From Pain to Protection: How Our Early Experiences Shape Our Relationship with Food
When I sit with someone who feels caught in a painful cycle around food, I don’t see weakness or lack of discipline. I see an ache for safety - a part doing its best to keep them okay in a world that once felt unpredictable.
In Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, we see that eating struggles are rarely about food.
They’re about protection.
Early experiences, especially the ones that left us feeling unseen, unsafe, or not enough, can plant the seeds of protection. Younger parts of us carry pain, fear, or shame that once felt too heavy to hold. Other parts step in to manage that weight through control, criticism, perfectionism, or numbing. These patterns aren’t evidence of brokenness. They’re evidence of survival: of a system that found a way to keep going.
The Hidden Roots of Food and Body Struggles
For many people, the roots of eating struggles live in early moments when safety was uncertain.
Childhood trauma doesn’t always mean catastrophe. Sometimes it’s the quieter things: too much pressure, not enough comfort, constant comparison, or love that felt conditional. These experiences shape how our nervous systems learn to protect us.
Trauma doesn’t only live in memory; it settles in the body and the inner world. When a child feels unsafe or unseen, an inner part of that child takes on that pain. In IFS, we call these Exiles - younger, tender aspects of us holding the emotions and unmet needs we couldn’t process back then.
Because those feelings can be overwhelming, the practice of control, setting rules for comfort and avoidance, emerges. In IFS, these practices become Protectors playing out in your relationship with food and body. This is survival when things feel unbearable. And if they’re about survival and protection, we see them not as pathology but a narrative worthy of understanding. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with me?” we ask, “What happened to me, and how did my parts learn to keep me safe?”
The Many Ways We Protect Ourselves
If you pause long enough, you might notice how your system tries to help:
The Controller creates order in a world that once felt unpredictable.
The Avoidant reaches for food or distraction when overwhelming emotions threaten to spill over.
The Critic believes harshness towards yourself will keep you from rejection.
The Perfectionist strives to do everything “right,” hoping that achievement will guarantee love.
The Rationalizer hides behind logic and “clean eating,” where control feels safer than vulnerability.
Each of these parts has a reason for existing. None is trying to harm you. They developed to help you survive emotions that once felt impossible to bear. However, over time, their strategies can grow exhausting. What protects you also limits you from creativity, freedom, and peace. In this work, we meet these protectors with curiosity and respect, and work with them to shift into a life of thriving.
The Inner Child Beneath the Surface
Beneath the protectors live the younger parts, small versions of you still waiting to be witnessed. They carry stories about who you had to be to belong, and what it cost to stay safe.
They might whisper things like:
“I’m too much.”
“I’m not enough.”
“I have to be perfect to be loved.”
These parts may hold memories of:
Emotional neglect or lack of attunement
Criticism or shame around your body
Being the responsible one too soon
Unpredictable or volatile caregiving
Bullying or rejection
Growing up around anxiety, addiction, or depression
Trauma or abuse
You don’t have to have lived through what the world calls “big T” trauma for your system to carry pain.
Even small, repeated moments of disconnection can teach your nervous system that love is conditional.
Healing begins when these younger parts realize they don’t have to carry their pain alone.
Moving Toward Healing
Healing in IFS isn’t about fixing or silencing your parts. It’s about building a relationship with them, one rooted in curiosity, compassion, and patience.
It begins with safety, inside and between, where Protectors are respected, not fought, Exiles are witnessed gently, and your Self, the calm, compassionate core within you, begins to lead.
Many of us with early trauma learned that others couldn’t be trusted or attuned. In therapy, the relationship itself becomes a place of repair, where your parts learn, slowly, that they can be seen and still loved.
Healing grows in moments of tenderness. In small pauses. In learning that your own compassion can be enough. Because healing doesn’t come from fighting your parts, it comes from welcoming them home.
A Gentle Reflection
When you notice yourself struggling with food, control, or body image, take a breath.
Instead of asking, “Why can’t I stop doing this?”, try asking,
“What part of me is trying to protect me right now?”
You might be surprised by what answers back, not with words, but with a feeling, an image, or a small release in your body. That shift, from judgment to curiosity, is often where healing begins.
Start working with an IFS-informed trauma therapist in Highland Park, Los Angeles, CA
An Invitation
If this reflection resonates, you don’t have to navigate it alone. At Therapy on Fig, we help clients explore the roots of their protective patterns with compassion and depth.
Reach out to schedule a free 15-minute consultation and begin reconnecting with every part of you, including the ones that learned to protect you long ago.
Other Services Offered at Therapy on Fig
At Therapy on Fig, we provide therapy services tailored to the unique needs of couples and individual adults and teens. We offer Neurodivergent Affirming Therapy, IFS Therapy, Grief and Loss Therapy, Therapy for Empaths, Trauma Therapy, Couples Therapy, and Teen Therapy. Whether you're seeking support for a specific issue or looking to strengthen your relationship overall, our therapists are here to help. Reach out today to learn more about our services!
Gabriella Elise Giorgio is a Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (AMFT 140682), supervised by Sharon Yu. As a highly sensitive person and a mother, she helps individuals recover from childhood attachment injuries, couples navigate significant life changes, and those who struggle with disordered eating. Reach out to learn more about our experienced therapists.