The 'Skycraper' hitmaker talks about her dark past in a new interview, claiming she turned to drugs in order to cope with her mental health issues as she struggled with depression and self-harm.
- Mar 10, 2021
AceShowbiz - Demi Lovato has admitted her drug abuse "saved her life at times."
The "Confident" hitmaker - who was hospitalised for a drug overdose in July 2018 - admits that taking drugs was a way of her "coping" with her want to self-harm and her eating disorder.
"If people are using drugs or if they are dealing with an eating disorder or self-harm that they want to die ... In the same way it almost killed me, it saved my life at times, because there were times that I dealt with suicidal ideations," she explained on the "Yeah No, I'm Not Okay" podcast.
"And had I gone forward with that in that moment, instead of another destructive coping mechanism, I wouldn't be here to tell my story ... I turned to those coping mechanisms because I genuinely was in so much pain that I didn't want to die and I didn't know what else to do."
However, the 28-year-old singer has vowed to never return to drugs again to fight her negative feelings as she has found a new coping mechanism to deal with her thoughts.
Speaking about how she helps herself now, she added, "I did the best that I could at times and now that I have other tools and other resources, I know how else to deal and how else to cope so I don't have to resort to those behaviours again."
Demi admits she has been comparing herself to other women for years and "not feeling good enough" but now she just wants to be authentic and give herself "an openness to evolve."
"I would look at people in the media and I would just compare myself, not feel good enough, not feel thin enough, and wonder how it was that these people were living lives that seemed so perfect but yet I was in so much pain," she recalled. "And when I got into the spotlight, I was like, 'Oh, it's not perfect here, nobody has a perfect life, it just looks that way' ... I've tried on many identities over the years - the sexy feminine pop star that I felt like people wanted me to be or the poster child for recovery - and now I'm embracing the fact that my lack of commitment to any one identity ... It's just an openness to continue to evolve."
