Q. How to recover from binge eating due to CPTSD?
What can you do when your emotional eating stems from complex trauma—those unclear, shadowy experiences from the past that affect your present? Today, we’ll explore how to effectively address emotional eating linked to trauma.
Today’s topic is how to recover from binge eating due to complex trauma. Let’s dive into the question!
Q. I binge eat most evenings for both emotional reasons (usually intense emotions like happiness, sadness, anxiety, depression) but also for a source of stimulation/entertainment when I’m feeling bored. Often it feels like binge eating is the one good thing in my life and so I feel resentment that it’s a coping mechanism I have to tackle as it’s affecting my health.
When I’m going through a bad period of CPTSD I often neglect myself (e.g. oversleep by sleeping 10-12 hours every night, put off getting dressed and showering, skip meals, not go out or exercise) and when I am in one of those ruts I almost enjoy binge eating as a form of punishment and self-sabotage. Has anyone experienced binge eating or emotional eating and have any advice? Thank you in advance.
A. When you have complex trauma and multiple traumatic experiences, it can be confusing to know where to start and what truly works for recovery. Here, I want to highlight a crucial insight into understanding what’s happening when you find yourself “almost enjoying binge eating as a form of punishment and self-sabotage,” while simultaneously resenting these unhealthy coping mechanisms and recognizing their impact on your health.
Understanding why you turn to food: the role of maladaptive childhood survival strategies
Imagine for a moment that you are carrying a hypothesis formed in your baby mind —patterns that shape how you see yourself and the world. These templates, often form during your earliest years of life, when fundamental needs like love, safety, and attention are either met or unmet. As a baby or young child, your needs are simple but crucial: “I need attention,” “I need to feel safe,” “I need to be cared for,” and “I need to be loved unconditionally.” It is called schema, blueprint.
When these basic needs are not fulfilled consistently, children often adapt by developing survival strategies to try to secure those essential feelings of safety and love. For example, a child who doesn’t consistently receive comfort when they cry might learn that they need to behave in certain ways to get attention. Instead of believing, “I deserve to be loved as I am,” they may form a belief like, “I need to be pleasant and not make any trouble to be loved.” This is how a maladaptive childhood survival strategy is born.
These strategies are attempts by a young, vulnerable mind to create some control over an environment that feels unpredictable or even unsafe. For example, if a child feels that they will only receive love if they are “good” or “pleasing,” they might continue to act in ways that seek approval, even at the cost of denying their own needs or feelings. Similarly, if they grow up feeling that their feelings of fear or sadness are met with rejection or punishment, they might learn to suppress those emotions entirely, creating a pattern of internalized shame or self-neglect.
How maladaptive survival strategies evolve over time
In a healthy environment, these survival strategies would eventually disappear. As a child grows, they ideally experience situations where their needs are met consistently—where they are comforted when they are sad, where they feel love simply for being who they are, not for what they do. These positive experiences gradually override the old survival strategies. As they begin to feel safe in the world, the belief that “I must be perfect to be loved” is replaced by the belief, “I am generally loved and accepted just as I am.”
This is an ideal path of growth. In a nurturing environment – I would call it rather rare, a child doesn’t have to work for love; it’s simply given. And through repeated experiences of unconditional care, their early survival strategies lose their power. They no longer need to bend themselves into shapes that don’t fit to gain attention. Instead, they develop a stable sense of self, knowing their worth is not tied to how they behave or how much they can please others.
However, when these needs are not adequately met, the early survival strategies remain deeply embedded. They evolve from simple childhood coping mechanisms into powerful, often unconscious, forces that shape behaviors in adulthood. The unmet needs persist, and the strategies become more complex—attempting to find ways to fill the void left by a lack of love, safety, or attention in childhood.
How these strategies lead to emotional eating
For adults with these unfulfilled needs, emotional eating often becomes one of those maladaptive strategies. When the old belief that “I am not enough” or “I must be perfect to be worthy” is triggered, it can create a deep sense of emptiness or anxiety. Food, then, becomes a way to manage those feelings—to fill that emptiness, to provide comfort, or to create a replacement for feeling “good enough.” It’s an attempt to meet the unmet need in the fastest way possible.
Emotional eating is a way of coping when those childhood survival patterns are activated. When an old feeling of “I need to be cared for” resurfaces, and there’s no one there to meet that need, food often stands in as a substitute—a temporary source of pleasure, comfort, or distraction.
