Origin and Lore of the Trauma Treat
Unpacking what it really means to sit with the girls who eat their feelings
If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know I joke that one of my favorite coping mechanisms is food. A Trauma Treat if you will.
A trauma treat doesn’t really have a genre. It’s just whatever feels delicious in the moment. Sure, it can be dessert, candy, or some guilty pleasure, but it can also be a bomb slice of pizza (hard to find since I moved away from Chicago—and YES, Chicago pizza is superior to all pizza internationally. Fight me.) or a pack of grocery store sushi.
Dietitians call it emotional eating, and sure, it certainly hasn’t been helpful for my waistline. Yet there’s a part of me that chalks it all up as worth it. Everything in moderation—especially on a day like today.
This late July, I find myself back in my hometown for a week, staying in the house I grew up in, with relics of my mom scattered throughout every room. Her ghost and memory are imprinted everywhere, yet she’s nowhere to be found because she died just over four years ago while on vacation in Italy, and my brother picked up her remains from the UPS Store.
What’s hard is that my daughters, who have little to no memory of my mom, ask so many questions. Why does Grandpa live alone? Why is Grandma’s sewing machine still here if she’s in heaven? Today, though, felt like the perfect time to show them what it was like to be with their grandma instead of just talking about her in the third person.
I took them to The Freeze, and if you’re local to Northwest Chicagoland, this little quintessential ice cream shop oozes nostalgia. It’s packed with memories of going there with my mom—bike rides there, car rides there, showing up for opening day each season, and helping close it down at the end of summer.
The black-and-white checkered floor hasn’t changed in decades, and neither has their recipe for cheese fries. Everyone knows the last three or four bites are the prime real estate. After soaking in that salty liquid cheese, they’re quite literally the closest thing to heaven on earth.
Their ice cream isn’t anything unique—just simple soft serve—but the half-and-half twist cone dipped in chocolate was my mom’s go-to. I remember going there when life was hard, when life was good, to celebrate the start of a school year, or just because.
Sometimes trauma treats are exactly that: a little something you snack on when you’re sad. Other times, you realize they’re one of the only living, breathing ways you can continue your bond with someone you love—and let your own kids experience the magic of eating cheese fries and ice cream with them.
Maybe I need to cut back on the trauma treats. But maybe I owe you the lore behind my trauma treat humor, because it was never really about food.
Turns out it was about having somewhere to put my grief where it could sit beside joy for a little while. And if that place happens to be an old ice cream stand with a bucket of cheese fries and a chocolate-dipped twist cone, I have a feeling my mom would approve.
Because sometimes love outlives people in unexpected ways. Sometimes it lives in traditions, recipes, soft-serve ice cream, and the last few cheese fries at the bottom of the cardboard bucket. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, those little rituals become a bridge between generations—a way for your children to know someone they never really got the chance to meet.
What’s your trauma treat of choice? I’d love to hear.
xoxo,
Kera Sanchez, Get Griefy Editor-in-Chief
If trauma treats had a dress code, this would be it.
Our embroidered “I Need a Trauma Treat” crewneck is now available in blue and black on our website. Because sometimes healing looks suspiciously like a cozy sweatshirt and a basket of cheese fries.
