We’ve got a pop star in our ranks. One of the most outspoken opponents of bipolar stigma is Demi Lovato, the former Disney star turned multimedia darling who is bipolar and has also struggled with addiction, bulimia, and self-harm.
Lovato served as a judge on The X-Factor, along with Britney Spears, for two seasons and had a recurring role on the hit music drama Glee, which ran for six successful seasons on Fox.
Lovato, whose singing voice has been compared to Kelly Clarkson’s, has been heralded as the real deal — a soprano pop star with a range of four octaves who doesn’t need Auto-Tune.
She’s had five albums since 2008, the most recent being 2015’s Confident.
Lovato started out as a cast member on the preschool show Barney and went on to star in Disney’s musical TV film Camp Rock. She later had her own Disney sitcom, Sonny with a Chance. She also appeared with Selena Gomez in another Disney television film, Princess Protection Program, which reached 8.5 million viewers.
Two of her singles, “Heart Attack” and “Skyscraper,” reached number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
But despite these successes, there is a dark underlying side to Demi Lovato.
She began self-harming at age 11, cutting her wrists.
“It was a way of expressing my own shame, of myself, on my own body,” she told ABC News. “I was matching the inside to the outside. And there were some times where my emotions were just so built up, I didn’t know what to do. The only way that I could get instant gratification was through an immediate release on myself.”
Lovato went to rehab in 2010 at age 18. She completed rehab in 2011.
That same year, while on tour with the Jonas Brothers, Lovato admitted she punched backup dancer Alex Welch. After the incident, Lovato’s family and her management company sat her down for an intervention.
She quit the tour and entered rehab at Timberline Knolls, an Illinois facility for women with eating disorders and addiction.
She moved into a sober house in 2012, and lived there for about a year to make sure she kept her illnesses in check.
She admitted she was self-medicating with alcohol and drugs — particularly cocaine. She says she had a “nervous breakdown” during treatment, and that’s when she was diagnosed as bipolar.
“This is a daily battle that I will face for the rest of my life,” she told MTV News. “Everyone kind of made me a role model, and I hated that. I was partying, I was self-medicating. I was always stressing out. I felt like I was living a lie. I felt guilt and shame. I decided to take it out on myself. I harmed myself. It was my way of taking my own shame and my own guilt out on myself, and I was just depressed.”
Demi is the face of Be Vocal: Speak Up, a campaign to raise awareness about mental health issues.
“Living well with bipolar disorder is possible, but it takes patience, it takes work and it is an ongoing process,” she says on the Be Vocal website. “The reality is that you’re not a car that goes into a shop and gets fixed right away. Everyone’s process and treatment plan may be different.”
Like so many artists who struggle with bipolar disorder, it is creativity that is her saving grace.
“Creativity is what helps me escape a lot of my inner demons,” Lovato told MTV News. “Why not air all my secrets? Why not share my story because some people need to hear it?”
