Demi Lovato has reflected on her personal growth after undergoing her fifth inpatient mental health treatment.
The 31-year-old singer spoke candidly about her mental health during a conversation with Dr Charlie Shaffer on Monday, while attending The Center For Youth Mental Health at NewYork-Presbyterian’s benefit gala. During the discussion, shared via People, she acknowledged the difficult outcome of her previous inpaitent mental health treatments.
“I have been to inpatient treatment five times, and it has something that every single time I walked back into a treatment center, I felt defeated,” she said.
Lovato explained that when she was at an inpatient mental health center for the fifth time, things “definitely felt different”. She then described how much she was struggling at the time, and the steps she took to improve her mental health.
“It felt like I had hit rock bottom and I just knew what I needed to do, which was to live a life in recovery. And that was something that I pushed off for so long,” the Disney Channel alum added. “I also needed the right medication. I think for me medication has helped me tremendously. It’s helped so many people tremendously.”
The “Confident” singer went on to detail how things took a turn for the better, despite how much she was struggling mentally.
“And I think I had hit another low, and I was like, ‘What am I doing wrong?’ I felt defeated. But then, when all of the key parts started to fit into place like a perfect puzzle, I started to find the light again."
Lovato further acknowledged how important it was for her to put in the work and make connections with her peers, during her time at the treatment centers, since that helped her feel more hopeful.
“I think the glimmer of hope was when I started putting in the work and I started to, whether it was work, a program, or talk to my treatment team and build relationships there,” she explained.“ I think the glimmer of hope started to change when I started to find joy in the little things in life. And that was something that was so foreign to me before because I was so used to, so used to not seeing hope.”
Lovato also expressed that her mental health isn’t her “identity”, noting that when she did the inpatient mental health treatment for the first time, she realized that this experience didn’t define who she was. However, she still acknowledged that those challenges have made her the person that she is today.
“It’s just a part of what makes me me, meaning my struggles have shaped me into the pottery that you see today, but it’s never become my identity since then,” she explained. “It’s just become something about me that makes me a little interesting, I guess you could say.”
This isn’t the first time that Lovato has opened up about her mental health. During an appearance at the Hollywood & Mind Summit in Los Angeles last year, she reflected on being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and why that was such a relief for her.
“I was so relieved that I had finally had a diagnosis,” she said at the event in May 2023. “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.”
She then recalled moments where she’d struggled to understand her feelings, such as when she was a teenager and watching her fans wave to her out of the window of a tour bus.
“It was things like, 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. And all I could do was just sit there and cry,” Lovato, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2011, recalled. “And I remember being in the back of my tour bus watching my fans and crying and being like: ‘Why am I so unhappy?’”
If you have been affected by this article, you can contact the following organisations for support: actiononaddiction.org.uk, mind.org.uk, nhs.uk/livewell/mentalhealth, mentalhealth.org.uk. If you are in the US, you can reach out to SAMHSA at this link:https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline or call 1-800-662-4357
