Demi Lovato on Her Diagnosis, Her Support System, and Coping with Mental Illness

Demi Lovato is a best-selling music artist, songwriter and actress, and is also very outspoken about her diagnosis with bipolar disorder in 2011.

She recently announced her joint campaign with five mental health organizations. It's called Be Vocal: Speak Up for Mental Health, and she opened up in an exclusive interview with Yahoo Health to discuss living with bipolar disorder, and what she wishes people understood about the disease.

People may throw around the term “bipolar” too loosely, the pop star stated, but in reality, "I went through weeks at a time of being severely depressed and weeks at a time of being super on top of the world, living in mania."

Demi understands the disease and credits her support system for keeping her in a better place in her life. “I go to support groups for addiction, and being able to maintain those support groups and the regularity with them is very difficult when you're traveling so much… I just make sure I reach out to people."

She also said eating clean and maintaining a schedule helps. It's all “food that I would want to put in my body to make sure that I feel better mentally and physically.”

On her hopes to change the national conversation, she said, “Our generation will be able to change the way that people think about mental illness at an early age.”

For more information on Be Vocal: Speak Up for Mental Health, visit the website.