Madison De La Garza was cast on 'Desperate Housewives' at age 6. By 7, she developed an eating disorder.

It Figures is Yahoo Life's body image series, delving into the journeys of influential and inspiring figures as they explore what body confidence, body neutrality and self-love mean to them.

Madison De La Garza "can't really remember a time" when her family didn't speak out about their hardships — whether it be mental health diagnoses, addiction or body image struggles. So, when it came to the 21-year-old opening up about her years-long battle with an eating disorder, it was "just an instinct," she tells Yahoo Life.

"I think I was around eight years old when my family first started sharing our story and being very honest about what we've gone through," De La Garza explains, referencing her half-sister Demi Lovato's public revelation that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2011 and subsequent documentaries about the singer's mental health and substance abuse. "I saw at a very young age how it can help people. So it's never really been a question in my mind of whether or not I should share these things, it just comes naturally."

Lovato's public life is just a piece of De La Garza's unique upbringing, as she followed in her sister's footsteps to became a child actor herself, making her debut in Desperate Housewives at 6 years old. It was at that young age that she appeared on television screens as Juanita, the daughter of Gabrielle Solis, portrayed by Eva Longoria.

De La Garza's physical appearance as a child played into one of the show's punchlines — that the slender Gabrielle would have a daughter with a drastically different body type. The commentary followed De La Garza off-camera and impacted her deeply in real life.

Previously, in conversation with Elizabeth Vargas on her Heart of the Matter podcast, De La Garza recalled sneaking onto a computer unsupervised to read through comments online that strangers had made about her body. "Most all of them were just atrocious. I mean, they said things like they wanted me to die because of what I looked like," she told Vargas. "[Comments like] ugly fat cow and I hope you get cancer and die because you're so fat. Just horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible things."

It was around that time that she started developing disordered eating habits, she tells Yahoo Life.

"I mean, 7 is a very, very young age. But those are the first memories I have of restricting [my eating]," she says. "I would bring my breakfast into school and throw it into the trash can on the way into class when no one was looking. And I remember feeling very proud of myself when I would eat nothing but lettuce for lunch as a child."

She continues, "A lot of these comments, I had to assume, were coming from people older than me, because, you know, I highly doubt that a 6 or 7-year-old was in the comments of TMZ telling me I needed to lose weight. So yeah, I think that's definitely where I came at it from. I was thinking, you know, these people, even though they're coming at it from a hateful place, they must be right."

Naturally, as a child, she responded by doing what she was told.

"I will starve myself and I will restrict to the point of being unhealthy, to the point where I'm unwell, so I can show you what you're asking me to do," she says. She wasn't actually aware that it was unhealthy — in fact, she says, "as a kid, I thought that that was normal" — until she got older and the behaviors became more severe.

Even as family members spoke openly about eating disorders, De La Garza didn't identify what she was doing as that. "I didn't recognize it in myself," she says, despite cycling through anorexia, bulimia and a binge eating disorder.

The habits became a means of control for De La Garza at moments where she felt out of control of different aspects of her life, like school, friendships or finances. "I would resort to restricting because I felt like, 'OK, at least I can control what I'm putting into my body, at least I can control one aspect of my life,'" she says. "Ultimately, that's what kind of got out of control because it was so subconscious. There were times, eventually, where I wanted to eat so badly and I would try to force myself to eat but I couldn't. Because this eating disorder behavior had been ingrained so deeply into my brain to the point where I wasn't even doing it on purpose anymore."

What hurt her psyche the most was the positive reinforcement she received in response to her body's appearance during those difficult times.

"I know when I was very thin, I got so many compliments, like, 'You look so good now.' And it stung a little bit because I took it as, 'I don't care how healthy you are, I only care what you look like. I don't care how close you are to developing cardiovascular issues as long as you look aesthetically pleasing to me,'" De La Garza says. "To everyone around me, especially people on the internet, they assumed that I was the healthiest that I had ever been. When in reality, it was exactly the opposite."

Her first "huge wake-up call" was when a close friend expressed concern, pointing out that De La Garza hadn't eaten in front of others in "months" and was rapidly losing weight. "I think we should try and get you some help," the actress recalls her friend saying.

The other was when she surpassed the need for therapy and ended up needing to address serious medical repercussions.

"I was having to take frequent trips to the ER. ...I got so used to getting IVs in my arm because I would lose consciousness from not eating," she says. "I had to meet with a cardiologist because I developed an irregular heartbeat for malnutrition. And my cardiologist basically told me, 'If you don't start eating, you are at risk for having a heart attack before you turn 19.' And that just changed everything."

De La Garza explains that she took a more serious approach to recovery once she recognized "that my life was on the line."

"This has been the longest bout of recovery that I've had so far in my life. I'm a little over two years into it," she says.

Although there's still a lot to work through and a long journey of recovery ahead, she feels secure in her decision to share her story now, recognizing that she wasn't able to in the past.

"I think I get a lot more respect now than I would have if I started sharing my story when I was 12 or 13. I think I waited until just the right moment for people to be able to listen to and understand what I have to say and really believe me," she says. "The more that I share my story, the more my younger self feels seen, and heard and validated. Ultimately, I think that is what leads to the most healing for me. And, you know, just telling that little girl like, I see you and I hear you, and now the world gets to see you and hear you because you were not old enough and not in a place to really be that vulnerable yet."

If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, please visit the National Eating Disorders (NEDA) website at nationaleatingdisorders.org for more information.

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