A Difficult Yet Inspiring Story of a Troubled Woman Who Rises Above

By: Jessica Scarimbolo

Demi Lovato unveils her troubled past in “Simply Complicated”. (Credit: @ddlovato on Instagram)

Singer and songwriter Demi Lovato has recently proven her honesty in the last few difficult years of her life.

In her new YouTube documentary “Simply Complicated,” Lovato spoke truthfully on the aspects of her life fans only thought they knew.

The documentary opened with Lovato commenting on her anxiety regarding the interview due to her being high on cocaine during filming for her last documentary. During the documentary “Staying Strong,” she repetitively lied about her sobriety.

Lovato was incredibly honest about being bullied throughout her life, which eventually led to her abusing drugs and alcohol.

She also confessed that her birth father chose the same substances over her family, which inspired her to seek what was so great and powerful about them.

Fans knew that she struggled with depression along with a number of other issues. However, fans were unaware of how young of an age her problems developed.

At the age of 12 she was bullied, and was told she should kill herself and slit her wrists. After this, a suicide petition was passed around the school, which classmates would sign to encourage Demi to kill herself.

She also confessed to being fascinated by death at a young age, and even imagined what her funeral would be like.

During that time Demi had no friends, and as a result, she believed the negative things people would say about her. They would repeatedly tell her she was a “whore” and called her fat.

After she left school because of the bullying, her eating disorder developed further. Demi’s mother Dianna told of when she found Demi’s diary where she had drawn a picture of how she thought she looked, and how she felt she needed to look in order to be successful.

In the first picture, she was incredibly heavy, while in the second, dangerously thin.

She felt that to be successful she had to meet a specific look and sing an exact way, a quality that her mother admits to have passed down to her.

Being a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, Dianna spoke about her own pressures to be thin.

“I felt that I had to be thin to be beautiful and successful and that this is what you need to look like in order to be perfect,” said Dianna.

When the aspiring actress was 15, she began working for Disney Channel, and expressed that she felt immense pressure after starring in “Camp Rock.”

“All of a sudden I was on tour, writing songs for my album with the Jonas Brothers and then I was on a tour of my own. Looking back, it was a lot for anyone, let alone a kid,” she said.

Lovato expanded on the amount of stress she accumulated from working at such a young age.

At age 17, Lovato tried cocaine for the first time, which was the beginning of a long standing habit for her.

“I was either craving drugs or on drugs…I was using while I had a sober companion,” she said. She was routinely high on cocaine, adderall and xanax.

At age 19, Lovato was a judge on “The X Factor USA” while living in a sober home, helping her reach her first year of sobriety.

The singer also spoke on her recent breakup with longtime boyfriend Wilmer Valderrama.

Though they remain friends, she confessed that she felt she needed him to fill the loneliness in her life.

Even though she feels that she has grown since their breakup, but it has been difficult for her.

She also commented on the relapse of her eating disorder. Though she has been sober, she confessed to recently having purged due to missing Valderrama.

“When I was in a relationship with Wilmer, I went three years without purging and when we broke up, that’s one of the first things I did. When I feel lonely, my heart feels hungry.”

The documentary takes a positive turn with commentary on her new album, “Tell Me You Love Me.”

She explained that after going through a lot in her life, she has learned to use her emotion and turn it into soul music. Moving forward, Lovato appears to be a much happier and confident woman.

Those who have followed Demi for years cannot help but notice a positive change in her.

Though her relationships, body image, career and mental state have been anything but simple, Demi Lovato has consistently proven to rise above life’s challenges.

“When I look back at my life, I feel like if I didn’t have music, I don’t know what I’d have. I have my friends and my family, but music gave me a purpose when I was bullied in school. It gave me the motivation to keep going and prove to everyone that didn’t believe in me that I was gonna be something someday,” Lovato said.