Nurse shares her 16-year struggle with bulimia to help others heal

At age 15, Andrea Parmar went on her first diet.

It was a week before a family vacation to Hawaii, and despite being an average weight for her height, she felt compelled to trim up so she looked good in her bathing suit.

“I almost passed out a few times because I was just eating an apple a day,” recalls Parmar.

When she got home from the trip, she noticed her clothes fit a little tighter than normal and, soon after, a friend shared her strategy for enjoying the food without the calories.

It spiralled from there, resulting in a 16-year struggle with bulimia and mental health.

Now 46, Parmar has published a book detailing her struggles, her journey to healing and a new diagnosis that inspired her to help others by sharing her own experience.

“I’ve always been helping people,” said Parmar. “I’ve been a psych nurse for 24 years and I’ve been on anti-depressants most of my adult life, and I was bulimic for 16 years, and I’m here to say there’s hope.

“There’s hope for healing.”

The journey was long and difficult.

Despite her knowledge and background as a nurse, Parmar couldn’t help but give in to what she describes as an addiction.

“I would have patients say, ‘Gee, it feels like you really understand what I’m going through’,” she said. “And I was like, yeah, you have no idea.”

It also took a toll on her marriage. Her husband knew she was bulimic when they got engaged, but didn’t realize the extent of it. She hid it well, binging and purging anywhere between 20 and 30 times a day.

“I was really sick,” she said. “It had just become the new normal for me. I really can say that I thought it was OK. You eat food and you throw up. I just did it, like brushing your teeth every day or something.

“My husband was ready to call it quits. He didn’t know what to do.”

After three stints of in-patient treatment (each lasting three weeks), Parmar finally made it through to the other side, becoming what she calls a non-practising bulimic.

Food became normal again.

They always say that the awareness is the key and that’s what helped me ... listening to people’s lived experience.

Her marriage persevered and she went on to start a family, all the while documenting and journaling her experiences.

It wasn’t until she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2016 that she seriously considered compiling those journal entries into a book.

“After getting diagnosed with MS, I just really felt a pull.”

Even though she can’t do her job right now because of the physical limitations of MS, she said telling her story is a way to continue helping people, like she has done for so many years.

“They always say that the awareness is the key and that’s what helped me ... listening to people’s lived experience,” said Parmar. “It gave me hope.”

Parmar, originally from Regina and now living in Langenburg, will be at the Chapters in Regina on Sept. 1 for a book signing.

She is also one of 30 people from across Canada, including other nurses, doctors and people with lived experiences, who were chosen to participate in a research group in Toronto on Sept. 14 and to make a presentation at the Canadian Mental Health Association’s annual conference in the fall.

Parmar hopes these opportunities will act as stepping stones for her to continue telling her story and reaching more people.

Her book is available on Amazon, as an ebook, at Coles in Northgate Mall and at Chapters Sept. 1.