When C-PTSD Meets Food/Body Struggles

If you’ve lived through complex trauma, it’s so common to also struggle with food and body — even if, on the surface, you “seem fine.”

For many people with c-PTSD, controlling food and body can feel like safety.

When so much of your past felt unpredictable, food rules and routines can become a way to cope. But over time, these coping strategies can start to take over — and often, no one around you even notices.

In my work as an eating disorder therapist, I have also seen individuals with high-functioning eating disorders - being able to participate in their jobs, relationships, and day-to-day tasks, all while engaging in eating disorder behaviors such as restricting or ‘perfect’ eating.

Orthorexia is an eating disorder that revolves around ‘perfect’ eating. According to the National Eating Disorder Association, signs and symptoms include:

• Compulsive checking of ingredient lists and nutrition labels

• An increase in concern about the health of ingredients

• Cutting out an increasing number of food groups (all sugar, all carbs)

• An inability to eat anything but a narrow group of foods that are deemed ‘healthy’ or ‘pure’

• Unusual interest in the health of what others are eating

• Spending hours per day thinking about what food might be served at upcoming events

• Showing high levels of distress when ‘safe’ or ‘healthy’ foods aren’t available

• Obsessive following of food and “healthy lifestyle” blogs on Instagram

• Body image concerns may or may not be present

Other disordered eating behaviors I have observed include:

• Calorie counting

• Macro counting

• Only allowing a certain number of calories per day, and disregarding hunger cues after calorie allotment has been met

• Not allowing oneself to eat after a certain time at night

• Being strict with one’s eating during the week, and then allowing themselves to eat whatever they want on the weekend or holidays

• Using coffee, or other beverages, to suppress hunger.

These patterns don’t mean you’re broken — they mean you’ve found ways to survive when your nervous system was overwhelmed. But survival mode isn’t meant to be forever. Healing is possible.

If this resonates, know you’re not alone — and your relationship with food and your body can change, no matter how long you’ve been stuck in these cycles.

You deserve peace with food. You deserve to feel safe in your body. 💛