Demi Lovato Reveals She Struggled With Suicidal Thoughts as a Child

Demi Lovato is a longtime champion of self-care and a dedicated advocate for mental health, and the pop star has worked through extremely difficult times to get to the happy, healthy place she is now.

She’s discussed living with bipolar disorder and battling addiction before, but in acandid new conversation with Dr. Phil, she reveals that her suicidal urges began when she was just a kid.

“The very first time that I was suicidal was when I was seven, and I had this fascination with death,” she said. “I have experienced things that I’ve not talked about, that I don’t know if I ever will talk about. But at seven, I knew that if I were to take my own life, that the pain would end. So, it’s been this thought where it came back when I was bullied. It came back several times when I was struggling with depression, my bipolar disorder.”

That manifested in cutting, and Lovato shared that it got to the point where her mother “was afraid to wake me up in the mornings, because she didn’t know if she opened the door if I’d be alive or not, because every time I cut, it got deeper and deeper.”

She then offered encouraging words for those facing similar circumstances. «If I could tell anybody that’s thinking about taking their own life, it’s to reach out to people,» she said. «Don’t hold it inside; don’t isolate. Reach out to people, whether it’s close friends, family. If you feel like you don’t have anybody, look within yourself,and try to find that resilience that will ultimately get you through whatever it is you’re going through. Every single person on this planet is worth life.»

This article was originally published by: Billboard