex trauma in childhood doesn't receive. That increases the odds that their brain will turn toward a dopaminergic, addictive hit from say spikes of sugar and flour and processed foods to receive that soothing. It's basically self-medication. It's looking for nourishment, and social interactions don't provide it based on the way their brain is wired. Secondly, complex trauma leads to a heightened activation in the amygdala, a hyperactive amygdala. This is the fear center of the brain. It releases cortisol, a stress hormone, and other neurochemicals that produce the sympathetic nervous system arousal, the fight or flight nervous system. When you have a hyper charged fight or flight system, you're more likely to turn to food to soothe. Interestingly, this idea of turning to food to soothe, when you've had complex trauma, the act of eating itself might be a signal to the brain that things are safe, that all is well enough to eat, which means that you're okay. And so, eating might become a conditioned reinforcer for sort of the all-clear signal to the amygdala to say, "We're okay. We're eating." Thirdly, complex trauma impairs the connections in the prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex. This is related to decision making, executive control, and impulse control. So, with all of these other things going on in the brain, what it means is that you've got the accelerator pedal, but you don't have the brake pedal. These impulses that are leading you extra to the food are there, but you have weaker impulse control and decision-making capacity to reign it all in.
Now, a couple of other things are worth mentioning here. If someone's been raised in an environment that's really harsh, really punitive, and very inconsistent, like there might've been a lot of love at one time and then a lot of neglect or punishment or anger at another time, someone might turn to food to control something, to have some element of their environment that is really under their control. This might lead to food restriction, which then later can lead to binging, and this can set up a disordered eating pattern. Another thing worth mentioning is food insecurity as a child. This may or may not be related to neglectful parenting or unloving parenting. It might be related to poverty itself. But food insecurity where a child literally doesn't know when their next meal is coming or whether it will be coming or whether it will be nutritionally adequate or palatable. Profound food insecurity can lead someone to overeat as an adult because parts of them are just so oriented toward eating what there is when it's available. Because the feeling is it may not be there later. So, get while the getting's good. All of these factors really point to one thing, which is if you have a history of complex trauma, being incredibly gentle with yourself and sympathetic with yourself as you heal.
The good news is that the brain is very plastic. Now, I don't mean plastic as in like you wrap your food in a film of plastic before putting it in the fridge or your products come in plastic and you have to take them out of the plastic wrapper. Neuroplasticity means malleability, flexibility, the ability to change, rewire, and grow and develop all throughout life. The brain never loses this ability. It does slow down a bit with older age, but we never lose the ability to grow and develop and to sculpt the brain basically in new ways. And so, the minute we put ourselves on a path of eating differently, of growing and learning and changing, our brain starts to change as well. All of the things that I just talked about are gradually to some degree or another undoable, reversible, malleable, flexible to some degree. And that's good news because the efforts that we put in really do yield tangible results. Now, I want to say that the most important thing here is when you embark on a program of healing for your brain, whether you do Bright Line Eating or some other approach, it's really important to work with a qualified trauma-based therapist. I highly recommend EMDR, which is a method of using eye movements, going back in time and tapping into old memories and reprogramming the brain at the deepest level. It's been clinically shown to be incredibly powerful at treating complex trauma. So, get yourself a qualified EMDR therapist as you work your Bright Line Eating® program, or do whatever program you do.
I also want to say that as you do something like Bright Line Eating, and Bright Line Eating, we have this phrase that's come up from something I said in the Bright Line Eating Boot Camp about if you're consecutively Bright, consider that gift to be like a crystal vase and don't juggle with it because once you break it, it's very hard to put it back together the same way again. And so, because of that video, in our community, people who have long stretches of unbroken Bright Lines, especially from the beginning, tend to be called crystal vasers or their recovery is crystal vase recovery. I just want to say this concept can be especially challenging for someone who comes from a background of complex trauma. The reason is that perfectionism can become the goal, especially if you were raised in a very punitive environment where perfectionism was the standard that was expected and punishments were harsh. And so, of course perfectionism isn't the goal. I'm going to say that again. Perfectionism isn't the goal. Perfection's not the goal. What's the goal? Happiness, freedom, peace, quieting the food noise, self-respect, joy, a life of purpose. I mean, you get to define what the goal is, but perfection certainly isn't it. Last time I checked that was not available on planet Earth for human beings. We all make mistakes in all kinds of ways and softening the edges of how we view ourselves is going to be really, really important. And so, the abstinence-based approach, the Bright Line approach to food can be hard and problematic if you come from a heavily trauma-filled background. That's because mistakes or deviations can lead to extra shame, extra self-loathing, and the downward spiral of shame leading to more eating can become even more pronounced. Just like I think the downward spiral of eating as weight starts to be gained and the whole process of eating over all the things we talked about before. The brain being hijacked in all these extra ways. And then the weight comes on and then all that becomes evidence of I don't value myself. I don't love myself. I'm not enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy. And then I better eat over that. That downward spiral is pretty pronounced. It's really important to make sure you surround yourself with people who are very, very loving and very, very caring and do the work with a qualified trauma therapist as you are growing and changing in your food recovery as well.
Now, food addiction is real. So abstinence-based approaches still might be your best bet. They may not be though, right? So, keep an open mind about that as well. But it's just important to do the work with gentleness and with professional support. I just wanted to shed light on something we haven't talked about that much in Bright Line Eating. And if you come from a background of profound trauma, I just want to say I see you. I love you. I care about you. You're welcome in Bright Line Eating. And the extra courage that you are summoning to face what you go through with food is seen and appreciated here. That's the weekly vlog. I'll see you next week.
