Alexis Bellino of the Real Housewives of Orange County is opening up publicly about her former battles with anorexia and bulimia.

The wife, mother of three and reality star says, “I suffered from both anorexia and bulimia. It’s time to try to help people with something I overcame.” She reveals it began when she was 18, in college. Of those days she explains, “I would go days without eating, because it does consume you… I would do both [purging and starving], but mostly purging because I would be out with friends. It’s not pretty.”

Alexis compares eating disorders to alcoholism, stressing that there isn’t a definitive cure. Happily, she’s been healthy for 10 years and she stays optimistic: “You can come through to the other side… I do not fear a relapse.”