To fans, Dove Cameron might look like she has everything all figured out, but being a star doesn’t mean that your life is perfect. In the recent past, the Disney Channel actress revealed that she has struggled with an eating disorder. Today, she’s letting fans know that she’s working hard to better herself – and her boyfriend and Descendants 2 co-star Thomas Doherty is a huge support in her journey. The star took to her Instagram Stories to share screenshots of her conversation with Thomas.

“Working thru the ED [eating disorder] / body dismorphia with my best friend,” she captioned the text conversation she had with Thomas, in which he offered encouragement.

dove texts

Instagram, @dovecameron

“I’ve never said this before, but I had such a bad case of anorexia. I was so badly down that hole,” Dove previously said in an interview with StyleCaster. “I was not eating for days sometimes. But it was because I thought I needed to be absolutely tiny to be loved. I genuinely thought I needed to be as skinny as I possibly could to be loved and appreciated and good enough.”

It seems as though, for a while, Dove miscontrued being a role model as having to be a certain idea of “perfect.”

“I started to watch some people that I knew personally go so far down the not-eating hole of trying to be so skinny,” the star added. “Because that’s such a thing in Hollywood. We never want to say it, but it’s such a big thing. Girls try to be as thin as possible. Not all of them, but a lot of them.”

Dove continued to explain how she knew she had to change her ways when she started seeing celebrities give diet advice in interviews and on social media.

“They were telling little girls that if they just watch what they eat and run that they will look like that and that they should look like that and that that’s the picture of health,” the star said. “It made me so personally upset. That’s a blatant lie. That’s not OK. That’s not a role model. I realized that if I was going to be a role model then I needed to live like the girls that I needed when I was young.”

Dove has also opened up about her struggle with self-worth and what it means to be loved.

She tweeted back in December, “Was having a tough night & my best friend @VeroStClair was @ my house w/in 15 minutes w a brownie to talk me down from it. i didn’t ask her to come & she didn’t ask if she could. loving people really hard is important. letting people love you is important. for whoever needed that.”

dove cameron tweet

Twitter, @dovecameron

“I have a v bad habit of not letting people love me. i either push them away to avoid the pain of losing them, or keep them at a distance bc self worth issues. i am working on that right now. but i think the magic is beyond that exact barrier. it’s scary but we can do it together,” she continued.

We’re so glad Dove is being supported by her loved ones, and we commend her for being real and honest in her journey to be the healthiest version of herself.

If you or someone you know needs with, please contact that National Eating Disorders Helpline at 1-800-931-2237.

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