When Tammin Sursok got her big career break, she told herself a toxic story about why it happened.

Wanting a better life, Tammin Sursok's family immigrated from South Africa to Australia when she was five. But as they weren't able to bring any money with them, they had to "completely start again".

"I really credit my parents' tenacity and hustle and keeping everything together, and making it seem like this was fun that we had to start over, rather than it was this hard burden that we had to carry," Tammin told Clare Stephens, when she recently appeared on Mamamia's But Are You Happy podcast.

"I had a very good childhood."

Then, Sursok reached puberty — and that's when the bullying started. It was a moment during a school dance that she remembers most clearly.

Watch Tammin Sursok on 'Home and Away'. Post continues after video.

"I felt so cute… and there was a boy that I was just super crushing on and he made eyes at me, and I just remember the whole world began to de-colour and everything was like in slow motion" Sursok shared.

"I could see him walking towards me, and I thought, 'This is it, this is the moment where the guy that I've been feverishly anticipating will one day come up to me in my dreams.'

"He walked up to me and he said, 'You need to go to Jenny Craig,'" referring to the American weight loss company.

"I remember it so well because in that moment I thought, 'I'm broken.' But I'd almost like to thank him if he ever finds out about my story. He probably doesn't remember, but that comment changed the course of my life…"

Even though she was "really happy" at the size she was, Sursok says that, because of that comment, she "decided to lose weight in a healthy manner and it worked. I went down to 49 kilos really fast."

After her weight loss, the cruel remarks were replaced by compliments, and she quickly booked a role on Home and Away as Dani Sutherland.

She realised the toxic connection straight away.

"So there begins my struggle with self-loathing and self-worth," she said.

"From a very young age, when my brain was in a fertile environment, to really take on all this change. I didn't know how to stay small without not eating. And I think that was the part of my life that was, interestingly, some of the best parts of my life, but also some of the hardest."

Believing that her "worth was completely linked to the size of [her] jeans," the actor developed bulimia, an eating disorder. She recalled trying not to pass out at the TV WEEK Logies one year after having only eaten a half packet of rice cakes. She would purge before magazine cover shoots and music videos. Her eyes would be "bloodshot" when filming scenes. And she wasn't alone.

"I lived through the '90s. I don't even know a woman who's able to come out of the '90s unscathed without some kind of distorted eating," the Pretty Little Liars actor shared. "I mean, the magazine covers. Everything in the media was, 'you would feel better, you will love yourself more, 10 kilos lighter.'"

Then she moved to Los Angeles, and reached breaking point.

"I actually met my husband, Sean — who I have been with for 18 years now — six months after I got to America, and I was kind of on the edge of my eating disorder. I remember one time purging while we were together, and the look of, like, sadness in his eyes.

"I'll never forget because he knew what I did and why I did it, and I guess the self-loathing I had at that time. And I looked at him and I thought, 'I don't ever want to feel like this again… 'And in that moment, that was it. I never did it again. I was 23 and I never did it again."

Listen to the full episode of But Are You Happy with Tammin Sursok:

These days, the 41-year-old's relationship with her body is vastly different.

"As I've gotten older, I really just don't care," she said. "Do I care about my health? Yes. Do I care about being able to bend down to pick up my kids? Yes. Do I care about my body? I just really don't care. I've worked so much internally that I just think there's so much more to focus on that I kind of find it boring now. If I have a conversation with a friend who starts talking about body image, I really check out. It just bores me."

A different struggle that Sursok still grapples with, however, is comparison — AKA the thief of joy.

Her time in Hollywood hasn't helped. The actress has lost roles to the likes of Megan Fox in Transformers, and Kaley Cuoco in The Big Bang Theory.

"I do get envious a lot," the actor confessed. "I get very envious… I have worked my ass off since I was 15 years old. My husband I go to bed at 1am, we wake up at 5:30am. We're constantly trying to create for our production company. We don't stop. We've never stopped. We don't really have the luxury to have time off. We don't have date nights. We're all in.

"I get envious sometimes when I feel like someone has become really successful and it's seemingly happened overnight. It's never true, because you don't see all the hard work that goes underneath it. But I do get envious sometimes. And I compare. Oh my goodness, I compare so much."

Envy aside, Sursok is in a good place right now, due in no small part to her two daughters — Phoenix and Lennon — who she shares with husband Sean.

"I think parenting is harder than [being] an actor, but there's something so undeniable about the moments that you have with your children that are perfect," she explained.

"I'm not that religious, but that is proof that there's a God. When I have those moments, I'm not afraid of what happens next because I just witnessed something that was unexplainable."

If you or anyone you know needs support for eating disorders, please contact the Butterfly Foundation National Support Line and online service 1800 ED HOPE (1800 33 4673) or email support@thebutterflyfoundation.org.au.

Feature Image: Instagram/@tamminsursok/Seven.