Demi Lovato: “Recovery Is A Beautiful Thing”

During a series of inspirational tweets sent out on New Year’s Eve, Demi Lovato expressed gratitude for her life and her fans.

The 20-year-old singer and actress noted how, two years ago, she was watching the ball drop from rehab, crying her eyes out.

“Tonight I’m on the beach with my closest, most loyal friends, sipping coffee and sharing how beautiful life is and how far we’ve come. Recovery is a beautiful thing,” Lovato tweeted.

A rocky childhood

When she was 18, Lovato checked into rehab for bulimia, drug abuse and bipolar disorder. She is also reported to have suffered from self-mutilation tendencies, cutting her wrists at the height of her despair.

She says she became bulimic around the age of 12, when teasing began at school.

“They called me a whore and told me I was fat and ugly,” Lovato recalls. “I shouldn’t have listened, but I took it to heart and it hurt. I thought maybe I didn’t have friends because I was too fat.”

Lovato began binging and purging up to six times a day. She said her mom was concerned, but that she chalked up her daughter’s weight fluctuations to puberty.

“My mom was worried, but because I was going through puberty I was having growth spurts so she assumed that was why I was thinner.”

Now, after therapy and three months in rehab, Lovato seems much more self-assured, happy and focused on what truly matters.

“Mean comments don’t affect me the same way because I’m more confident,” she said. “If I read something where someone calls me a b*tch, I know I’m not, so I laugh at it.”

Source: Examiner