Three months after entering rehab for substance abuse and an eating disorder, Tallulah Willis called sobriety the "best decision" she's ever made, and now, the youngest daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore is opening up about her choice to seek treatment.
In a candid and honest piece published in the February issue of Teen Vogue, the 20-year-old gets real about her struggles with self-esteem and her path to finally loving herself.
"I recall very specifically: I was in a New York hotel room when I was 13 (before social media was such a huge thing), looking at a photo of myself online. I broke down in tears as I started to read the comments," Willis recalls. "I thought, I am a hideous, disgusting-looking person. I might be nice and I might be kind, but I'm a really unattractive human being."
She adds: "In that moment, a switch flipped. It wasn't about the anonymous cyberbullies—I became my own worst critic."
The fashion blogger, who previously revealed that she was diagnosed with body dysmorphic disorder at just 13 years old, goes on to reveal that her battle with self-esteem only worsened as she got older.
"In college the depression became overwhelming," she shares. "I didn't sleep or want to talk to anyone, nothing seemed to have a point, the world lost its color, and food lost its taste. I was so removed from my body and from my mind that it was like I was living in a cardboard replica of what life should be. Not even so much because I was doing drugs but because I was so sad and so unhappy."
Tallulah says it was her sister Scout, 23, who "forced me to see what I was doing."
"There wasn't a huge, horrible moment, but I knew I needed to go take care of myself," she recalls.
Willis reveals that she spent 45 days in inpatient treatment (her stay reportedly ended on Sept. 3 when her mom, Demi Moore, came and picked her up).
"I'm now 20 years old, and I can say that I'm getting to that place where I'm starting to feel OK with myself, bit by bit. It's not night and day—it's not like now I completely love myself and I have no problems," she says. "That isn't how it works. But there are the starting points of that, and that's really exciting. I'm growing every day and breaking old patterns."
Since leaving rehab, the celeb offspring has shared updates with her fans on social media and is clearly proud of how far she's come.
"It's not about the easy way out for me. I want to be brave and don't want to let anyone keep me locked up in a tower because I'm scared," she says. "If you're bullied in school, should you stay home? No. You go to school in your best outfit and look like a million bucks and own it."
Props to Tallulah for being so honest and taking control of her life.