'The Bachelor's' Britt Nilsson reveals struggles with addiction, bulimia

Former "Bachelor" Britt Nilsson opened up about her struggles with addiction and bulimia.

"My makeup is basically that I just want it all, all the time. That’s what makes me a really joyful person. I really like experiencing life, I really, truly enjoy life so much but I also don’t know when to stop," Nilsson said in a July 12 video on YouTube that is making the rounds now.

She explained that her struggles with addiction were rooted in shame.

“All addictions are pretty related to shame and pain avoidance, in my experience. The years after college were really dark years. I was binging all day, throwing up. I was hiding it because I was so ashamed. I was just mortified with myself. I would spend my days eating food in secret, throwing up in garbage bags in my car, throwing up in dumpsters, throwing up behind bushes, in the shower.”

Her experience on the long running reality show in 2015 when she vied for Chris Soules’ heart caused her destructive behavior to re-emerge.

“For me, having tons of food everywhere it just became too much. I had pain and anxiety, I felt insecure, I didn’t feel pretty enough, I didn’t know what was going on, I missed my family,” said Nilsson. “I was totally terrified that it was going to be caught on a mic and that millions of people were going to know that I just couldn’t control myself,” she said. “It was really, really hard for me, and it just kept going and going.”

The engaged reality star candidly admitted, “You’re mic-ed 24/7. I would take my mic off and try to hide it under towels so they wouldn’t hear me throw up, because then that was going to be on the show and that was going to be a plot line. How horrible would that be, to be the girl who has an eating disorder, who can’t stop eating and throwing up? I mean, I had broken blood vessels. I would throw up until I was bleeding out of my nose. I just couldn’t stop, and that’s kind of been a theme in my life.”

She credits her fiancé Jeremy Byrne for helping her manage her addiction.

"The first person that I ever told about my bulimia was Jeremy. It actually was a huge release. He just stuck by me with it, he would ask me about it, he would keep me accountable, and it actually got much, much better. I started talking to people about it, I started going to groups about it. I learned a lot. It wasn’t completely eradicated, but it wasn’t this shameful, horrible secret.”

Nilsson said she now leads a healthy lifestyle.