Demi Lovato: Advocacy For People With Addiction And Mental Health

For this project I decided to choose Demi Lovato, she is not only a singer, songwriter, and actress. She shows advocacy for people with addiction and mental health issues. She is from Albuquerque, New Mexico and she was born on August 20, 1992. (IMBD, Paragraph 1). She suffers from bipolar disorder and depression, she even said that she didn’t realize she was sick. “I didn’t really realize I was sick”(Treatment Advocacy Center, Paragraph 3). She was diagnosed while in treatment originally, she also had an addiction that she later relapsed and overdosed. “Anytime that you suppress a part of yourself, it is going to overflow at some point, and that is ultimately what happened to me,” (In Style, Paragraph 15). She had symptoms but she didn’t realize

My mind was racing and it’s an ongoing thing and I still learn how to cope with it”(Treatment Advocacy Center, Paragraph 3). This quote also goes along with how it is still affecting her today. She still struggles to cope with a few things, she had an eating disorder and still struggles with it today. Everyone feels depression at some point but once it is for an extended period of time it is clinical depression “It is only when depression lasts 2 weeks or more that it becomes a clinical disorder, at which point it is called major depression.” (Dietz, 2015, Module 9, Activity 3). Demi Lovato has made it through many different struggles in life that a lot of people don’t deal with all at once. “It is a beautiful gift to be able to help people but at the same time, you become a martyr in a way that is so isolating and I think it just gets to you.” And “the poster child of perfection and mental health…is such a dangerous slippery slope”(In Style, Paragraph 6). These two quotes are amazing because it shows that being an advocate is amazing but it also is like a slippery

She took her suffering and turned it into something she learned from. People truly look up to her and speak out about their mental health and addiction issues now that she has made everyone feel comfortable doing so. Mental issues can lead to other things, her bipolar disorder led her to relapse into her addiction. “In the very first episode, it becomes clear that she never chose the spotlight or to be the face of bipolar disorder for herself; it was placed on her shoulders. And that weight was part of her burden that led to her relapse.”(In Style, Paragraph 7). She even felt as though she didn’t help her father the way she should have, even though she and her mother cut him out of their lives when he was struggling with addiction and abusing them. “yet here was my father who had bipolar and schizophrenia and I hadn’t helped him the way that I had been preaching.” (In Style, Paragraph 11). Lastly, “The stigma makes those of us with depression even more depressed.”(Dietz, 2015, Module 9, Activity 2) As Demi Lovato breaks this stigma by being honest about her emotions. In conclusion, Demi Lovato is an amazing advocate for mental health and