In promotion for her latest single, ‘Sorry Not Sorry’, Demi Lovato spoke with Elvis Duran as part of iHeartRadio’s Label Defiers with ZICO Coconut Water, the biweekly podcast in which celebrities talk about how they perceive their own labels, challenges they’ve faced, and their idiosyncrasies. Demi discussed the one label she wishes she could get rid of for good.
“I think when people refer to me as being bipolar, it’s something that’s true – I am bipolar – but I don’t like people to use it as a label,” she says. “It’s something that I have, it’s not who I am.”
Instead, the songstress hopes to give herself an encouraging label such as ‘activist’. Since her diagnosis of bipolar disorder back in 2011, Lovato has been quite vocal about living with a mental illness and her journey through recovery because, she says, “it’s something I’m very passionate about.”
Demi adds, “I think it’s very important that people raise the importance of mental health because it’s something that’s so taboo to talk about, the more people know about it, the more people are going to be able to find solutions to what they’re going through.”
As someone who is also diagnosed with bipolar, I am in complete agreement with Demi. When it comes to something like asthma or a broken leg, you are not that illness. You are not that injury. It’s just something you have. I also have an award for my writing, I have allergies, I have double jointed bones, I have a family, but those are also things I’m never labelled for. Bipolar disorder is just something I have. It’s just something that Demi has, too. To use an illness as a label is pretty degrading and turning it into a negative, when in reality it’s something we should be looking at positively to help people come to terms with it and to combat the stigma attached.
People like Demi are the best advocates to raise awareness on this type of thing and discussing why we shouldn’t be using a diagnosis as a label, which is potentially pretty dangerous. We’re making a lot of progress by talking about mental health, but we still have such a long way to go.
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