Demi Lovato and Bipolar

Demi Lovato was diagnosed in 2011 with type 2 bipolar disorder. She suffered from an eating disorder from a very young age. She battled with depression from the age of 7. Her parents divorced when she was 9 and I believe it may have triggered her bipolar disorder as well as the eating disorder. At 14, she had her big break with Disney Channel and she knew from that point on that everything would change.  

Music is her life. She has wanted to be a singer since she was 4 years old.  In 2003, she had her first manic episodes when she was 11. In 2004,  when she was 12, she lost 30 pounds from not eating. In 2008, she was self-medicating and she couldn’t understand why parents wanted her as the role model for their kid. At the time, she was feeling guilty and ashamed and so she took it out on her own body because she thought it would make her feel better. In 2009, she went on tours with the Jonas Brothers, and that’s when things got out of control because she had no time to relax and she was exhausted. Two hours before the tour, she went back to her home and she was purging and self harming. She says that it was really difficult to stop. Her parents pushed her to go to a treatment center. She was so mad at them at the moment, but she knew it was the right thing to do.

Now, she says she is grateful for her family’s support. She says that music runs through her veins. She thinks without music, she wouldn’t have been able to survive.  

In March 2012, MTV produced a documentary called Stay Strong about her time in treatment.  In that documentary, she said that after she got out of treatment, it didn’t mean that she was not purging and self-harming  because everyday was a constant struggle. Her first thanksgiving after treatment, was the first time she was going to tackle a lot of food and she was proud because she was able to control herself by constantly being on the phone with her sponsor. She said that she felt that when she was growing up nobody really talked about her kind of issues. Today, she has decided advocate for mental illness and help others.  She also realized that she wants to inspire people with her singing. She has made herself  a real role model and she said in the documentary that even when she had a bad day  she still tried to compose herself for her fans because they mean the world to her. She believed that her fans believing in her is one of the reasons she was able survive her struggles.