Stylist Ashley Dunn says self love helped her overcome bulima to follow passion

Ashley Dunn was in the first grade when she forced herself to throw up food for the first time.

She doesn’t remember where she learned to stick her finger down her throat, but she knows she wanted to feel thin.

Dunn’s childhood in Dallas was filled with incessant teasing and bullying over her weight and complexion, so bulimia became a way of coping.

The 34-year-old Houston-based fashion stylist with 20,000 Instagram followers, an enviable figure and a rich, mocha complexion is speaking publicly about her ordeal for the first time.

“I learned to hide it. I would sneak behind buildings or hide in the bushes by trees. I even kept a container by my bed to throw up in, but it only felt good for that moment,” she said, choking back her tears.

“I had to see myself differently, and until I saw myself differently, nothing would stop it..

Because she was a popular cheerleader in high school, Dunn was able to keep her bulimia a secret. It would remain one for years.

She went on to study communications and fashion merchandising at Prairie View A&M University, graduating in 2006, and work as a stylist at Anthropologie. But fashion didn’t pay the bills, so Dunn took a job in marketing at a health-insurance company for six years.

During that time, she met and married Darryl Dunn, a truck driver from New Orleans who had moved to Houston after Hurricane Katrina. He supported her dream of a career in fashion. He also knew about her bulimia.

“In 2010, no one knew what a stylist did, but he jumped in with me and my dream,” she said.

The next year, though, Dunn was still purging to the point that she once passed out and was rushed to the hospital. It was a wake-up call.

“That’s when I started to tap into my faith in God. My husband supported me. He never wavered, and from that moment I haven’t done it (purged) again. God had been trying to get me to that point. When this happened, things started to change. I started to value myself more.”

A couple of years later she left her corporate job to start her own business, shopping for and styling clients for meetings and special events. Her business grew steadily by word of mouth. Today, she has a full roster of clients from celebrities to professional women. She even created her own fashion line and …

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