Susie: I’m thrilled we’re having this conversation. It’s Mental Health Awareness Month, and also Food Allergy and Celiac Awareness Month, so we wanted to focus on one specific topic: how people recover mentally after an allergic reaction or, in the celiac community, after getting glutened. This is deeply personal for me. My daughter Natalie is 22, and recently my worst nightmare happened—she was at a party, had been drinking legally, and called me around 3 AM because she was having an allergic reaction. She had done everything right, but it still happened, and it took a big emotional toll on her. She ended up canceling a skiing weekend and staying back alone while her friends went. That really crushed me. We get so many private messages at Spokin after people have reactions, and so often what comes through is shame, embarrassment, and not knowing how to move forward. That’s why I wanted to start with this topic.
I’d love for each of you to introduce yourselves professionally and personally—your work, your allergies, and if you’re comfortable, your own experience with reactions.
Jenna: Absolutely. I’m Jenna, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist based in Los Angeles. I opened my private practice in January, and I specialize in working with people with food allergies, autoimmune and allergic disorders, anxiety, and a lot of people-pleasing patterns, which often overlap with allergy experiences. Personally, I was born with anaphylactic allergies to dairy, and previously to eggs, beef, and pork, though I’ve been able to reintroduce those in the past year. Dairy is still my only anaphylactic allergy. I’ve had at least 10 anaphylactic reactions that required hospitalization.
One recent reaction happened after eating at a restaurant I had been to before. It was a delayed reaction that started about two hours later, which is always disheartening because it breaks trust in a place you thought was safe. The most severe reaction I’ve had was in 2017, my first year of college, at a sorority formal. I ordered what was supposed to be a safe vegan marinara pasta, but there had been a miscommunication in the kitchen and parmesan had been added and scraped off. That caused anaphylaxis. That experience really launched my own mental health journey and started me in therapy. Being in college added another layer—wanting approval, not wanting to be a burden, trying to handle everything alone.
Susie: Thank you. Alyssa?
Alyssa: Thank you. I’m Alyssa, founder of All Things Allergies, and I’m also a clinical psychology doctoral candidate graduating next month. My dissertation focuses on food allergy and, more specifically, the consequences of anaphylaxis from a mental health perspective—thinking about anaphylaxis as medical trauma and how it can affect people long-term, especially young adults. Personally, I’ve had food allergies my entire life. I used to manage peanut, tree nut, seafood, and some fruit and vegetable allergies, but over the past several years I’ve successfully food-challenged legumes, seafood, and tree nuts. So now I only manage a peanut allergy.
My first anaphylactic reaction happened in first grade at a Valentine’s Day party. I was still learning how to read ingredients, and I knew to avoid obvious candies like Butterfingers and Reese’s, but this candy looked like a safe little Valentine heart. I ate it, and it turned out to contain peanut. That reaction set off years of mental health struggles that I didn’t really understand until much later. It affected my mood, my excitement about school, my willingness to eat, and it took a long time before I had the language and support to make sense of what had happened.
Susie: One thing I think about a lot is that parents are so focused on physically keeping their children safe that the mental health piece often gets missed. You don’t really get a roadmap for that. I’ve often felt that families should ideally have an allergist, maybe a nutritionist, and a mental health professional as part of the care team. What do you tend to see emotionally after reactions? What kinds of feelings come up?
Alyssa: One of the biggest themes is a break in trust. A reaction can make you feel like you can’t trust the restaurant, the recipe, the people around you, your own body, or even your own judgment. For me, it felt like my body had betrayed me. When your sense of safety gets shaken like that, it’s natural to want to pull back and hide. That can look like avoiding food situations, avoiding school, avoiding social settings, or becoming fearful in a more general way. For me, that fear extended even to things that had nothing to do with food, because my overall sense of safety was disrupted.
Jenna: Yes, exactly. A lot of people internalize messages like “I can’t trust myself,” “the world isn’t safe,” or “I’m a burden.” That can show up as shame, guilt, powerlessness, and people-pleasing. For me, powerlessness was a huge part of it, and I tried to respond by controlling everything I could. There’s also often a strong sense of aloneness. If you’re in a reaction and don’t feel supported, or someone minimizes what’s happening, that really sticks with you. That feeling of being alone in it can be one of the most painful parts.
Susie: That loneliness really resonates. One thing people often say about Spokin is that it makes them feel less alone. So many people feel like the only one in their family or friend group managing this. And when kids go off to college, so many don’t want to be “the allergy kid” anymore. That can be really heavy.
If someone is trying to figure out when it’s time to seek support—for themselves or for their child—what are the signs?
