JANET Devlin is having the time of her life – and about time, you might think, not unreasonably, considering her "self-destructive disappearing act" began when she was just 15.
Now at the grand old age of 27, the flame-haired breathy-voiced singer from Co Tyrone who made it to the quarter finals of The X Factor in 2011, has finally grown up.
After escaping the "burning building" that once was her life and leaving behind the detritus of her "upside down brain" - alcoholism, anorexia and self-harm - the young singer, poet and lyricist confessed all.
In 2020, during lockdown, she released 'warts-and-all' memoir, My Confessional, coinciding with her pop-folk soul-searching concept album of the same name - recorded in Dublin and referred to now as simply one of the happiest moments of her life.
Currently in the middle of new tour, It's Not That Deep - with a Belfast date coming up in September - the Gortin girl has never been busier.
She is working on a new record ("it's a wee bit more 'country'") and also pursuing a career in TV documentaries following the success of her acclaimed Young, Female and Addicted programme for the BBC.
In it, she spoke candidly about her own battle with alcoholism and interviewed other young women affected directly or indirectly from across Northern Ireland.
"The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and my DMs (direct messages) are still flooded to this day with people reaching out and looking for help and guidance," she enthuses, speaking on the phone from her base in London.
"The documentary put everything out there, so I did feel a bit nervous, how people would react, but I really wanted to shine a light on how many young women struggle with alcohol.
"I enjoyed making it and the production company would like to do some more, so we're currently looking at a list of other topics.
"It seems to have touched a lot of people which is exactly what you want with a programme like that."
The programme may have brought her problems centre stage, but her fans knew of her unravelling long before it aired in February (still available on BBC iPlayer) after she started reading chapters of My Confessional to them via her YouTube channel.
Crippling shyness and anxiety had made her bedroom her sanctuary, workplace and preferred venue of choice, but she is quick to point out that mental health problems and alcohol addiction were unconnected to her appearance on The X Factor as a shy 16-year-old and that she had been on a "downhill trajectory" long before.
Among a "shopping list" of issues that eventually led her to the door of a Dublin rehab clinic in January 2019 – after three years of being sober – were anorexia, self-harm, alcohol and an addiction to benzodiazepine, a drug generally prescribed for anxiety.
"I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and bipolar type 2 in the summer of last year and it wasn't really a shock as I knew there were things wrong that didn't make sense," she says.
"As someone who has suffered self-destructive behaviours, it just made sense that something else would be going on.
"It helped me, actually, to know the name; it really helped me to understand myself a bit better because I was afraid for years to go and get my diagnosis. I was afraid of just leaning into it or using it as an excuse or something, but knowing has helped me access resources that I didn't know existed because I didn't know I had a condition."
Her pink hair now back to its trademark "ginger", she is happy in her own skin, identifying as "demi-sexual bisexual - although I'm not one for labels" - and feels healthy and hopeful for the future.
"I see my therapist once a week and I see my psychiatrist every couple of months," she reveals.
"It [alcoholism] doesn't just go away once you stop drinking; you are only an arm's length away, essentially, from ruining it all. It's something that's just going to be there for the rest of my life, really."
Brought up in a happy, stable home in Gortin with three older brothers and where neither of her parents, Patricia and Aquinas, drank heavily "or gambled with their lives in any way", she says she was the last person people might imagine to develop extreme self-destructive behaviours.
But, in My Confessional she admits there was never a time in her life when she didn't "hate" herself – or the way she looked.
Long, blonde "permanently frizzy" hair, crooked teeth and playground bullying intensified the self-loathing and led to depression and self-harming at the age of 12.
By 15 she was "riddled" with voices and became obsessed with her weight, which plummeted to a startling six stone at one stage and left her mentally and physically exhausted.
Somehow, she kept going and found her anorexia became muted through singing, writing songs and playing the drums – an activity she later returned to while in rehab where doctors recommended 'drum therapy' as an efficient means of blocking out thought and "living in the moment'.
Then, in 2014, more than four years after her ever-supportive mother posted off that seminal video of Elton John's Your Song to The X Factor, Devlin's drinking spiralled out of control.
"Alcohol filled a void I always knew I had," she says.
"At my worst, not even passing out on the floor of King's Cross station in London with policemen by my side – and on my way to a 'red carpet' – was enough to sober me up. It pains me now that my mother, who always expected the next call to be the one informing her of my death, lived each day with my illness."
After pouring out her heart in 2020's Confessional – the first album since her 2014 Running With Scissors (Insomnia Music Records) - she describes the current It's Not That Deep EP as a "welcome break" from that kind of weightiness, happily including an updated cover of the Elton John song that made her name.
Original songs, however - always the musical nerve centre - take prominence: Place Called Home and Otherside give an insight into the singer's current focus on reflection and optimism for the road that lies ahead.
"Singing has always given me the ability to connect with myself and I love writing my own songs," adds Devlin, an influential YouTube creator and an award-winning songwriter for 2018 short fantasy film Songbird (in which she also starred).
"I've had many amazing moments, including singing at a Gaelic match at Croke Park for 82,000 people and for the Dalai Lama as part of Derry's City of Culture celebrations in 2013.
"But, when you're trapped in the grey cloud, it's very easy to get lost in it. With Otherside, I wanted to write an anthem to help myself and hopefully others out of trying times.
"I'm really proud of what I've come through and I want to encourage people to dig in deep when times are tough."
:: Janet Devlin plays The Limelight in Belfast on Friday September 9. ticketmaster.co.uk. janetdevlin.com.
