what i learned about comfort food, memories and triggers
OnceInnocent
Registrant
I was 10 and looked out the window that used to be in my room. There were Legos to my left, a piano to my right. I stood in the spot that used to be a wall of closets between my bedroom and my older brothers room. It was warm and sunny. School was just about over for the year. The windows were open and the breeze ran over my face and bare arms and legs. This should have been a happy time, but I looked out the window and though, "Why does summer make me so sad?". I had asked my parents. They had no answer except, "maybe because you will miss your friends?"
Every year, I feel the same thing coming on. And just like a trained animal, I get anxious when I'm reminded there's only 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 months until summer hits again.
When I finally realized that it had something to do with abuse memories, I thought, like an idiot, that now that id made the link in my head, I will move through it and summers will forever be wonderful... "Not so fast!" my brain says to me. Since I've been in therapy, I've made several attempts to take a stab at what memories of abuse actually had anything to do with summer. There's time in tents, there's being face down in an heavily treed vacant lot... being fondled on the school bus and cars, all having happened in the summer. But the abuse was never JUST in the summer. So, why is it such a bad time for me?
It wouldn't bother me so much, but summer should be fun. Now that I'm an adult, I want to pass on fun summers to my own family. And it worries me that if my baseline sanity is at a particularly low watershed in the colder months, what on earth will I do in summer? Or more importantly, what will my family do with me?
The other day I was listening to a bbc sounds podcast called The Food Chain, that surprisingly helped me clear up a lot.
The first thing to know is that if you don't have a love hate relationship with food, as in, feel guilty when you eat or are just extremely aware of how you and food interact (hint: I have neither of those) then you may experience comfort foods in this way.
1. You may know you like "comfort foods" but not actually crave them or remember them, unless they are presented to you. So that's the difference between the two memory functions: recognition (seeing something and knowing its name) vs recall (remembering something when you cant see it - like when you are trying to remember that thing that you finally remember in the middle of the night).
2. You may know that you like a food because "grandma used to make this at Christmas" or something like that. But chances are you don't remember how many times you had it and what tiny sensations you were feeling when you ate it and what other things contributed to your brain "encoding" the food with all those different happy experiences.
It's a bit like, "why do I like that song". Answer: Its way to complex to know and there's no way to go back in time and unravel it all.
And so it goes with abuse.
And so it goes for summer time. There are just TOO MANY memories that I don't remember, the complex feelings and associated experiences when I was abused in the summer... somehow it was the right combination to crystalize into a time of year I dread. And I know, even in lockdown, people are enjoying it and I'm not, makes it all the more frustrating. Summer should be a time to relax, be with family, do fun things that involve water and shirtlessness.
As usual, the pointless question "why?" is involved. And that's the thing I wasn't understanding for decades.
I know and have told so many other survivors, "you can answer all the other "wh" questions, but don't even bother asking "why", because why doesn't have an answer except "because". Why leads us "down the rabbit hole", "up the creep without a paddle", "right round the bend". It goes nowhere and gets us nothing while keeping us busy focused on so many negatives that it drives us nuts.
In my mind I thought I was asking "what is it about my abuse that is causing me to feel this way about summer?", when, in fact, I was asking "WHY do I feel this way about summer and what does it have to do with my abuse." I fooled myself into chewing on that for 30 years. Whoops! lol
Every year, I feel the same thing coming on. And just like a trained animal, I get anxious when I'm reminded there's only 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 months until summer hits again.
When I finally realized that it had something to do with abuse memories, I thought, like an idiot, that now that id made the link in my head, I will move through it and summers will forever be wonderful... "Not so fast!" my brain says to me. Since I've been in therapy, I've made several attempts to take a stab at what memories of abuse actually had anything to do with summer. There's time in tents, there's being face down in an heavily treed vacant lot... being fondled on the school bus and cars, all having happened in the summer. But the abuse was never JUST in the summer. So, why is it such a bad time for me?
It wouldn't bother me so much, but summer should be fun. Now that I'm an adult, I want to pass on fun summers to my own family. And it worries me that if my baseline sanity is at a particularly low watershed in the colder months, what on earth will I do in summer? Or more importantly, what will my family do with me?
The other day I was listening to a bbc sounds podcast called The Food Chain, that surprisingly helped me clear up a lot.
The first thing to know is that if you don't have a love hate relationship with food, as in, feel guilty when you eat or are just extremely aware of how you and food interact (hint: I have neither of those) then you may experience comfort foods in this way.
1. You may know you like "comfort foods" but not actually crave them or remember them, unless they are presented to you. So that's the difference between the two memory functions: recognition (seeing something and knowing its name) vs recall (remembering something when you cant see it - like when you are trying to remember that thing that you finally remember in the middle of the night).
2. You may know that you like a food because "grandma used to make this at Christmas" or something like that. But chances are you don't remember how many times you had it and what tiny sensations you were feeling when you ate it and what other things contributed to your brain "encoding" the food with all those different happy experiences.
It's a bit like, "why do I like that song". Answer: Its way to complex to know and there's no way to go back in time and unravel it all.
And so it goes with abuse.
And so it goes for summer time. There are just TOO MANY memories that I don't remember, the complex feelings and associated experiences when I was abused in the summer... somehow it was the right combination to crystalize into a time of year I dread. And I know, even in lockdown, people are enjoying it and I'm not, makes it all the more frustrating. Summer should be a time to relax, be with family, do fun things that involve water and shirtlessness.
As usual, the pointless question "why?" is involved. And that's the thing I wasn't understanding for decades.
I know and have told so many other survivors, "you can answer all the other "wh" questions, but don't even bother asking "why", because why doesn't have an answer except "because". Why leads us "down the rabbit hole", "up the creep without a paddle", "right round the bend". It goes nowhere and gets us nothing while keeping us busy focused on so many negatives that it drives us nuts.
In my mind I thought I was asking "what is it about my abuse that is causing me to feel this way about summer?", when, in fact, I was asking "WHY do I feel this way about summer and what does it have to do with my abuse." I fooled myself into chewing on that for 30 years. Whoops! lol