Tallulah Willis opened up about how she has been handling her father Bruce Willis’s dementia in an emotional interview with Vogue, confessing that she was first “too sick myself to handle it.” The 29-year-old described how her own body image problems affected her capacity to be present for her family in the early days of Bruce Willis illness in a candid first-person essay.
The youngest child of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, Tallulah, wrote: “I acknowledge that I have greeted Bruce’s decline in recent years with a measure of avoidance and denial that I’m not proud of.
Bruce Willis’ daughter Tallulah Willis
The Bruce Willis family revealed earlier this year that the action actor now has frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a neurological condition that affects his intellect and speech. Tallulah Willis, on the other hand, remarked, “I’ve known that something was wrong for a long time.”
The family blamed Hollywood hearing loss for the initial foggy unresponsiveness, saying, “Speak up! Dad’s ears were damaged by Die Hard, Tallulah Willis recounted. Later, that lack of reaction grew, and I occasionally took it personally. I assumed he had lost interest in me after he fathered two children with my stepmother, Emma Heming Tallulah Willis. My adolescent brain tortured myself with some flawed maths: “I’m not interesting enough for my father, and I’m not beautiful enough for my mother,” even though this couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Tallulah joined Moore and Ashton Kutcher at a red carpet event when she was 11 years old. The following day, Tallulah Willis read degrading remarks about her appearance online. As a result, she “became convinced that I had discovered a reality about myself that no one had ever shared with me because they were attempting to protect me. And for many years after that, I kept it a secret to protect others. I simply made peace with the quiet reality of my own ugly nature.
At the age of 20, Tallulah Willis began receiving mental health treatment. When she was 25 and transferred to another facility, she was given an ADHD diagnosis. The medication that was prescribed, despite the fact that the diagnosis was in some ways advantageous, fueled an eating disorder.
I have had anorexia nervosa for the past four years, but I’ve been reluctant to talk about it because, after becoming sober at age 20, restricting food felt like the last vice I had left. She also admitted that she enjoyed the medication’s side effect of suppressing her appetite. “I saw a way to get rid of the awkward teen and replace her with a flittery little pixie.”
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As Tallulah began to lose weight, her family and friends became concerned.
“While I was wrapped up in my body dysmorphia, flaunting it on Instagram, my dad was quietly struggling,” the author said. There were many different types of cognitive tests being done, but there was no acronym at the time. The pleasant and negative feelings weren’t actually there since I had managed to give my central dad-feeling canal an epidural.
Tallulah “painfully” understood what Bruce Willi health troubles meant in the summer of 2021 while attending a friend’s wedding as “the bride’s father made a moving speech.”
“I suddenly understood that I would never experience my father talking about me as an adult at my wedding. She remarked, “It was awful. “I got up from the table, went outside, and sobbed in the bushes. I kept my attention on my body, though. I was roughly 84 pounds when spring of 2022 rolled around. I was usually cold. In my Los Angeles neighbourhood, I was asking mobile IV teams to come to my home because I was scared I wouldn’t have anywhere to sit down and recover my breath.
Tallulah pondered what her father would have done if he had seen her at 84 pounds and been able to recognise that she was ill.
She described Bruce Willis as a “stereotypical father of a certain generation” whose approach was to “plug the leak even if he’s not sure why the leak is happening,” adding, “I’d like to think that he wouldn’t have let it happen.” Tallulah remarked that her sisters and mother are more focused on “root causes, in close examination.”
Tallulah remarked, “There is a beauty about his approach, and I don’t suppose I saw it until he was no longer able to do it. Certainly there are benefits to examination.
When her fiancé deserted her in June, instead of Bruce Willis stepping in to save the day, Tallulah went to a different rehab facility. Her condition was identified as borderline personality disorder, which is described as “an illness that impairs the ability to regulate emotions and find stability in relationships.”
When Tallulah remarked, “I realised that what I wanted more than harmony with my body was harmony with my family—to no longer worry them, to bring a levity to my sisters and my parents,” she was referring to her family. “A thin physique wouldn’t act that way. Years of being burdened by others’ concerns caused me to fall to my knees.
Although recovery is likely a lifetime process, she said, “I now have the tools to be present in all areas of my life, especially in my relationship with my dad.” No matter where I’ve been, I can offer him a sunny, upbeat spirit. I used to be terrified of letting melancholy consume me, but today I feel like people can count on me to be there when they need me. I can sense how amazing the time was as I grip my dad’s hand and savour it. I am aware that difficulties are ahead and that this is the start of mourning, but the adage that “you must love yourself before you can love another” is in fact true.
Tallulah claimed that she records every outing with her father, whose mobility is unaffected by FTD.
“Recently, I discovered a scrap of paper there on which he had simply scribbled, ‘Michael Jordan.’ I wish I could read his mind. (Anyway, I took it!)” she said.
He recognises me still, and his face brightens when I go in. (With the exception of the odd bad day, he might always be aware of who I am. FTD and Alzheimer’s dementia differ from one another in that, at least early in the disease, the former is marked by linguistic and motor abnormalities, whilst the latter exhibits more memory loss.) When I talk about Bruce, I keep switching between the present and the past: he is, he was, he is, he was. That’s because I’m so unwilling to let go of the hopes I have for my father,” Tallulah continued.
Tallulah remarked, “I just know that we’d be such good friends if only there were more time. I just see Bruce’s personality in myself.”
He always cherished relaxing on a comfortable couch. Can I make you 10% more comfortable? I believe he thought to himself that every day, she said. “And now that I feel better, I consider how I may increase his comfort. Being raised in such a prominent household and trying to find some light through the thick shadows my parents cast wasn’t easy. But I feel like I’m in that light more and more frequently.
Tallulah is now an aunt because Rumer Tallulah Willis, her sister, gave birth to a child in April.
“This small thing is changing by the hour, and my dad is going through something that can change so suddenly and unexpectedly. I’m just so happy to be here for it. It feels like a rare and precious time in my family,” she said.