food narratives & offering another story

Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked Ice Cream was a really emotional food for me.

There is a relationship that I used to have that brought me a lot of pain. This person failed me in many ways *and* they also did what they could, with what they knew, with what they had. I often felt unseen and unimportant to this person, until one night they surprised me with vanilla ice cream, chocolate ice cream, brownie mix, and cookie dough. This person had picked up on my love for Half Baked ice cream and thought we could make our own.

Months and years later, seeing and eating Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked Ice Cream brought up a lot for me.

I wonder if you all have foods like this.

Maybe someone you adored and craved love from mostly connected to you through food. Maybe someone you were close with had their own complicated relationship with food that left an impression on you. Maybe in your ED you used a particular food or condiment in one of your behaviors. Maybe you were very sick for a time and had an aversion or affinity for a specific food. Maybe you only were comforted as a kid with food. Maybe you were only celebrated and praised with food as a teen. There are so, so many reasons why a specific food may hold an emotional place in your life.

For me, Ben & Jerry’s wasn’t just an ice cream anymore. Unconsciously, my brain created a really big narrative around this frozen dessert in a small pint. In my recovery, I wrestled with habituating ice cream. Other food fears I could challenge and move forward. Sometimes challenging a food fear goes much deeper than our diet-culture-influenced-judgement on the food. Sometimes we have food narratives that need to be recognized, shared, processed, and validated. Because when we are challenging a food that has an emotional history, we are not just habituating the food in of itself, but its loaded story too.

This is really vulnerable and meaningful work. I’d encourage you to step into it with your treatment team. Because one day, years from now, the food will have a new story.

The story of how you overcame your eating disorder.

And the story of how sometimes you get it at the store, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you want it after dinner, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you’ll eat it from the bowl, sometimes you’ll eat it straight from the carton. Sometimes you’ll share one spoon, sometimes you’ll each have your own. But all the time you eat it with an enjoyment that is nonchalantly wonderful and peaceful.