The singer spoke out to Ashley Graham on her podcast Pretty Big Deal about how her eating disorder contributed to her drug overdose and why she is no longer prepared to sacrifice her mental health in order to achieve a specific look.
Demi Lovato has never been afraid to discuss her issues with mental illness. She has also been outspoken about her challenges with addiction, self-harm, anorexia, and bulimia.
She has now spoken out about how her long-term eating issue and attempts to rehabilitate ultimately contributed to her heroin overdose in 2018 and why she is no longer prepared to sacrifice her mental health in order to appear a certain way.
Lovato revealed on Ashley Graham’s Pretty Big Deal podcast that she had mistakenly believed she was beating her eating issue but had fact been “just fully sinking into it.”
While her bulimia symptoms had been clear, it had become more difficult to identify her eating illness when it assumed a covert form, such as excessive exercise and dieting. She added that as a result, she had led herself to believe that she was getting better.
Hey, I think you need to look into how much you’re working out, like, three times a day is excessive for working out, maybe,” the singer said. “When you don’t have people who know the signs around you… like, what I think I really needed was someone to come in and say like, “Hey, I think you need to look into how much you’re working out.”
She said, “Like, there were days when I lived at the gym and I’d have business meetings there on my breaks from working out. And even though I would smell bad, I wouldn’t have to stop working out to take a shower. I would eat a meal, work out, and then eat a meal. And I think, “That’s just not freedom to me; that’s not happiness.”
She eventually overdosed on drugs in July 2018 as a result of her relentless pursuit of a particular body type, according to Lovato. “It’s harder when you have certain individuals around you telling you certain things and telling you that you should look a certain way,” she remarked. So, I was in that circumstance, driving myself ragged, and I genuinely believe that’s kind of what caused everything to happen over the previous year. It was simply me living this type of life, pretending to the public that I was content with myself when I wasn’t, and thinking that I had achieved recovery when I hadn’t.
Lovato claimed that going ahead, she was more focused on taking better care of her physique. “I took the decision that I wouldn’t bother about my appearance when presenting this upcoming record. I’m not going to stress about trying to fit in or look a certain way or anything like that, she declared. “Someone ought to speak up for those who don’t look that way by nature. To keep that figure, I had to go to the gym six days a week and work my ass off every day. But that only took me in one direction, and I don’t want to take it again. Therefore, I’m no longer prepared to sacrifice my mental health in order to appear a certain way.
