You Are Not Broken: Tina Lembo's Story of Eating Disorders, ADHD, and Healing

The first time I put on a mask, I was eight years old.

I was sitting in a church during choir practice, singing loudly and proudly. I loved singing. I didn't hold back. I didn't even know you were supposed to. When the song finished, the teacher looked straight at me — in front of everyone — and said, "Tina, you're singing too loud."

I still remember the heat in my face.

The embarrassment.

The way my chest tightened.

That moment crushed something in me.

What I learned that day wasn't about volume.

It was this: You're too much. Quiet yourself.

So I did.

At ten years old, before I knew I had ADHD, I blurted things out without thinking. I didn't understand social filters yet. One day at my nonna's farm, chatting with my aunties, I must have said something about being thin. Maybe they thought I was talking about them. Maybe they were offended. I'll never really know.

One of my aunties turned to me and said, "Tina, it's because you have worms. When you get older, you're going to get fat."

That sentence landed hard.

Inside my head, something locked into place:

See? This is why you need to be quiet. You're too loud. You say the wrong things. It's not okay to be you.

Those words didn't just shape how I saw my body — they shaped how I saw myself.

At sixteen, the mask became armour.

During dance rehearsals for a school musical, I overheard a boy say, "I don't want to be Tina's dance partner because she's too fat to lift."

I didn't tell anyone.

I swallowed the shame.

And the only way I knew how to cope was to stop eating.

That's how my eating disorder began — not out of vanity, but out of silence.

For a long time, I didn't eat. Not properly. Not enough. My body became dangerously underweight, though at the time I couldn't see it clearly. The moment that finally broke through the denial came when I saw a photo of myself. I remember staring at it, shocked. My face looked hollow. My eyes looked empty.

That's when it hit me — my body wasn't coping any more. I wasn't just losing weight. I was slowly dying.

That fear was enough to make me try. I didn't suddenly get better, but I started eating again, one small step at a time.

I'm going to be honest: for a long time, my life was a mess.

I became very good at looking "fine." On the outside, I functioned. Inside, my mind was loud, chaotic, and cruel. I was living with ADHD I didn't know I had, and I genuinely believed there was something fundamentally wrong with me. I couldn't explain why life felt harder for me than it seemed to be for everyone else.

Life moved on. I got married. I had children. And for three years — three full years — I lived without starving myself. I was eating. I wasn't obsessing. I was present. I remember feeling proud of that, even if I didn't say it out loud. I thought maybe that chapter of my life was finally over.

But then came my birthday.

Someone had taken videos and photos from the night. The next day, I watched them back — and I completely fell apart. All I could see was how "overweight" I thought I looked. That one moment undid everything. It triggered eight long years of extreme dieting, not eating, toxic self-talk, and quiet self-harm.

I punished myself relentlessly — mentally and physically. I lived in a constant cycle of control, restriction, and shame.

Eventually, my marriage ended. Suddenly, I was a single mother, struggling emotionally and financially. On the outside, I wore the mask that everything was fine. On the inside, I was falling apart.

There were moments I didn't know if I could keep the house. To survive, I made a decision that still hurts to talk about. I rented out the bedrooms in our home to international students so I could pay the mortgage.

That meant my children had to give up their rooms.

Watching them pack their belongings so strangers could move in was the lowest point of my life. I felt like I had failed them. I was convinced they hated me. That guilt sat in my chest every single day, and I thought I was a failure as a mum.

I was starving myself again. I was exhausted. And I couldn't see a way out.

One night, I attended a wellness talk only because my boss told me I had to. His friend from Canada was speaking. I remember that day clearly — because I had decided to stop eating again.

I didn't want help. I wasn't open. I was done.

Halfway through the talk, the speaker paused and said, slowly and clearly:

"Stop killing yourself."

Those words cut through everything.

They saved my life.

That moment wasn't a miracle cure. Healing wasn't neat or fast. It took years. It meant facing myself. Learning about my ADHD. Rebuilding my relationship with food. Forgiving myself for surviving the only way I knew how.

I share this because I remember how lonely it felt to be in that dark place — wearing a mask while falling apart.

If you're reading this and struggling quietly, please hear this from someone who's been there:

You are not broken.

You are not weak.

And you are not alone.

Healing doesn't start with having it all together.

It starts when you stop hiding.

And it is possible to come back.