We saw her as a smiling, happy child on many of our favorite Disney Channel shows, but we never imagined she had a mental illness, let alone an eating disorder, and problems with drug and alcohol abuse. Society manages to cloak these issues so well that it’s hard for anyone to talk about it, especially for those who are under the spotlight.
Demi Lovato has come a long way from that. She’s learning how to go through life and embrace happiness be happy. She is an amazing young woman that I, personally, look up to.
She was young when she got diagnosed, and before that, she spent years abusing her body and couldn’t find the strength to get up in the morning. At 18, her struggle with substance abuse led her to withdraw from a concert tour with the Jonas Brothers. She was admitted to an in-patient treatment facility in 2010. That was when she finally got diagnosed with the depressive phase of bipolar disorder, bipolar depression. Since then, she’s been outspoken about mental health.
“Getting a diagnosis was kind of a relief. It helped me start to make sense of the harmful things I was doing to cope with what I was experiencing.”
After she got help, the change was noticeable. She’s the living proof that it’s possible to live with this condition, “it takes work and it is an ongoing process.” She worked with her health care professional and tried different treatments until she found one that worked for her.
The singer/songwriter has come a long way since her substance abuse days: she has advocated for mental illness many times, and she’s even the leader of an initiative called Be Vocal: Speak Up for Mental Health, with which she encourages people to talk about their mental health issues and get the help they need. Aside from that, she’s also advocated for bullying, LGTBQ+ issues, and Voto Latino. She is an inspiring role model, and she has a dog named BATMAN! I mean, who wouldn’t want to look up to her?
She has even managed to thinly critique the media’s obsession with sexuality. She has never confirmed or denied anything about it. In a recent interview with POPSUGAR, she said: “It’s irrelevant to what my music is all about…”
I also found it empowering that she said, “It’s something I don’t think needs to have a label… As humans, it’s just about a connection with someone.”
This year, she has taken on a new mindset: to actually love herself instead of learning to love herself. You would think that someone with a healthy fit body would have an easier time accepting themselves since they’re closer to society’s impossible standards, but even then, she still has problems accepting her body. It is inspiring the way she is using her social media to talk about her struggle. On recent Instagram posts, she’s posting pictures of herself in bathing suits, in one of them she wrote:
And even though she didn’t like her legs in this photo, we all know she rocked it.
These are some of her other recent posts:
Plus, we need to talk about her freckles. She looks gorgeous:
And yes Demi, I do wish there was an emoji for freckles.
Overall, mental illness is a very serious topic and should not be left undiscussed. It’s taken countless lives and for that reason, it’s very important to seek help. Demi, like many others, has suffered because of her mental illness and eating disorder and the simga that society has towards it. She decided to seek help and get better.
She exercises and looks pretty but she has problems being comfortable with herself. The important thing is that she’s actively trying and so should all of us. This shows that not everyone who looks pretty feels pretty, and I think that everyone should feel pretty. She is an amazing human being that shouldn’t be underrated. Her music speaks for hundreds of thousands! The experiences she writes about are representative. Plus, she is an advocate for people with similar problems: LGBTQ+, Bullying, Latino issues, and self-acceptance.