The 20-year-old former Disney star - who was admitted to rehab in 2010 for help with an eating disorder, self-harm and depression - believes her problems started at the tender age of 12. Talking about her tormentors, she said: "They called me a whore and told me I was fat and ugly. I shouldn`t have listened, but I took it to heart and it hurt. I thought maybe I didn`t have friends because I was too fat." Deciding to take action, she began making herself throw up and lost more than 28lbs in six months, taking her weight to just 88lbs. She said: "I`d make myself sick up to six times a day. My mum was worried, but because I was going through puberty I was having growth spurts so she assumed that was why I was thinner." But when losing weight didn`t make her happy, she turned to self-harm as a way to deal with her pain. She told Fabulous magazine: "It started with my wrists. People saw that, so I cut in places they couldn`t see. "You do it because you feel so bad inside. You don`t know how to take it out other than on yourself." Her demons eventually got the better of her and she ended up punching a backing dancer on a flight during the Jonas Brothers` tour, which was followed by her prompt admission to rehab. She said of her treatment: "It wasn`t my idea, but I didn`t fight it. "It was really, really hard and scary. I was homesick and lonely and several times I thought f**k it, I`m leaving. But my mum told me I would regret it. This was my only chance. "I had 14 hours of therapy a day. I listened to music and learned to knit. When I finally left, it was like being let out of prison."