Kristin’s Story: “Bulimia put a mask over my face”

Jan 29, 2025

For Kristin, it was hard growing up in the diet culture of the 90s and not living in a thin body. 

Social media wasn’t around when I was growing up but magazines, TV shows, and entertainment news all spewed fat shaming and thinspiration content when I was a young girl and a teenager, and it all had a huge influence on how I viewed my self-worth.

Although Kristin struggled with her weight as far back as she remembers, it wasn’t until 2010 that her eating disorder began.   

“My bulimia started in January of 2010. I had just turned 24 years old. I had a toddler and was struggling with my postpartum body and decided to go back to dieting. Dieting had worked for me in the past but this time I wanted to drop weight faster so I decided to try purging just to see if it would work. It did. I naïvely thought that I could stop anytime I wanted to. I was wrong.”  

Kristin isn’t alone. In fact, nearly 1 million Canadians live with a diagnosable eating disorder¹. 

Eating disorders are serious mental health conditions that impact a person’s identity, self-worth, and overall self-esteem. They’re marked by disturbances in thoughts, emotions, and behaviours relating to food, eating, and perceptions of one’s body. Eating disorders are thought to stem from various factors: genetics and biology, negative childhood experiences, trauma, oppression (including racism, colonialism and gender-based oppression), media exposure and a culture of thinness, and psychological factors.ⁱ Although they can affect anyone, eating disorders disproportionately impact teens and women. 

Common eating disorders include: 

• Anorexia nervosa: Anorexia nervosa is a mental illness marked by behaviours that prevent someone from maintaining an adequate weight. A person experiencing anorexia nervosa may try to control their weight by limiting their food intake or engaging in excessive exercise.
  
  
• Bulimia nervosa: Bulimia nervosa is a mental illness marked by cycles of food restriction followed by episodes of uncontrollable binge-eating, accompanied by frequent actions to compensate or “purge” the body of food, such as vomiting or using laxatives.  
  
  
• Binge-eating disorder: Binge eating disorder is a mental illness that can significantly impact both psychological and physical health. It is marked by recurrent periods of overeating, followed by feelings of distress, sadness, or guilt afterward.  

While eating disorders can affect anyone, regardless of age, gender, ability, or background, the stigma surrounding these conditions often makes it difficult for someone to seek the help they need.  

“I didn’t tell anyone, not friends, not family, not even my husband, for almost 10 years. For all those years I didn’t even speak the word out loud. It was like ‘he who shall not be named.’ The entire disorder lived in my head and in my secret bulimia behaviours. During those years I felt that if nobody knew about it but me, maybe it wasn’t that bad. I thought that if I kept it to myself then that meant I was in control of it. I was afraid to tell anyone because of the stigma and I didn’t want to hurt or worry the people I loved. In hindsight, none of what I thought was true was actually true, and by keeping it a secret I was doing more harm than good to my loved ones and myself.”  

Despite the growing awareness around mental health, eating disorders remain widely misunderstood.  

The biggest misconception about eating disorders is that the people suffering from them have any kind of control over the illness. Just like any other addiction, people suffering from an eating disorder have very little control over the illness or the behaviours the illness presents. I was naïve to this misconception myself for the first 10 years of my disorder. I truly thought I could stop anytime I wanted to, and as soon as I was ready, I thought I was going to do just that, stop. It wasn’t until I finally did try to stop that I came to the horrifying realization that I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop. I had no control over the bulimia or the bulimic behaviours.

People with eating disorders are all too often blamed for their illness and report internalizing that blame, which brings feelings of guilt and shame. This social perception of eating disorders also perpetuates stigma.ⁱⁱ Someone struggling with symptoms of an eating disorder may feel ashamed or guilty and attempt to conceal their eating habits, which can make it challenging to reach out to friends or family and ask for help. 

“It’s like one day I opened a door, inside the door was the bulimia room. I decided to step into the bulimia room just to see what it was like in there. Once I was inside, I knew it was wrong to be in there, but bulimia put a mask over my face and I thought I liked it, I thought it was ok. I stayed in the room thinking everything was ok for 10 years. Thinking for 10 years that as long as I didn’t say it out loud it wasn’t really true, and I was fine. Thinking for 10 years that I could open the door back up and walk out anytime I wanted to. When I finally did decide that I was ready to open the bulimia door and walk back out, it was locked.”  

Getting treatment for an eating disorder can be difficult, especially for people like Kristin who live in remote and rural areas. In fact, CMHA’s The State of Mental Health Report 2024 reveals that 2.5 million people with mental health needs in Canada reported that they weren’t getting adequate care. 

February 1^st to 7^th is Eating Disorder Awareness Week (EDAW) —a national movement dedicated to raising awareness and fostering understanding about eating disorders while challenging the stigma and barriers that prevent access to care.  

By sharing stories, offering support, and providing resources, we can help people understand that eating disorders are not a choice, but a serious mental health condition that requires compassion, understanding, and treatment.  

If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, please contact your local CMHA or the National Initiative for Eating Disorders (NIED) for support. 

CMHA National is committed to ensuring the voice of lived experience drives our work. To learn more, visit: National Council of Persons with Lived Experience.