Demi Lovato confesses bipolar diagnosis ‘made sense looking back’

Demi Lovato, 30, became a household name in 2008 with her starring role in Disney’s Camp Rock and debut album Don’t Forget, cementing herself as a trailblazing artist in both acting and music.

However, the starlet had already been working on various Disney Channel shows since 2002, when she was 10-years-old.

As her fame and fortune steadily grew with a string of hit songs, chart-topping albums and a Camp Rock sequel, Demi realised something was terribly wrong.

She recalled, speaking to People: “I remember being 15 years old on a tour bus and watching fans follow my bus with posters and trying to get me to wave outside the window.

“All I could do was just sit there and cry.

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“I remember being in the back of my tour bus watching my fans and crying and being like, ‘Why am I so unhappy?’.”

In 2011, the actress, who now identifies as gender-fluid, spent three months in a treatment centre hoping to better her struggles with bulimia, self-harm and drug addiction according to Women’s Health.

It was only in the treatment centre where the star received the diagnosis that she believes changed her life.

She explained: “I was so relieved that I had finally had a diagnosis. I feel like I am in control now where my whole life I wasn’t in control.

“I had spent so many years struggling, and I didn’t know why I was a certain way in dealing with depression at such extreme lows, when I seemingly had the world in front of me just ripe with opportunities.

“Looking back, it makes sense. There were times when I was so manic, I was writing seven songs in one night and I’d be up until 5:30 in the morning.”

Demi shared her diagnosis with her fanbase as soon as she could, hoping to “help others” in a similar predicament.

However, the actress soon found herself in a predicament she didn’t enjoy; being labelled as “bipolar” and spoke out against it, declaring herself an “activist” for the disorder, in 2017.

She explained to People: “It’s something that I have, it’s not who I am.”

Demi has furthered her outreach for others struggling with bipolar disorder through her docuseries, Dancing with the Devil, where she admitted the diagnosis didn’t automatically solve everything.

She shared: “I was acting out when I was 18 for many reasons.

“I know now from multiple different doctors that it was not because I was bipolar. I had to grow the f— up.”