Overcoming childhood survival strategies
The key to changing these patterns lies in recognizing and addressing those unmet needs that drive emotional eating. In the process of healing, you begin to recognize that these old survival strategies were formed to protect you. They were your mind’s way of making sense of an environment that didn’t always meet your needs. However, they are no longer serving you in the same way today; they are keeping you from truly feeling at peace with yourself.
By identifying these old strategies, you can start to provide what was missing for that younger part of you. This means giving yourself the care, love, and attention that you needed back then. Through processes like hypnotherapy and inner child work, you can begin to connect with that younger self—providing comfort, understanding, and unconditional acceptance.
Imagine, in a therapeutic setting, visualizing your younger self—feeling the longing for love and safety that went unmet. As your adult self, you can now approach that child, offering the comfort and validation that wasn’t there in the past. You might tell her, “You are enough. You don’t need to be anything other than who you are to be worthy of love.” In doing this, you begin to meet those original needs in a way that food never can.
Many of my clients is surprised how quickly the maladaptive strategies that have driven your behavior start to lose their power in just a few sessions. The belief that you need to “earn” love or “perform” to be valued begins to shift. As you build new experiences of safety, care, and acceptance, the old survival strategies are naturally overridden. You learn that you no longer need to reach for food to soothe or fill an emotional void. Instead, you develop healthier ways to meet your needs—connecting with others, nurturing yourself, and cultivating a sense of self-worth that is not dependent on external validation.
This healing process allows you to move away from the desperate need to fulfill those old unmet needs through food. It helps you reconnect with your true self, grounded in the knowledge that you are already enough, just as you are. As you fulfill those fundamental needs, the old, maladaptive strategies naturally fall away, and you begin to live from a place of wholeness rather than lack.
Transforming dissociation with presence and safety
Sometimes, the pain of emptiness leads to dissociation—disconnecting from your feelings, becoming numb, or not fully present. In hypnotherapy, I guide you to gently bring awareness back to those moments with a sense of safety.
Take another deep breath. Feel your feet on the ground, your hands in your lap. You don’t have to face the pain all at once. Just notice what it feels like to return to your body, even if for a moment. As you practice this, the part of you that once dissociated begins to trust that it’s safe to be present—that you can handle the emotions without being overwhelmed.
Shifting the narrative: from food to true nourishment
When feelings of loneliness or unworthiness rise, you now have another choice. Instead of reaching for food, imagine turning to that younger version of yourself and asking, “What do you need?” As we continue this work together, you’ll feel more in control—not through willpower, but through understanding and compassion.
You can begin to hold your own heart, telling yourself, “I am here for you. I am enough. I am worthy of love.” Over time, you’re rewriting those maladaptive survival strategies, shifting from filling the void with food to filling it with love and self-nurturing.
More than just acknowledging the wounds
Most therapists and coaches’ approach to inner child work focus only on identifying pain and feeling those emotions. While this is important, it’s only half of the healing journey. The next step—often missed—is about rewriting the story of your past, finding the love, comfort, and joy that may have been completely skipped . By re-writing a new subconscious script, your mind quickly adapts to the new reality.
The brain’s neuroplasticity allows us to rewrite memories, meaning you’re not stuck in the pain. We can bring forward moments of love that existed, even if they were small or forgotten. These positive experiences reshape your internal narrative, helping you live differently.
Our mind’s ability to rewrite memories
Your brain is wired to remember negative experiences more intensely, a survival mechanism to avoid danger. But it’s also capable of embracing the positive when we consciously focus on it. In hypnotherapy, we use this capacity to reinterpret past events, embedding positive feelings and transforming how we view ourselves today.
True transformation
This second half of inner child work is where true transformation happens. It’s not just about acknowledging the pain; it’s about seeing the love and nurturing it. This shift allows you to thrive, no longer defined by the hurt but by the love and resilience that have always been part of your story.
By embracing both halves of this process, you begin to fill the void not with food but with the deep love you’ve always deserved. You start living differently—not because you’re forcing change, but because you’ve reconnected with your worth.
If you’re ready to create this shift, to heal the wounds and find a new sense of wholeness, I am here to guide you every step of the way. Together, we’ll transform your relationship with food, your body, and yourself—allowing lasting change to unfold.
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