Jenna: I think major life transitions are a good time to seek support, even preventatively. That could be a new diagnosis, starting school, going off to college, moving out, or trying to return to eating out after a reaction. In terms of clearer signs, I’d look for anything interfering with daily functioning: trouble sleeping, withdrawing socially, not doing things you used to enjoy, constant anxious thoughts, irritability, mood changes. Those are all signs that more support could be helpful.
Alyssa: I’d add that not every allergic reaction becomes trauma, and not everyone develops a mental health condition afterward. It’s normal to feel rattled. There is a natural recovery process. The question is whether healing is happening over time or whether things feel stuck. Ideally, there would be a built-in check-in after a reaction—not necessarily full therapy for everyone, but at least some mental health support as part of follow-up care. We’re not really there yet in the healthcare system, but that would be the dream.
Susie: That distinction is really helpful. If someone has recently had a reaction, or if a parent is supporting a child who just had one, are there practical things they can keep in mind right away?
Jenna: The biggest thing is time. People put so much pressure on themselves to feel normal again immediately, but rebuilding trust takes time. I encourage people to treat reactions as learning experiences, not moral failures. Look at what happened and ask: what went well in the emergency plan? What still feels scary? What do we need to practice more? Sometimes that means role-playing or reviewing how to use epinephrine so it feels less overwhelming in the future. It can also help to refresh your allergy education and go back over your plan with your medical team.
I also think there are some great resources out there now—things like the Food Allergy Counseling Directory, Tamara Hubbard’s TRACE framework, the book May Contain Anxiety, and other workbooks and support tools. There’s more available than there used to be, which is encouraging.
Jenna: For parents specifically, I’d say: be open, be attuned, and listen. Don’t jump straight to problem-solving. If your child says this is hard or says they hate having allergies, just let them say it. That kind of validation can be really healing. Sometimes being the safe person they can tell the truth to matters more than having the perfect response.
Susie: That really resonates. I remember my daughter once saying to me, “You don’t know what it’s like,” and my first reaction internally was to think, I’ve spent every day managing this with you. But then I realized she was right. I don’t know what it feels like in her body or in her social world. And just listening in that moment mattered more than trying to defend myself.
Susie: Alyssa, one phrase you shared with me before that really stayed with me was post-traumatic growth.
Alyssa: Yes. I think we spend a lot of time talking about post-traumatic stress, which is important, but less time talking about post-traumatic growth and resilience. The body and mind are designed to heal. That doesn’t mean it happens instantly or perfectly, but growth is absolutely possible. For me, those same experiences that once led to fear and avoidance also ultimately led me to create All Things Allergies and build my career around this work. So I never want to talk about reactions only through the lens of damage. There can also be growth, strength, and purpose that come out of them.
I also think we need to find what I call a Goldilocks balance. Food allergy management requires vigilance, but too much avoidance can become debilitating. So the goal is enough caution to stay safe, but not so much that fear takes over everything. That’s a really hard balance, especially because allergy care often teaches avoidance while mental health treatment often teaches that too much avoidance reinforces anxiety. Holding both of those truths is complicated.
Susie: I’ve seen that with my daughter too. She became such a strong advocate for herself. One thing we practiced from when she was little was having her order for herself in restaurants. And now she can stand up for herself in any room. There’s so much strength that can come out of this, even though it’s obviously very hard.
Before we wrap up, I’d love for both of you to share where people can find you and what kinds of support or resources you offer.
Jenna: I provide therapy to people residing in California, mostly teens, young adults, and parents of children with food allergies, and sometimes tweens as well. I also run virtual peer support groups open to anyone in the U.S. One is for parents of children with food allergies, and that meets on the second Tuesday of every month from 5 to 6 PM Pacific. I also run an adults 18+ group on the first Tuesday of every month from 5 to 6 PM Pacific. And I facilitate a free virtual support group for tweens with EoE through APFED and the Center for Chronic Illness on the third Monday of every month from 4 to 5 PM Pacific.
Alyssa: Through All Things Allergies, on my website and Instagram, I share a lot about the mental health side of food allergies—my own journey, posts about food challenges, the invisible consequences of anaphylaxis, and some of the research too. My goal is really to help people feel less alone and to offer connection and peer support, especially for young adults and adults who are going through similar experiences.
Susie: We’re committed to building out more resources at Spokin too. We have a guide coming out tomorrow with stories and advice from 28 young adults, including both of you. We’d also love to turn this conversation into a resource people can find on our site when they need it. The more we can make this information visible and accessible, the better.
I’m really proud of both of you. I wanted to start with professionals who also personally live this experience, because I think that matters. I want people listening to feel like they’re looking in a mirror, not through a window. Thank you both so much for being here.
