I Was a Bulimic Nutritionist

"Shame gets its power from being unspeakable." ~ Brené Brown

I felt like a hypocrite. I used to tell my clients to eat a vegetarian salad, and then I would go home and grab a scarf with the perfect pizza. After the trial and the embarrassment came in, I would pull it out and throw it up.

I think I became a dietitian so that I could better control my relationship with food. If I learned the secrets after a meal I would probably put my fork down, lose weight, and end up happy. This was back when I thought that thinning was like happiness.

It took me over a decade to recover from an eating disorder. Full years of wanting perfection, shame, and separation as I declare that my value is not bound to my weight. I share my story in the hope that it causes a deeper penetration into your relationship with food.

Growing up I wanted to be extreme, making people happy. Which may have been a good one but, paired with the sexual harassment I experienced at the first University, it was a very good storm to find a food problem.

I used food as a way to deal with the trauma I was enduring. It was a way to separate and feel the shame of the attack. I thought it was my fault that this terrible thing had happened, and while I ate as fast and as fast as I could, I was exhausted by the strong emotions.

For a short time I was not worried.

But then there certainly came a case of shame and embarrassment - strange, because I was trying to alleviate the embarrassment of my food attack.

Why should I eat too much? Now I'm going to gain weight, and when I gain weight no one will ever love me. Why don't I have the discipline to control my diet? To control myself? I'm really nothing.

Somehow my brain has built a relationship between looking a certain way and being accepted, appropriate, and safe. Feeling in control of what I eat and how I look made me feel stronger in some way. And maybe unknowingly gave me a sense of control over what happened to me.

I knew I needed help from the University where after the third cleanup one day I had a sharp pain in my chest. Bending to the toilet, holding my heart, I realized that things were out of control.

Fortunately, before I could give up, I set aside time to consult a counselor. And then began my long and twisted path of recovery from bulimia. A word that I have rarely uttered for years to come, instead of calling it “my eating disorder,” underestimates the severity of my illness. Bulimia was something that only celebrities did, not something that a serious reader like me could encounter.

Wow, had I ever been wrong! On this trip I met many others like myself, and I discovered that we have more in common than differences. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be perfect, we had a crazy need to control everything, and we all felt deeply ashamed of our behavior. Many others I have met have been traumatized and used food to comfort.

In 2008, when I first started looking for treatment, I worked secretly in my recovery, talking only with counselors and doctors. I needed a weekly blood test to make sure my electrolytes were balanced. Finding that cleaning is very difficult for the body, something I testify to the absence of its tooth enamel.

It was years until I told my friends and family, and even now many will be shocked when they read this article. It was easy to hide from my roommates, since I was enjoying myself in my room and had reason to create a toilet. Sometimes I even clean the bags in my room and throw them away later.

In 2013, after a few weeks of painful episodes, my doctor told me that I had a sore throat. I just swallowed, drank smoothies on the grass. My first thought was:

Yes, I will now lose weight.

Happily, a second thought followed.

This is dumb. I risk my life here… to be thin? That doesn't make sense.

That’s when I realized I needed to kick my recovery in top gear. I started out-of-hospital treatment in Toronto and went to support groups and others like me. I have learned to sort through complex emotions and let go of my need for everything to be perfect. In short, I was on the highway.

But here's something that no one tells you about recovery - it's not the right thing to do. I was committed to my field of being a healthy nutritionist, my roaring episodes have diminished, then someone will post comments that are not ...

Wow, clean up your plate, you must be hungry!

And boom, I was self-absorbed and felt compelled to lose extra calories. I secretly hid in the toilet again, realizing that I had failed.

I never thought people would trust my advice on healthy eating if I gained weight. I was also a yoga teacher at this time and I was sure that the students would not return to my classes if I did not have a small body of svelte yoga.

I have continued to go down and down for years. Choosing to recover daily was stressful. Over time, the intervals between binges became longer.

For me, there was no cure for silver coins. It was a combination of using mindfulness to live with difficult emotions and access to all the medications to deal with trauma. I never thought I would get to this point, but I eventually learned to see myself as the right person — regardless of the past, regardless of my size.

I thought having an eating disorder was an embarrassing secret. I now see that struggle as a source of strength for me. It takes a rare courage to deal with trauma, and working tirelessly in recovery has taught me that I can come back again and again.

I’ve been through space for years, I have to hide my many behaviors, and I think my weight has been the most interesting part for me. I share my knowledge as part of the healing process, removing the hidden shame in the shadows. I hope it encourages you to examine your relationship with food and your body - and how it is possible that you are using food or something else to avoid dealing with your problems.